I recently ordered the Crystal Ball box set and after listening to each CD, I was throughly entertained and intrigued by the Truth album. I've heard about the CD before and although I knew most of the album was acoustic or rather utilzed acoustic instrumentation, I was absolutely shocked that Prince could produce a CD that had little filler and sub-par material after listening to so many CD's of his of late that finds him coasting creatively with cookie-cutter production and safe mainstream lyrical content (i.e. "3121", "Planet Earth"). The songs that I'm really digging is "Fascination" (nice lyrical jab at MJ about "so called King gives birth to so called Prince") and hearing P do his best Santana guitar playing and the way he go back and forth between real and sung voice, the sheer emotional intesity and honesty of "One Of Your Tears", "Welcome To The Dawn" and "Comeback". "Dionne" with the comical reference to composer Henry Mancini. It's as if Wendy and Lisa was in the studio producing it with him. There are certain tunes where the placement of sound effects are distracting and unnecessary and if W+L had actually been allowed to contribute their input those overproduced moments would have stayed on the cutting room floor.

Prince should re-release this album through a major label to give this music the proper exposure it should have receivced by in '97, but considering he would remove the swearing and some sexually provactive lyrics, the music would sound neutered. The shame is that Prince could make records like this showing his forte in being a great singer-songwriter in the vein of Joni Mitchell, etc. but would expose them independently while courting the mainstream for a last ditch effort at a hit through records like 3121.

The irony is that an album like this would be critically lauded and possibly do better on the charts just by quality of the music itself. I mean after all hasn't Prince for years been preaching "real music by real musicians" and this aint "MTV" and all his other rhetoric about his views about the music industry and the music it manufacturers?

i heard this 4 first time recently. considering it's a few yrs old, the songs r ageless. i really like 'dont play me'..
i don't know what he was thinking with animal kingdom.

So "Circle Of Amour" is about 4 teenage girls who form a group and have sex with each other?

bashraka said:

certainly sounds tht way! & denise..is tht suppose 2 b vanity?
the melody is lovely, & quite a sexy song 4 the guys..

lottielooloo1968 said:

On the Saturday of The ONA shows at Hammersmith '02 he changed the latter pert of the show (to the thursday and friday ones) by doing an accoustic set starting with don't play me!!! I just gasped - nearly fell off the front of the balcony!!!
[Edited 1/22/08 8:38am]

mentalist said:

cool! did he perform it with the same attitude as 'the webby award' performance? tht might b my fave footage..

This is my fav album in his catalog, I can't get enough of it

paintedlady said:

Agreed (tho I can sometimes get enough of it ).
I know a lot of people who don't really care for it. I've always liked it.