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1999 Super Deluxe Edition

Warner Records

I just kept writing.

Building on Warner Bros Records’ 2017 release of Purple Rain Deluxe, Prince’s breakthrough album 1999 is his second album to undergo remastering, and this time upscaled as a ‘Super Deluxe’ box-set comprising 5 CDs and a DVD. 1999 Super Deluxe Edition was produced by Warner Records in partnership with The Prince Estate and forms a collection of 65 tracks, of which 35 were previously unreleased. With disk 1 containing the remaster of the original double LP, disk 2 features its promo singles and B-sides and their various extended mixes and edits. Disks 3 and 4 comprise the songs written between 1981 to 1983, showcasing the creative arc of the unreleased work Prince produced at the time of the original album. Kept in their chronological order, disk 3 contains the vault tracks recorded between November 1981 to April 1982, and disk 4 those dating from April 1982 to January 1983.

The output of these sessions which gave creation to the iconic 1999 album, curates the period of Prince in his first creative wave. His growing success allowed him buy a ranch style home set in a sprawling parkland on Kiowa Trail, Lake Riley in Minnesota. Here he installed a state of the art home studio and, armed with his newly acquired Linn LM-1 Drum Machine, Prince amassed a quantity of material he would not match until 1986. Virtually every track and outtake from these sessions, locked away in the vault for almost 40 years, were unearthed, digitized and beautifully packed as 1999 Super Deluxe Edition.

The 1999 Super Deluxe Edition anthologises Prince’s many projects at that time, the material for The Hookers/Vanity 6, The Time, and laying the groundwork for tracks that would make his breakthrough album. When compiling 1999 Super Deluxe Edition it was only then realised that the version of Delirious on the original album is actually an edit, the full 6-minute version was discovered when inventorying the contents of Prince’s vault and is included in disk 4.

Disk 5 features the soundboard recording of the second of two concerts performed at the Masonic Hall, Detroit, on 30 November 1982 as part of Prince’s 1999 Triple Threat Tour. The sixth disk is a DVD containing a professionally filmed recording of a previously unreleased show from the same tour, staged at the Houston Summit, Texas, on 29 December 1982 – the second of two shows performed that day. Its existence on film owes itself to the venue’s in-house team that captured the show to display on the arena’s screens and is paired with the audio master recording from that show.

Fun fact: The instrumental Colleen is named after Peggy Colleen McCreary, Prince’s sound engineer for the Controversy and 1999 sessions at Sunset Studios. She needed Prince give a name to it following the recording session, to which ‘Colleen’ came his response. Notal absentees from the vault outtakes are Extraloveable and Lust U Always, censored from the final configuration due to explicit content. Moonbeam Levels, considered Prince’s best ever outtake, although released for the first time in 2016 with 4Ever is remastered and reissued for 1999 Super Deluxe Edition.

1999 Super Deluxe Edition was issued as three editions to accommodate various price points: standard (containing the original album remastered by Bernie Grundman); Deluxe (disks one and two); and Super Deluxe packaging all six disks plus a 48-page booklet. The booklet contains liner notes contributed by David Fricke and Andrea Swensson, and photography by Allen Beaulieu. Faithfully packaged and presented, in 2020 1999 Super Deluxe Edition received a Grammy nomination for Best Historical Album.

Prince | 1999
Photography by Allen Beaulieu

Live In Houston

Vocals/Guitar
Prince
Drums
Bobby Z.
Guitar
Dez Dickerson
Bass Guitar
Brownmark
Keyboards
Matt “Dr.” Fink
Lisa Coleman
Backing vox
Jill Jones

Performers

Vocials / All instr.
Prince
Drums
Morris Day Bold Generation and International Lover (Take 1)
Guitar
Dez Dickerson Little Red Corvette and If It’ll Make U Happy

Data

Production
Prince
Label
NPG Records
Distribution
Warner Records
Cover/Design
Alex Tenta and Trevor Guy
Released
4 years ago on 29 November 2019
Running Time
5:52:40
US Chart Peak
45
UK Chart Peak
Did not chart
Orig. Formats

Tracklist

Disk 1: 2019 Remaster

  1. [feat. Dez Dickerson and Jill Jones] (6:13)
  2. (5:03)
  3. (4:00)
  4. (7:20)
  5. (8:17)
  6. (9:26)
  7. (4:02)
  8. (5:07)
  9. (8:17)
  10. (5:57)
  11. (6:37)
Running Time
70 min, 23 sec

Disk 2: Promo Mixes & B-Sides Remastered

  1. 1999 [7" Stereo Edit] (3:36)
  2. 1999 [7" Mono Promo-Only Edit] (3:35)
  3. Free [Promo-Only Edit] (4:35)
  4. How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore [1999 B-Side] (3:54)
  5. Little Red Corvette [7" Edit] (3:08)
  6. All The Critics Love U In New York [7" Edit] (3:15)
  7. Lady Cab Driver [7" Edit] (5:05)
  8. Little Red Corvette [Dance Remix Promo-Only Edit] (4:33)
  9. Little Red Corvette [Special Dance Mix] (8:30)
  10. Delirious [7" Edit] (2:38)
  11. Horny Toad [Delirious B-Side] (2:13)
  12. Automatic [7" Edit] (3:39)
  13. Automatic [Video Version] (8:20)
  14. Let's Pretend We're Married [7" Edit] (3:44)
  15. Let's Pretend We're Married [7" Mono Promo-Only Edit] (3:43)
  16. Irresistible Bitch [Let's Pretend We're Married B-Side] (4:14)
  17. Let's Pretend We're Married [Video Version] (4:02)
  18. D.M.S.R. [Edit] (5:05)
Running Time
77 min, 59 sec

