I've heard that the original release of the Black Album had more tracks on it (somewhere around eighteen) before it was released by Warner.

Does anyone have information on any of these additional tracks?

As far as I'm aware, the original pressing of the Black Album (before it was pulled) had the same tracks as the 90s official release.

Bootleggers often put extra unreleased tracks on their own release of the Black Album, though the extra tracks usually had nothing to do with that period of recording. That may be the cause of the confusion.

18 tracks?



I got all kinds of black albums and they are all the same tracks

A lot of the bootleg Black Albums added All My Dreams and Old Friends 4 Sale to the track list.

Never seen an 18 track version though

Ice9sFine said:

the original version of the Black album was identical to the version released
in '94. There were no extra tracks.

(but as has already been mentioned, a lot of bootlegs included other unrelated
unreleased songs to fill up the CD)

Ice9sFine said:

At the time the Black Album came out, a friend of mine was in London at the time, he said that they were selling the 'LPs' everywhere; he made me an original 'bootleg' copy of the tape that he had (in a word, the sound was RAW), the same songs were on there as the CD. The CD is just cleaned up, all of the songs on there are the same as on the LP; however, if you bought the crystal ball cd, and you read EACH note about EACH song, I believe there are/were, one or two songs that were originally planned to be on there, so check it out. I hope that this has been of some help to you.

Cheers.

lefty said:

Is that some sort of code?...

The only reference to the Black Album on the Crystal Ball notes is for 'Good Love' - "This track was written during an intense period of musical change 4 Prince - he had disbanded the Revolution and moved to L.A., booking Sunset Sound Studios - sometimes 4 months at a time. Shockadelica, Feel U Up, and parts of the Black Album were also recorded during this period."

'recorded during' does not mean 'intended for'. Prince often assembles tracklists for albums that undergo many changes; however no others are known for the Black Album.

According to The Vault, 'Rockhard In A Funky Place' was originally intended for the 'Camille' album, but it was the only Camille track to end up on the Black Album.

Also according to The Vault, in early October 1987 Prince began work on the Black Album project updating previously recorded tracks and recording one new, "When 2 R In Love'. Aso recorded in October, although not intended for the Black Album , were 'U,' which was a reworking of 'You' that was taped during the 1979 Rebels sessions, 'I Guess I'm Crazy' and 'Take This Beat'. 'U' was later given to Paula Abdul, 'I guess I'm Crazy' to Mavis Staples, and Take This Beat was later incorporated into the extended 12" inch version of 'I Wish U Heaven'.
[Edited 6/25/05 16:26pm]

lefty said:

No, nope, nah, and hell no.

There is a discarded, longer studio version of "Superfunkycalifragisexy".

This version was edited down before the Black Album was sequenced and is the one we are all familiar with.

But Boris is right. The original version of The Black Album was identical to the 1994 release. It carried no extra tracks.

.

giotto said:

That long version of Superfunky is the shit!!

giotto said:

Really? Well I hope to hear that sometime, I never knew that there was a longer version of that song.

Sdldawn said:

Here here, I agree; that is what I was telling the other person on this forum; the CD version that is available to we the masses, is the SAME version that my friend copied for me onto cassette tape, when he bought it while he was in London at the time when the original LP came out, the ONLY difference that I can hear on the CD is that the tracks are all cleaned up, and they are clearer.

Peace.

lefty said:

Just to clear something up... there were NO songs recorded for the black album.
The whole album was assembled out of existing tracks (the most recent one being
When 2 R In Love). It was only sequenced once, and that was what was released.
So there are no outtakes or alternate versions of the album.

BorisFishpaw said:

WELL.....you may be right, long story short, I'm glad that we finally got to buy the 'black album' on CD, it's too bad that there aren't any credits on the packaging though. One other quick note, I saw Prince in Oakland, CA, during the Lovesexy Tour, and he sang a few songs from the 'Black Album,' needless to say the song 'Bob George' was a trip, very dark and spooky. Peace.

metalorange said:

True, you may be right on that point; and I think that the song 'When 2 R In Love' is out of place on that CD.