one month passes...
Right, unreleased Prince vols 1 & 2. scroll to bottom and click "slow download"
(link removed, sorry)
vol 2 liner notes are above
vol 1:
1. We Can Work It Out
From one of the first studio demos by Prince, he made just after signing to Warner Bros. The song even is about the record company he fights during the 90's. It is also one of the first songs in which he experiments with synths, including the Oberheim 4-Voice.
2. Moonbeam Levels
This beautiful ballad, which is about Prince's fear of nuclear war, just like extra Loveable an unreleased song from the 1999 "sessions (1982).
3. Wonderful Ass
Inspired by the butt of Vanity (of 6). Originally recorded in 1983 but edited in 1986 by Wendy & Lisa. INXS stole the text for the song 'Mediate' from their album Kick (1987).
4. Old Friends 4 Sale
Prince blew the lyrics of the song in 1991 on the scraps album The Vault ... Old Friends 4 Sale. The original is much more personal and deals with Dez Dickerson, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis of The Time who were snowed in and therefore too late for a show. And about the cocaine addiction of Prince's bodyguard Big Chick Berry Hunt. So much snow.
5. Manic Monday
Made into a hit by The Bangles. The song was supposed to be buried as a duet between Prince and Appollonia on the Appollonia 6 album (1984).
6. I Can not Love You Anymore
Recorded in 1992 during the Diamond & Pearls tour in Australia, probably with a voice recorder, for the recording sounds as lo-fi as Guided by Voices at that time. He wrote it for I'll Do Anything, a sort of musical / movie with Nick Nolte....
7. Extra Loveable
"Hey Dez, do you like my band," Prince exclaims mid-song. Guitarist Dez Dickerson had just been replaced by Wendy... Extra Loveable was intended for the Vanity 6 album (1982).
8. I Wonder
A slow, bluesy song with an infectious funky beat. Sounds like Ray Charles teleported to 1990.
9. Train
An outtake from the highly productive Dream Factory period (1986), later recorded by Mavis Staples on Time Waits for No One (1989).
10. Lisa
A tongue-in-cheek song about Lisa Coleman, the keyboard-player of The Revolution, who had just joined the band. From 1980, the time of Dirty Mind and nasty texts.
11. Nothing Left to Give
Written with Sandra St. Victor (The Family Stand). Their collaboration Soul Sanctuary made the Emancipation album (1996), but this gem, for that time remarkably guitar driven, lay.
12. Neon Telephone
The original, and of course much better, version of the song from 1985 that Prince gave the eighties band Three O 'Clock.
13. Love ... Thy Will Be Done
Martika scored a hit in 1991 with this beautiful subdued gospel song, but the version of Prince is more intimate. As if everyone around him in the studio already asleep, he whisper-sings about longing for love, with tears in his eyes. And in ours.
14. High Fashion / Mutiny
Rough mixes of 2 tracks of the Family Project (1984), but with Prince on vocals.That same Family album contains the original of Nothing Compares 2 U.
15. Empty Room
This actually is not unreleased, because it came out as a download on the NPG Music Club on the EP C-Note in 2002 as a 'thank you' to the fans who felt that they didn't get enough value for money for their club membership. Thanks to them we can enjoy this heart-wrenching song he originally recorded in 1985, around the time that he went out with Susannah Melvoin muse (Wendy's sister).
16. Chocolate
The Time did this song again for Pandemonium (1990), but that version is much less funky than Prince's version of 1983-4. Prince recently rediscovered this song and played it for the first time in a killer live version during the second show in the Melkweg, Amsterdam in July 2011.
17. Would not You Love to Love Me
Home recorded in 1978 or 1979. Later he baked a poppy version of this for Taja Sevelle (1987).
18. Open Book
Dates from the time of the Martika sessions (1991). Open Book didn't appear on Martika's Kitchen, but was given to Jevetta Steele. But this bare version really is much more emotionally exposed.
19. All My Dreams
Perhaps the best Prince ever made. Recorded during the Parade sessions in 1985, but miraculously never released. What positive energy explodes out of here!
20. Love Is a Losing Game
Recorded at the Amstel Hotel, on the day that Amy Winehouse died and Prince was in Amsterdam because his concerts in Oslo were canceled because of the attacks by Breivik.
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Monday, 23 April 2012 00:15 (twelve years ago) link