This album came along, burried deep in the bumper-package that was Crystal Ball, and I think it's a bit of a shame that it didn't get it's own casing with a booklet and all.

I consider this 2 B one of the best things Prince has ever released and it would B cool 2 have the lyrics 2 go with it.

I know they can be found on lots of places on the web, but many of those R obviously wrong or differ from one another quite a lot.

But back 2 my question:

Since the cd itself has quite a cool print of the galaxy on it, sports a wild variety of fonts and even has a 'new' type of '0(+>' symbol on it, I'd think that perhaps this thing was intended as something more than just an insert in the crystal ball hockey puck.....

Anyone know some more about that??

Or perhaps someone created their own artwork 4 it??

Thanx!

I remember seeing the art work on Love4oneanother. so it did exist. i'd be interested to find the cover art too.

there is artwork.. it's for 'the truth' (b-side 'don't play me') cd single tho... it's a painting of an angel coming down or something.... with a parental advisory sign. So i guess u can substitute that for the artwork for the full album.

I don't know the origin of 'The Truth Cd. I just know it's excellent all acoustic masterpiece. Prince has a song on there that all his critics should listen to; "Don't Play Me" "Circle of Amour" "Animal Kingdom" etc. Beautiful!

lata
Blue
"Don't Play me, I already do in my car."

In case anyone is interested...


http://www.npgmusicclub.c...ndex2.html

This cd is just staring to see the light of day lately as he is adding songs to the tour set. As he let me in Oakland, I think he'll let me play for him again but this time I think I'll hit 'The Truth' one time.

yeaup the truth is deep!

lavish as fine as u r why u take your picture off?

the truth was a surprise i knew nothing about crystal ball and who knew the very last disc in the back would be so damn killer?


my favorite track is Dionne

i put the truth cd into the single cd case then i stuck the single into the crystal ball case
walla instant truth cd case

Hey LaVisHh !!

THANK YOU!!! I have been missing this web site so much!! I thought it was gone for good! I keep my Truth CD in its own case. I downloaded the cover art when the CB first came out. The art work is nice but, it was difficult to read the playlist for the Truth CD. So I took the CD itself to Kinkos, placed it on the color copier, made a xerox copy and now I have a gorgeous inside sheet for my Truth case. The silver sections on the face of the Cd produce a rainbow effect on the copy. It's really lovely. Geez, I hope this doesn't dip into copyright infringement! And LaVisHh, again, thank you!

Xenophobiac said:

thought i was the only one!

You guys notice that the crystal ball site that you gave the link to doesn't really work anymore. If you try to look at the lyrics for any of the three discs, it will just say "file not found".

For those of you who weren't online back then, here's some info on the history of this CD:

On Valentines day 1997, a number of music industry people and friends of Prince received the Truth CD single in the mail (w/Don't Play Me). Keep in mind that this was about 2-1/2 months after Emancipation got released, so people were like "WTF!". Within a few weeks, the CD single was available from NEW-FUNK. Welcome 2 the Dawn was later available free from Borders as a casette single w/The Holy River during that summer.

During the JOTY tour, the Truth was advertised in flyers as a new CD from Prince that would be coming late that summer, My recollection was that it was originally promoted as a "free" CD that would be sent to everyone who mailed in the flyer or was on the NEW FUNK mailing list (kind of like the War cassette). Eventually, the project got combined into the CB release--which kept getting delayed during that year.

There was separate art-work done for the Truth CD, but it obviously never was released (who knows if they printed it) as the CD was just inserted into that silly hockey-puck case (and placed as the 4th CD in the retail version w/ CB artwork).

One question I've always wondered about was the exact time period of its recording. It seems almost certain that all of these songs were recorded after the death of the baby, and I imagine that the album's recording was largely a way for him to cope. I always get sad when I listen to it thinking about what he must have been going through when this was being recorded. I think this also explains why it is such a solitary recording (except for the tracks recorded last, like Animal Kingdom, that feature Kat & Rhonda, etc.).

Don't think Prince started recording the majority of the songs until about spring 1997.

It seems very probable that he didn't record very much after the things he went through after the completion of Emancipation.

The only 'new' song I know of that was released 2 radio in 1996 after Emancipation was "2Morrow" which Prince gave 2 one of the DJ's 2 play on his show.

Then at the very end of 1996 he told someone in an interview that he hadn't been recording a lot [something like 'my wife has me in studio-rehab'] and that there were only 2 new songs: "The Truth" & "Don't Play Me".

So I think we might pinpoint the album 2 have been recorded somewhere between december 1996 and april 1997.

But that's just speculation. Shame it didn't come with any artwork or lyrics. That's typical of the things that went kind of wrong in the whole second part of the 1990's.

Here's this phenomenal album and it gets released with a set of previously unreleased studiorecordings. In all of the reviews 4 crystal ball, only one or two lines were ever written about "The Truth".

So the whole project was simply ingored and went undetected by most people.

Don't get me wrong, it was great to get this album as a free gift with Crystal Ball. But he could have also chosen to release it in 1997 -there wasn't an album in 1997 [most of us didn't get Crystal Ball until the 1st months of 1998].

But perhaps he thought the album was too personal to just release on it's own and be subjected to the critics.....

Perhaps that's why he put it in the crystal ball package, so that the fans would have it, but it wouldn't have too much of a focus upon it since the other 3 or 4 discs were there to divert attention.