The Artist (Formerly Known As Prince) – The Gold Experience

I have a copy of the 2xLP gold vinyl promo release from 1995, but there is no number stamped on it. I bought it in late '95 or early '96 at an independent Boston record store that regularly sold promo releases. I have found no documentation of an un-numbered run of this release, nor a bootleg version. Does anyone know what I have here?

Utterly Perfect Mid 90's Prince Sound. One Of The Greatest 90's Albums And This Record Sounds Better Than The CD By A Million Miles To My Ears. Love Love Love The Bonus Remixes Of Eye Hate U.

After all the shenanigans between "The Artist formerly Know As Prince" and "Warner Bros", I guess they came to a meeting of the minds in order to at lease tolerate each other...."The Artist", I'm sure had to start playing a little fair himself......So in order to do so, he released "The Gold Experience"....

Rolling still with the "NPG" (Sonny T, Tommy Barbarella, Mr. Hayes, Michael B. and of course Mayte), some people say that this is his best album since "Purple Rain", I say "Sign "O" The Times" (actually his best album)....

With that being said, the album starts off with "P Control"....It's very explicit, but it does talk about a woman not letting guys get over on her...

"Endorphinmachine" is a straight Rock anthem....

There are also songs that kinda boarder on greatness like, "Dolphin", "Shy". and "Billy Jack B****", with that one being more explicit then the others...

"We March" (with "Nona Gaye" tagging along) is a come to protest song (It's ok)....

Don't be alarmed, but this version of "The Most Beautiful Girl In The World" is different from the hit a year ago, but I guess he felt obligated to give "Warner" at least this one.....

Now, there are 3 Crown Jewels on the album.....

The 1st one in "Shhh" is fantastic, with it's strong Drums, Keyboards, and Guitars (my Wife likes "Tevin Campell's " version better though)....

The 2nd and 1st single in "Eye Hate U" is incredible!!!!! "Nuff Said"!!!!!!

Then the 3rd and perfect album closer in "Gold", is 7 minutes of pure greatness...It was the second single, and in my opinion, it should have faired better....

The album also had a "NPG Operator" in between the songs (played by "Rain Invana"), which keeps the album running smooth....

I am showing this version of the album, because I just bought the reissue on "Record Store Day"....The only thing that kills me is there are no liner notes of the tracks (very annoying!!!!!!)....

Besides the hip cup, it is good to see this on Vinyl., and even though it's not part of an Album Revolution, it is a "Prince Classic"........

A replica of this release is getting reissued for Record Store Day on June 18, 2022. This will be a run of just under 25,000 copies. Just a heads up!

This is an amazing album from start to finish. Arguably one of Prince's most creative works, this album mashes all genres into a work of art. I am looking forward to the Record Store Day 2022 reissue of The Gold Experience which has been long awaited!

The 1990s proved to be an equally transitional and frustrating time for The Kid. High-profile record label disputes, a slew of aborted projects, and intervening stumbles all bled into the embattled fate of The Gold Experience leading up to its release. Amazingly, the album has attained status as a cult favorite in the Prince canon: an intriguing mid-career triumph that revealed Prince's substantial pop mastery, without breaking new ground or heavily retreading his classic period. It's an immediate, consistently entertaining work that even the mildest followers of Prince's music appreciated dearly and hailed as a "return-to-form" (or more annoyingly, "his best since Sign o' the Times") during its initial release. Even as Prince turned toward his eccentric side to give Gold a modern, futuristic edge (the album's awkward conceptual segues entail a computer user exploring a myriad of experiences through the use of a voice-activated interactive application boasting Prince songs that predates Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri voice assistants), there's a lot of energy and spark that added to the overall strength of these songs. He zips and bops confidently through musical styles, while coming up with effervescent, commercial hooks that made people fall in love with him during his 80s prime. Above all, much of it still sounds fresh now.

My copy of this pressing sounds excellent for the most part and doesn't have any defects mentioned by some users. There is a little surface noise here and there, but it's a great listen overall (especially for a 1990s colored/translucent variant, when vinyl wasn't the highest priority of music mediums.) It's more dynamic than the CD, which had a very upfront, in-your-face mix that could be considered an early example of loudness war. I still don't know if that was intentional for this specific album, or just Prince's overall preference. The translucent gold color of the vinyl is a treat, so are the hidden messages that were etched in the dead wax.

No problem at all on my copy. I was actually pretty surprised of the sound quality for a colored/translucent LP from the 90's...

My copy actually sounds perfect and doesn’t skip at all. Visually, it’s stunning and the lyrics/messages etched into the run outs are a nice touch (very Prince!) I personally prefer this less basic, numbered, promo pressing over the regular version as it also contains all of the remixes to I Hate U.

Great collector's item, but it sure doesn't sound very good! Very loud, lots of inner groove distortion, and the first songs of each side are prone to severe skipping, likely due to the very flimsy vinyl. I get it's a promo, so maybe that's why. Just an FYI to anyone wanting to splurge for this release.

This page contains a mistake on the tracklisting. This tracklisting is the for the commercially available european double black vinyl (9362-45999-1). The correct US promo (PRO-A-7835) tracklisting has 5 "I Hate U" Remixes on Side 4. The tracks run as follows,

Side One

1 P. Control 5:59
2 NPG Operator #1 0:12
3 Endorphinmachine 4:07
4 Shhh 7:18
5 We March 4:49

Side Two

1 NPG Operator #2 0:18
2 The Most Beautiful Girl In The World 4:25
3 Dolphin 4:59
4 NPG Operator #3 0:20
5 Now 4:30
6 NPG Operator #4 0:31
7 319 3:05

Side Three

1 NPG Operator #5 0:10
2 Shy 5:04
3 Billy Jack Bitch 5:32
4 I Hate U 5:54
5 NPG Operator #6 0:45
6 Gold 7:23

Side Four

1 I Hate U (Extended Remix) 6:17
2 I Hate U (Album Version) 6:08
3 I Hate U (Quiet Night Mix) 3:56
4 I Hate U (Single Version With Guitar Solo) 4:25
5 I Hate U (Single Version Without Guitar Solo) 3:48

Hope this helps :-)