It occured to me recently, that I tend to play Prince's "Camille" recordings more than the "normal" ones...
The question I would like to ask is what other songs could have benefitted from the "Camille" effect. I think Scandalous would be perfct.

What exactly is Camille. I know who he is but what is so characteristic about these recordings?

thecloud9mission said:

slightly altered voice (more high pitched) and usually funky as hell little numbers. They just seem more edgy, perhaps it was quite a feminine persona and coming from a man it seemed daring?

thecloud9mission said:

camille recordings are characterized by the vocal. prince speeds his voice up minutely to achieve this effect. listen to housequake, rock hard in a funky place, strange relationship, feel u up, if i was your girlfriend, and some others i can't quite remember- oh, shockadelica's a good example too.

the camille songs date from the SOTT period, so that's one good reason to play them a lot- prince's best work was done around this time in my (and many others') opinion.

prince seems to have dragged out the camille persona to get him through some of his most intriguing, complex and psychologically sublimely screwy songs- see if i was your girlfriend, strange relationship, etc.

he was writing such odd, rarefied musics and lyrics at this time. the camille voice suits the songs perfectly, lifts them to another plane. gorgeous.

tiger2 said:

That would explain why SOTT is my fav album

Camille is neither male or female and is the opposite of the Spooky Electric persona (Negative, deep voice).

It's a misconception that the deep voice is called "Bob George", Spooky just features in the song of same name talking about "Bob" the rockstar manager.

And obviously this negative persona has no similarity to the narrative voice on The Rainbow Children other than tone.

That would explain why SOTT is my fav album[/quote]


it's certainly a factor. although i think camille only takes the lead on:

housequake
u got the look (with sheena easton, of course)
if i was your girlfriend
strange relationship


so the camille-led songs are far outnumbered by the prince-led songs on the album.

there are plenty of reasons why SOTT is my favourite album. i do like the fact that it's dotted with camille's dottiness though. and my favourite prince song of all time is on SOTT and is a camille number- if i was your girlfriend.

Didn't Prince achieve the Camille voice when Susan Rogers recorded his vocals sped up by accident?

She thought he would b really mad at her but he ended up using that voice 4 many years 2 come.

Nep2nes said:

interesting. i don't remember whether the voice was created accidentally... but i do remember reading that on "if i was your girlfriend" susan recorded the vocals too high, and they came out distorted. she thought prince was going to kill her, but he loved the effect.

she said that even to this day she winces when she hears that track, because of her screw-up. but i *love* the way the vocals press against the walls of that song, and i'm glad prince loved it too, for my money it's his best vocal performance ever.

incidentally, i also read that the overlapping backing vocals on "forever in my life" were another mistake. somehow prince got the recording out of synch with the lead vocal- ie the backing vocals were meant to sit behind the lead. again, when he heard how it'd come out, he made another fine creative decision and left it that way.

tiger2 said:

I think this is the difference between Prince and a lot of other mere "singers", he lets things happen and creates a fantastic effect because of it. The delayed vocal effect on Forever In My Life fascinates me. Damn! SOTT is good!

KeithyT said:

well, yes. this is part of being an artist- utilizing accident in one's work. whether making music, or painting, or writing, or whatever... great artists know how to use accident.

one instance- when james joyce took "ulysses" to be type-set, it came back with hundreds of errors (not surprising when you consider the intricately boggling games joyce was playing with the words he used- inventing new words, distorting and melding old ones, etc). rather than have them all fixed, joyce was delighted with many of them, and kept those ones in.

I read that camille was a real hermaphrodite from Paris[?] that Prince read about and was inspired by to create the charecter.

javed said:

Nah! He was inspired by the name of Gonzo's chicken! hey! don't we have a chicken yet?

nad let's not forget Scarlet Pussy, flip side the Eye Wish U Heaven, Rebirth of The Flesh and Good Love.

I love my Camille tape ...

I remember in a Rolling Stone 1987 issue, in which this silly critic was reviewing SOTT. He said that SOTT had several guest appearances from a vocalist name Camille...OKAY!!! did he not know that Camille and LIL MAN were one of the same.

One thing confuses me about the whole Camille persona. Everyone assumes that the high pitched voice is Camille and the low pitched voice is Spooky Electric. But anyone who has the Dortmund Lovesexy Live show on tape knows that during "Bob George", while using the low pitched voice, he refers to himself as 'Camille'. I don't think Spooky Electric had a 'voice' at all. And I think the 'Camille' persona could be attributed to any of the changed pitch vocals of that time period.

Jestyr said:

I agree with u totally. I think that spooky electric is supposed to be more of a feeling, emotion, or whatever, rather than an actual being.

tiger2 said:

I couldn't have said it better myself1!!

Nep2nes said:

This has often been reported, but is actually untrue.
The 'Camille' voice was not created by accident.

This misconception stems from an interview with Susan Rogers where she talks about accidentally recording Prince's vocals for If I Was Your Girlfriend 'in the red', which meant they were a bit distorted. A lot of people have confused this reference to 'distortion' with the 'Camille' effect of speeding up Prince's vocals, when they are two completely different things. It is impossible to record 'Camille' style vocals accidentally.

Brother915 said:


That silly critic was Kurt Loder. I remember having a good laugh at his expense over that too! Wonder if Prince did?