‘Ultimate Prince’ compilation is out, at least in Canada
Posted by Pierre Igot in: MusicMarch 16th, 2006 • 11:03 am
In the past couple of weeks, there had been reports that the release of the Ultimate Prince compilation mentioned here earlier had been cancelled or at least postponed.
I was a bit surprised, therefore, when I got my shipping confirmation from Amazon.ca saying that the item had shipped as expected on its release date. And indeed yesterday I got my package in the mail.
I don’t know about the situation in the US—the Wikipedia page on Prince still says that the release was “delayed, possible [sic] even cancelled”—but the double-CD compilation was most definitely released here in Canada on March 14 as expected, and I most definitely have it in my hands right now…
It’s not on the Rhino Records label as expected, but is packaged as a Warner Bros. release, although it does have a catalog number starting with “R2” (the full number is “R2 73381”).
The track list is as expected, with the second CD consisting of extended/remix versions of various Warner Bros-era singles, including several that had never been released on CD before.
The liner notes list “Mathieu Bitton/candytangerine.com” as the company responsible for the “art direction and design.” The design mostly recycles old pictures, fonts used for the Purple Rain and Symbol albums, and the liner notes include a large picture of someone’s collection of old Prince maxi-singles from around the world.
It’s funny, because I specifically remember reading an article by the same Mathieu Bitton—I remember being surprised by the name of the author, because it sounded very French :)—published in a record collector magazine called Discovery back in the early 90s. It was an article mentioning all kinds of upcoming releases at the time, and I remember getting pretty excited at the time.
And then in the late 90s I remember exchanging a few e-mails with him about a Parliament compilation. It’s a small world :).
March 28th, 2006 at Mar 28, 06 | 11:05 am
I noticed your entry about the Prince Ultimate album and I just had to say thanks for mentioning that it was available from Amazon.ca, as it is still not available at regular Amazon.com. Luckily, Amazon.ca didn’t seem to have a problem taking an order from and shipping to me, even though I live in the US.
I am really looking forward to this album (although it doesn’t have the 20 minute extended cut of America or the song on its B-Side, Girl). My favorite all time Prince song is long version of “She’s Always In My Hair”, which I used to own as 12″ single back in the 80s. The long version of “Kiss” is also pretty sweet.
Thanks again!!
March 28th, 2006 at Mar 28, 06 | 12:05 pm
I am a bit surprised, because someone else wrote to me after I posted this item to tell me that they had tried to order from Amazon.ca and were given a “two to three weeks” time frame that did make it sound like the release was no longer available or at least delayed, and that I had just been lucky to get one of the few copies that slipped through.
Has it already been shipped to you?
Amazon.ca shouldn’t have any problems shipping to the US, since Amazon.com has been shipping to Canada for years without any problems!
And yeah, “She’s Always In My Hair” is a great song, and the longer the better :-).
The extended version of “Kiss” was already available on one of these semi-official CD singles with cheap packaging from WEA (Europe), but it’s nice to have it in a proper official release.
March 28th, 2006 at Mar 28, 06 | 2:16 pm
It hasn’t shipped yet. The Amazon.ca website lists shipping in 2 to 3 days, so we will see what happens.
Personally, I would have preferred to see a release of just 12″ single remixes and songs that were available just as singles, as I have almost every Prince album anyway.
By the way, how do you like 3121? I think it is his best overall album in some time.
March 28th, 2006 at Mar 28, 06 | 2:26 pm
I hope they ship it to you soon :).
Obviously, I too would have preferred a compilation of just 12″ singles and b-sides. But I don’t know of many record labels that are that fan-friendly. Most of them try to milk die-hard fans as much as they can… (I remember that there was once a project to re-release all of Prince’s 12″ singles as CD singles in Japan in the 90s. That was cancelled at the last minute too. It would have been interesting to have all the singles with packaging similar to the original singles. But it would have been an expensive project too…)
As for 3121, I am afraid I have to listen to it a few more times before I can develop a personal opinion about it :).
March 30th, 2006 at Mar 30, 06 | 11:02 pm
Well, it looks like you were right. My shipment seemed to be stuck, so I went ahead and cancelled the order. Hopefully, this CD will be offered again later.
March 31st, 2006 at Mar 31, 06 | 8:29 am
Sorry to hear that. Obviously the CDs have already been manufactured, so there’s hope that the release has only been delayed and not cancelled.