Disk 3: Vault Tracks 1

  1. Feel U Up (6:41)
  2. Irresistible Bitch (4:39)
  3. Money Don't Grow On Trees (4:19)
  4. Vagina (3:28)
  5. Rearrange (6:11)
  6. Bold Generation (5:53)
  7. Colleen (5:29)
  8. International Lover (Take 1) [Live In Studio] (7:19)
  9. Turn It Up (5:23)
  10. You're All I Want (3:00)
  11. Something In The Water (Does Not Compute) (3:59)
  12. If It'll Make U Happy (4:11)
  13. How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore? (Take 2) (6:11)
Running Time
66 min, 49 sec

Disk 4: Vault Tracks 2

  1. Possessed [1982 Version] [feat. Jill Jones] (8:47)
  2. Delirious [Full Length] [feat. Lisa Coleman] (5:59)
  3. Purple Music (10:58)
  4. Yah, You Know (3:10)
  5. (4:22)
  6. No Call U (4:29)
  7. Can't Stop This Feeling I Got (2:40)
  8. Do Yourself A Favor (9:00)
  9. Don't Let Him Fool Ya (4:34)
  10. Teacher, Teacher (3:36)
  11. Lady Cab Driver / I Wanna Be Your Lover / Head / Little Red Corvette [Tour Demo] (6:59)
Running Time
64 min, 40 sec

Disk 5: Live In Detroit - 30 November 1982

  1. Controversy (5:41)
  2. Let's Work (5:26)
  3. Little Red Corvette (4:17)
  4. Do Me, Baby (7:18)
  5. Head (4:12)
  6. Uptown (2:54)
  7. Keyboard Interlude [Lisa Coleman] (2:15)
  8. How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore? (7:03)
  9. Automatic (7:02)
  10. International Lover (8:41)
  11. 1999 (10:24)
  12. D.M.S.R. (8:04)
Running Time
73 min, 21 sec

DVD: Live In Houston - 29 December 1982

  1. Controversy (4:54)
  2. Let's Work (5:27)
  3. Do Me, Baby (6:35)
  4. D.M.S.R. (4:46)
  5. Keyboard Interlude [Lisa Coleman] (3:39)
  6. Piano Improvisation (1:38)
  7. How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore? (8:14)
  8. Lady Cab Driver (3:02)
  9. Automatic (5:44)
  10. International Lover (9:50)
  11. 1999 (8:08)
  12. Head (6:02)
Running Time
68 minutes

1999 Super Deluxe Edition – review

Enough with Purple Rain Deluxe already there’s other material in Prince’s vault worthy of deluxe treatment – and a better album is finally in town. It’s no surprise then, what is perceived as the fans’ favourite, the reissue of 1982’s 1999 was upgraded to Super Deluxe. Meaning that 6 disks – presented in a beautiful silver and purple slipcase, unboxing 1999 Super Deluxe is a treat all to itself. Having once said he had no desire to create a double album, Prince was inspired and kept on writing. 1982 was the birth of purple music, an era Prince was untouchable. Ensconced in his first fully equipped basement home studio on Kiowa Trail, what Prince recorded in mammoth sessions created a wealth of material for his fifth album 1999 is the stuff of legend. Its many outakes have been dribbled out over the years but are finally and gloriously reunited, restored and resurfaced in this super, Super Deluxe, thirty-seventh anniversary edition. With the average Prince fan now well into their 40s, even the price point of 60 GBP gave no cause to grumble. First and foremost the quality of the remastering showcases the full greatness of the original album 1999. But the real gold in this collection are disks 3 and 4 – the Vault tracks – the candy that didn’t make the cut back in ’82. Opening with Feel U Up and sliding into Irresistible Bitch, funkier than versions previously released, we arrive at track Money Don’t Grow On Trees, a tune that could have lifted the roof at any concert. Although the real notable tracks are Yah, You Know, Vagina (yep) and two standout tracks of the set: Rearrange and Do Yourself A Favor top a strong field of choice. Prince was keen to find a home for Rearrange, it ended up reworked into Lady Cab Driver and Private Joy. The test of a great album are those that stop you in your tracks, paralysing the listener to do nothing than study the lyrics and absorb every beat and bar of the music. 1999 Super Deluxe is one of those without doubt. Bold Generation and Can’t Stop This Feeling I Got, the genesis of 1990’s Graffiti Bridge, are fabulous also. Collectively the vault tracks are as good as are found on any regular Prince album. The original versions are each as refined as those more familiar but give greater appreciation for them. Not ever being a fan of Possessed as released in Purple Rain Deluxe, the 1999 Super Deluxe version has turned me into a true believer. There are original versions also: Something In The Water, the full length Delirious, a remastered Moonbeam Levels and much more. The highlight of the set is the Tour Demo, effortlessly hammering through I Wanna Be Your Lover, Head and Little Red Corvette. The final disks are delicious soundboard recordings captured from the Triple Threat Tour and footage restored and presented on DVD. The special editions also bring together single edits and mixes is pleasing for completists. Two glaring omissions from the tracklist, Extraloveable and Lust U Always excluded due to reference to rape is poor curation of this essential era. For those that get offended by Prince’s lyrics, this artist is not for you. Those minor issues aside we can only hope all future reissues of Prince’s iconic Warner era catalogue can enjoy the same attention to production as 1999 Super Deluxe. Long may the format continue. 1999 Super Deluxe is beautifully packaged, filled with 5 hours of purple Music at its absolute finest. Welcome to satisfaction.

1999 Super Deluxe Edition

Related release

1999

1999

Warner Bros. Records (1982)

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