Prince's "Purple Rain" is finally getting the royal reissue treatment it deserves. As expected, Warner Bros. and NPG Records will re-release the landmark 1984 movie soundtrack with bonus material on June 23, based on a deal that Prince made with his former record label about a year before his death.
Both the "Deluxe" and "Deluxe Expanded Edition" will feature a remastered version of the original album -- the refurbishing of which Prince himself purportedly oversaw -- along with a second disc featuring other studio tracks recorded around the same time but never formally released, including "Electric Intercourse," "Our Destiny / Roadhouse Garden" and the instrumental "Father's Song," all of which have been hot bootleg tracks for Prince completists over the years. Six of the tracks were supposedly unearthed from the Paisley Park vault for the project and never before heard, including studio versions of "Possessed" and "Katrina's Paper Dolls" and a 10-minute track whose title, "We Can F---," probably explains why it never saw daylight.
The "expanded edition" will also feature a third disc, "Single Edits & B-Sides," plus a DVD of a concert on the "Purple Rain" tour recorded March 30, 1985, in Syracuse, N.Y. The former features alternate cuts of tracks like "Let's Go Crazy" and "When Doves Cry" alongside such beloved B-sides as "Erotic City" and "17 Days."
Fans can pre-order the album starting today and will receive a download of "Electric Intercourse" if they do. The full track listings are below. Prince originally planned to include "Electric Intercourse" on "Purple Rain" but traded it for "The Beautiful Ones" instead, which is similar in tone.
It makes perfect sense that the first major reissue project after Prince's death is based around his most historic and beloved album, but it's of course just a coincidence since the deal behind it pre-dates Prince's passing. It's still not clear what kind of reissue opportunities or vault access have been given Warner Bros. or Universal Music, the other record company dealing with Prince's estate.
As interesting as what's on the deluxe "Purple Rain" editions is what's not on it. Perhaps the most significant recording in Prince's vault – arguably one of the most significant concert recordings sitting on a shelf in all of rock 'n' roll – is from the Aug. 3, 1983, benefit for Minnesota Dance Theatre at First Avenue, which was used as the blueprint and some of the basic tracks for "Purple Rain." Lo-fi video of that performance also exists and emerges online with great fanfare every so often (see below; yeah, wow is right). There's another stellar bootleg of a performance Prince gave at First Ave on his birthday, June 7, 1984, a month before "Purple Rain" came out, in which he and the Revolution performed many of these unreleased tracks and B-sides featured in this new reissue collection. During the Celebration events at Paisley Park last week, organizers also showed attendees a film from the final date on the "Purple Rain" tour.
In other words, there's a lot more that can be released from just this two-year span surrounding "Purple Rain." Which is to say nothing of the other 40-plus years Prince recorded and performed.
