SAB 016-017 Sound & Vision Vol. 1

CD & 1 CD-ROM
Catalogue : #SAB 016-017
Disc Length : 77:24 / 70:00
Source : Soundboard / Broadcast
Sound Quality : G / EX
Year Of Release : 1998

Disc 1 (Audio)
American Bandstand : 26th January 1980
1. INTRO 2. I WANNA BE YOUR LOVER 3. INTERVIEW 4. WHY YOU WANNA TREAT ME SO BAD?
Saturday Night Live : 21st February 1981 5. PARTYUP
Live Promotional Video
6. I WOULD DIE 4 U 7. BABY I'M A STAR 8. TAKE ME WITH U
American Music Awards : 28th January 1985 9. PURPLE RAIN
Grammy Awards : 26th February 1985 10. BABY I'M A STAR
Theatre de Verdure, Nice : 27th October 1985 (Promo Video) 11. AMERICA
Under The Cherry Moon Premiere - Holiday Inn, Sheridan : 1st July 1986
12. INTRO 13. RASPBERRY BERET 14. DELIRIOUS 15. CONTROVERSY 16. MUTINY
MTV Video Music Awards : 11th September 1987
17. SIGN O' THE TIMES 18. PLAY IN THE SUNSHINE

Disc 2 (CD-Rom Video)
Benefit Show for Minnesota Dance Theatre - First Avenue, Minneapolis : 3rd August 1983
LET'S GO CRAZY / WHEN YOU WERE MINE / A CASE OF YOU / COMPUTER BLUE / COMPUTER BLUE / DELIRIOUS / ELECTRIC INTERCOURSE / AUTOMATIC / I WOULD DIE 4 U / BABY I'M A STAR / LITTLE RED CORVETTE / PURPLE RAIN / D.M.S.R.

COMMENT
Subtitled "The First Decade : Complete Live TV 1980-1988", but we shan't get into semantics regarding 10 years being a decade (this release only covers 8 years), nor the fact that the opening American Bandstand performances are lip-synched and thus NOT live. What sets this first volume apart from the many other releases of this kind (including the rest in this Sound & Vision series) is the award acceptance speeches, etc have not been included here - which makes the release flow far more smoothly. The release begins with a decent quality version of the American Bandstand broadcast introduced by Dick Clark. This is evidently a re-broadcast from the mid/late 1990's as it includes a commentary intro from Dick Clark where he refers to Prince as "The Artist Formerly Known As". The performances are lip-synched to the released versions which is of zero interest and rather pointless on an audio disc, however it also includes the non-interview-interview. This is followed by Prince's first Saturday Night Live appearance with 'Partyup' which again is decent, if a little grainy. The trio of live performance promos follows including the complete 13 minute 'Baby I'm A Star'. The quality of the American Music Awards performance of 'Purple Rain' is the first low point of the release and there is a distracting loud humming throughout, and the audio is rather thin and slightly piercing - not the best source recording I've heard. Onwards and upwards, we come to the unedited lengthy 10 minute version of 'America' which is slightly wavy during the beginning, but settles down nicely and is of a pretty high quality. The only real disappointment of this release comes with the MTV Video Music Awards which is appallingly bad. 'Sign O' The Times' itself has a few slight glitches, but in comparison to the following 'Play In The Sunshine' they are minor. 'Play In The Sunshine' is tinny, thin, grating, piercing and very, very poor quality - I'm surprised this ever made it past Sabotage's quality control and it has to be one of the worst source recordings I have ever heard. Disc 2 is a CD-Rom and features the professionally filmed (in)famous Benefit Show for the Minnesota Dance Theatre at First Avenue and I'm puzzled as to why it was included on this release as it was never broadcast, and cannot be classed as "TV material". The quality is average at best, and since this release it has been surpassed greatly which makes this particular version obsolete. Overall this is not a great start to Sabotage's "Sound & Vision" series, but the releases do get better and this is the only volume with some serious flaws in the source recordings. The horrendously flawed 'Play In The Sunshine' is pretty much unforgiveable, however look past that (and the pretty woeful quality of the First Avenue 83 CD-Rom) and it's not a bad release for it's time...I guess.