on friday, matthew had posted a track from the new prince album. it's good, and so, within the comments, the old discussions about what he's done with himself in the last ten years or so came up. i suggested that, actually one could make an incredibly strong single-disc compilation of the years 1994-2004. and, so, that's what i've done.

it was somewhat odd, like looking at an old photo album. this era marks the time that i first became a prince fan and, later, an obsessive. i purchased each of these albums as they came out and greatly anticipated what was to follow. it was also during this time, roughly, that i started college and "discovered" the internet. on the internet, i found newsgroups, most notably alt.music.prince and alt.music.alternative. these groups became welcoming communities, sorely needed as i felt especially alienated at school. a.m.p., in particular, introduced me to all of the materials that existed: the bootlegged concerts, the copious outtakes, the numerous side projects.

in assembling this compilation, i needed to track down some of the albums that time has been less kind to. these albums are in a bin, tucked away -- albums that i'll get around to selling one of these days, if i can find a buyer. what they all have in common is that they each are attached to a particular memory and that they also were all released between 1994 and 1999, years when it could be said that i was "finding myself" (it's an ongoing process, but i think i've reached a point where my music taste is less hit or miss -- all right, so i did buy the sounds album.) within the bin, one will find second-tier britpop (longpigs, mansun), dated trip-hop (olive, NINJA TUNE!), and neo-soul never-weres (laurnea, adriana evans.) oh, and the npg's new power soul.

that album is as bad as i remembered it. none of the tracks from it made it onto the compilation, though i did save "the one" from ignominy for its fretless bass and strings. actually, once i was done fine tuning the tracklisting, i realized that not one track from the new millennium made the final cut. what i've unintentionally made, then, covers the years 1994 and 1999, or basically an overview of the symbol years, an age that begun on prince's 35th birthday (june 7, 1993) and ended on the last day of the century, the day, not coincidentally, that his contract with warners expired. so, rather then 94 04, a more appropriate title becomes symbolism, or even contractual abnegation. tracklisting is as follows:

1. the most beautiful girl in the world (from the beautiful experience ep, 1994)
2. p control (from the gold experience lp, 1995)
3. in this bed i scream (from emancipation lp (disc 1), 1996)
4. endorphinmachine (from the gold experience lp, 1996)
5. she spoke 2 me (from girl 6 ost, 1996, first attempted in 1992)
6. papa (from come lp, 1994)
7. dinner with delores (from chaos & disorder lp, 1996)
8. goodbye (from crystal ball compilation (disc 3), 1998, recorded in 1996)
9. chaos & disorder (from chaos & disorder lp, 1996)
10. ripopgodazippa (from crystal ball compilation (disc 1), 1998, recorded in 1994)
11. shy (from the gold experience lp, 1996)
12. dark (from come lp, 1994)
13. the sun, the moon and stars (from rave un2 the joy fantastic lp, 1999)
14. the holy river (from emancipation lp (disc 2), 1996)
15. the love we make (from emancipation lp (disc 3), 1996)
16. gold (from the gold experience lp, 1996)

notes to follow.