Preparing for the deluge



This album deserves better, and frankly, so do I.

 I've written previously about my unique relationship with Prince. Naturally, I'm very excited about the news that he has reached a new agreement with Warner Brothers records. For one, as an advocate for the rights of artists, it pleases me that he is gaining control of his publishing rights. I'm not somebody who feels that record companies are useless and should cease to exist, but the relationship between them and those who actually create the product has been hideously lopsided since forever. This is a step in the right direction toward more equitable relationships going forward.
Then there's the expectation that we stand to receive just a ton of new material from Prince, including the already-announced album of new material and a special 30th anniversary edition of the "Purple Rain" album. That has fellow Prince fans sitting down and writing long wish lists with hopes of hearing the hundreds (thousands?) of previously-unreleased gems that have been locked away in the legendary Vault.
I guess I'm relatively low maintenance because all I really want is a re-mastered "Sign O' The Times" album, complete with extended B-sides, and a proper home video release of the accompanying film. The album, which is my all-time favorite was originally released in 1987. '87 was a good and bad year for me and that album supplied the soundtrack to some pretty significant events in my life. It has never sounded as good as it could, with curiously low levels requiring you to crank up the volume to even hear it. As far as the film, I saw it once in a theatre and bought it on VHS when it came out. It's never been released on DVD or BluRay in America. I bought a legit DVD via Amazon, Canada a while back but the only other DVD is a virtually unwatchable Portugese bootleg that has been floating around for years. Even the legit version is lacking in that it contains no special features. A new version with outtakes, behind-the-scenes features and a commentary track would be fantastic.
Of course, I'll probably wind up buying everything that comes out but if they could just make those two things happen, I'd be thrilled.