So after reading that stickee thread above about the unreleased album configurations, I went and put together my own 3-disc set of the 1986 configuration of Crystal Ball, so I could hear what Prince's original track listing for the album would sound like. The story goes (as told in Alex Hahn's "Possesed") that Prince made the triple-album set, Warner Bros refused to release it because they felt it would be a marketing nightmare, so Prince was forced to the trim it down to 2 discs, resulting in "Sign O The Times."

But Prince never thought very highly of the SOTT release, because it was a compromised version of what he originally intended. I think he had gone into the triple-album project as a way to deal with the breakup of the Revolution, his dying relationship with Susannah, etc. Doing such a huge project would have given him something to focus on. So when Warners wanted him to cut the album, it was just too much for him (even if it was a sound marketing decision on their part-- Prnce never thought much about sound marketing decisions).

He had a lot of fights with Warner Bros. over the decision not to release Crystal Ball, and I think this is where the rift between Prince and Warners started. He blamed them when SOTT turned out to not be a huge blockbuster in the U.S., and then refused to tour the states as a result (when a tour would have been the perfect thing to boost album sales!) He did a similar thing a year later with Lovesexy-- he blamed Warners for lack of promotion, and then postponed the U.S. tour for months, choosing to tour Europe until Warners could raise sales in the U.S. I think if he had toured the U.S. right after the album's release, it could have boosted sales, but Prince didn't seem to realize the promotional value of touring.

But given what happened in the years after SOTT, I think that their decision to not relase the 3-disc Crystal Ball was the second big blow to Prince after the breakup of the Revolution. But, the 3-disc version is pretty much SOTT plus a bunch of extra "Camille" tracks: Shockadelica, Good Love, Rockhard In a Funky Place, Rebirth Of The Flesh... So, my question is, why was Camille not released as a separate album, as a SIDE PROJECT, while SOTT was relased as the new double-disc PRINCE album? Warners released the Madhouse album shortly before SOTT, and they were willing to relase the Black album less than a year later (both without Prince's name on them),so why not Camille? Prince could have made a 2-disc configuration of SOTT without the Camille tracks (he had plenty of other songs that would have fit in their place-- ie. The Ball & Joy In Repetition)-- all of the Camille tracks were put into a separate album configuration anyway (see stickee thread). Then, the hardcore fans could have bought SOTT plus The Camille album, while the mainstream people could have just bought SOTT, and all of the music that Prince had wanted to relase would still have been released. It seems like it would have been a good compromise at the time.
[Edited 11/13/04 18:37pm]

I don't know why... but it gets you thinking.

It would've been nice if they'd released it when the SOTT tour was cancelled for the States; however, they did give us the movie instead; then the Black Album got pulled back around that time, and "I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man / Hot Thing" was still on the charts, plus it Prince likes to have some space before revealing his next "persona" -- and Lovesexy was quite different, to say the least. Would've been better if they'd sold the double-CD/record with a free bonus CD/record (Camille). That would've been a good marketing ploy: three disks for the price of two.

Who knows, but I think the simplist answer is Prince's fickle temprement.

Camille pre-dates Crystal Ball, so by the time he delivered CB as a 3LP set, he had already discarded the idea of releasing the Camille LP (it was expanded to become CB, by adding other tracks like those from Dream Factory). Initially Prince had the idea for CB to be credited to Camille, but changed his mind.

So it looks like having made his grand 3LP statement, and have it rejected by WB unless he cut a whole LP, he had already left the idea behind previously.

By this time he was probably eager to get onto making his next project, Graffiti Bridge, and the culling of CB to SOTT was probably a hinderance.

The Camille idea was resurrected for the Black Album which is a similar funk-based album to be released without mention of Prince as the artist.

It's an interesting idea - SOTT as a 2LP set, plus the Camille LP as a separate release, but without the Camille tracks, SOTT is more than 50% made up of Dream Factory tracks and IGBABN (live with the Revolution) - so it may have seemed to Prince that it looked like he was resting on the work he did with the Revolution for his new LP.