1999: The New Masters [EP] - Prince (CD 1999)

Okay, so because Warner Brothers still owns all the masters to Prince's biggest hits, he decides to re-record "1999" and keep ownership of it this time. Problem is, the song itself suffers for the process. The synth line is the same, and the vocals sound like Lisa, Dez, and Prince again--the former two taken, I'd bet, from the original, with Prince's vocals being an all new take. Everything starts out okay, there are a few new touches ("This is the party of the century" on a background track scattered here and there being one of them), but--and you had to know there was a "but" coming--does...

1999: The New Masters is no masterpiece, but it's surely up there with Newpower Soul as one of the artist's most unfairly maligned releases. This is essentially an overpriced remix EP of his classic 1982 party anthem 1999. If you ask me, updating the song for the times almost defeats the purpose of the original. Nonetheless, there's some funky shizzle to be found here. This is credited to "Prince

It's stunning that a musician as (supposedly) creative and musically energetic as Prince would stoop to such crass commercialism in an attempt to make himself "relevant" for Y2K. But, Prince never let good taste get in the way of a bad decision, and, in one of his worst disasters yet, he's released "1999: The New Masters" a supposed "update" of his 1982 classic. However, rather than being a contemporary (or even futuristic) remake, the beats and programming on ALL of the remixes sound like they're stuck in about 19EIGHTY9. It's really pathetic. There's bad house, bad hip-hop, bad "drum 'n'...