The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale - Prince (CD 1999)

Every Prince fan knows about The Vault, that legendary locked room in his Paisley Park studios where thousands of unreleased songs lie dormant. Years of bootlegs have unearthed hundreds of those in varying sonic quality, and last year's Crystal Ball project was supposed to be an all-encompassing compilation of its most representative songs. But the fans will tell you -- most of his best bootlegged songs still haven't seen the light of day. Where were "Extra Lovable," "Wonderful Ass" and "Moonbeam Levels" when Crystal Ball was being assembled?

Prince had another go-round at creating a Vault album with this fall's Old Friends 4 Sale, but again, he botched it. Even more so this time. Old Friends is the very definition of a half-assed album -- it was his last album for Warner Bros. and the ubiquitous voice on his website listed it as a "CONtractual obligation... nothing more." I'll tell you what, Prince: You may hate your old record company, and you may see unloading a few mediocre songs on them as revenge, but you're screwing your fans when you put out ten-song, 39-minute half-albums and expect us to welcome them with open arms. I didn't pay for the album -- I traded in a couple of unwanted CDs in exchange -- but I still feel cheated.

Cheated not because it's a bad album but because it had the potential to be a great album. Of the ten songs, I like six, and had Prince decided to get rid of the dead weight and load this sucker to the gills with Vault music (believe me, he could sacrifice 15 top-notch songs to Warner and still have plenty left over for himself), it could have been a classic album instead of the Dumpster-diving effort it is.

What Old Friends is, basically, is Prince slapping together a collection of ballads, jazz and tempo-shifting showtune numbers that make it sound like he's auditioning for a spot in a Broadway musical. And, I have to say, any self-respecting director who heard this album would take Prince aside and tell him gently, don't call us, buddy, we'll call you.

The first two tracks range from bad to mediocre -- I knew from the album-opener, "The Rest of My Life," that I wouldn't be in for much. The first line of the first verse, before any music even has a chance to kick in, is, "Don't look now but here's another rocky road." Indeed. "It's About That Walk" is a little better, a sexual doo-wop number about a girl who has "an ass like a fine-cut diamond." It would have been at home with the filler from his 1992 love-symbol album.

With the third song, an extended remix of "She Spoke 2 Me" from the Girl 6 soundtrack, Old Friends enters its best stretch. This version reminds me of the amazing 12" singles Prince put out all through the '80s. Warner limited his musical output, so he channeled a lot of energy into crafting 8- and 10-minute extended versions of his future singles and B-sides. The first four minutes of the long version of "She Spoke 2 Me" are the same as the original, but where the shorter version fades, the extended mix breaks into a long, funky jazz outro that makes me wish for the good old days of the A-Side/B-Side Prince arrangement.

The best track on Old Friends, "5 Women," has been circulating in demo form on bootlegs for years. Prince's original piano blues version was recorded as direction for Joe Cocker, who did the song in 1991. The Old Friends take is a little more jazzy, with a muted trumpet supplementing the piano and bass line. It leads into the seven-minute jam "When the Lights Go Down," which sees Prince and the NPG accompanied by even more high-range horns and acoustic piano. This whole stretch of the album probably doesn't play well as actual jazz, but it's enough to impress people like me. It's one more genre feather in Prince's cap.

Then we reach the album's second half with the one-minute interlude "My Little Pill," which is -- frankly -- bad. Prince quickly redeems himself with "There Is Lonely," a simple but haunting ballad that claims "only Cain when he slain his brother could ever come close" to being as solitary as our symbol-monikered friend. Cheesy lyrics, good song. Then comes the title track, which has its genesis in the 1986 Parade album, his soundtrack to Under the Cherry Moon. Prince was playing around with a '30s period sound at the time, and it reached its peak with the original, more personal version of "Old Friends 4 Sale." It detailed the lonely and back-stabbing nature of fame pretty well, I thought, but Prince watered the lyrics down with this 1991 version, also intended for Joe Cocker. Joe passed; his loss.

"Sarah" sounds like it was recorded in Prince's basement; it's a demo, plain and simple, a song in the making. With some effort, this sensual '60s-style track could have been a lot more. As it is, it's just one more half-assed, post-name-change Prince job. So is the album closer, "Extraordinary," a two-minute ballad with very little of the heart and soul of Prince classics like "Adore" and "Scandalous." It's one of the scrapped songs from I'll Do Anything, the 1994 Nick Nolte movie that was originally a musical. You wouldn't know it from the Old Friends liner notes (because there aren't any -- thanks, Prince), but a lot of these songs were intended for I'll Do Anything. I guess there's a reason they cut out all the music. Imagine Nick Nolte singing any of the knee-jerk Broadway stuff from this ragged compilation.

Prince, like I said, don't call us...