Extraloveable (UPDATED: US release links)

Prince has dug into his vault and given his fans what they've been wishing for, a classic already-circulating outtake that they'd love to have in crystal clear studio quality.

There's only one hitch. He's once again re-recorded the song in what many are calling an inferior version. He did the same with "In A Large Room With No Light" in 2009 as promotion for his appearance at the 2009 Montreux Jazz Festival.

This time it's the 1999-era outtake "Extraloveable," which seemingly has been ciriculating in its original, sub-CD quality incarnation for almost as long as that album has been out (1982).

(2011) Extraloveable by lovesexygirl

It's getting torn to shreds by his hardcore, long-time fan base, which is full of bitter, spoiled whiners -- among whom I'd normally count myself. 



But I actually like this.  I like it a lot.  Really.  He's changed the lyrics somewhat, including removing the lines about rape, which were never going to make it into an official Prince production post-1998 when he first got down with Jehovah.  He's also slowed it down into a funkier number instead of the new-wave punk-funk of the unreleased 1982 version.  Finally, and probably most damning among his most faithful and fickle following, is the addition of a rap verse by this month's favorite pretty protege Andy Allo.

Despite all this, I really enjoy it.  It's right in the MPLSsound/20TEN wheelhouse of his last two album releases, on which he decided to (almost) fully embrace the Minneapolis sound that he pioneered in the first half of the '80s after the likes of Justin Timberlake and Puff Daddy dusted it off and put it on the charts again.  While there are major bitches to be made about some of the material and techniques that crop up on those albums, I still enjoy them quite a bit, which puts me in the minority of the hardcore fan base.

Maybe I've mellowed in my over-the-top, love-hate, "Strange Relationship" with Prince over the last several years.  Maybe I've resigned myself to the fact that he's never going to truly blow me away again creatively, but I almost always enjoy new music by him, even if I can recognize its shortcomings.  (ALMOST always -- I'm looking at you, "Purple & Gold".)

Or maybe it's just that I've never been as big a fan of the original outtake version as most of my fellow fans seem to be.  According to them, he's practically Michelangelo defacing the Mona Lisa, never mind that he's well within his rights to do so.  I'm obviously overstating it in this case, but there's enough vitriol coming from the Internet that I know I'm not that far off in how many people view this release.  But I've never considered "Extraloveable" to be one of those classic outtakes that shouldn't be altered or was dying for an official release.  I'm probably going to lose a lot of fan-cred by saying that I never really though it was that great to begin with.  But then I probably did that two paragraphs up when I said that I enjoyed MPLSound and 20TEN.

On the bright side, he did say in a radio interview that there are three versions and that they will all be released.  Here's hoping for the sake of the many purple-veined aneurysms exploding all over the Princeternet that one of them happens to be the original, unmolested 1982 version, which I've included below in case you want to make up your own mind.

Although I'm hopeful, for their own sake, they aren't expecting the Jehovah-fearing Prince of 2011 to leave those lines about rape in.  That was the Prince of the 1999 millennium.  He, like it, is well in the past and no amount of self-righteous blog and message board anger is going to change that.

UPDATE:  the 2011 version of Extraloveable is now available on iTunes US and Amazon.  It was previously only avaialble via iTunes Canada and digital music retailers in a few countries in Europe.