There's no such thing as a "Crystal Ball Era".

Crystal Ball was just a collection of outtakes from various periods in Prince's
career. They were thrown together in a deliberately random way on the album
to mirror the numerous bootlegs that had been circulating for years with
similarly random tracklistings.

The idea was to release perfect quality versions of a load of tracks that had
already been circulating on bootlegs over the years. A kind of beat the boots
collection. There was a second volume planned, but like so many projects,
that was shelved.

errant said:

It had the opposite effect on me. I admired the innovative maverick who was intelligent enough to attempt somethinglike this. He was fearless and confident enough to strike out on his own to counter bootleggers and give the fans something they had been asked for. Anyone who collected bootlegs in the late 80s/early 90s knew how great it was to have an offical version of tracks like Movie Star that would never make it onto a regualr album.

It was on NPG records because no label would have let him release such a specialized set. The Truth and Kamasutra? ONly hardcore fans would buy that and big labels want everyone to buy everything they put out.

As for all the problems, I never had one. It arrived in the mail on my birthday. There were a few freebies in the box as well if I recall. I am glad he didnt let it discourage more business innovations in the distribution of his music. Otherwise he would not have pulled off the NPGMC, the Musicology CD giveaway with the concert ticket, and or Planet Earth in the newspaper in the U - all had a positive impact.

Whats My Name is one of his most underrated tracks. Should have been released on one of the official releases during the TAFKAP era.

I don't think that there was really a Crystal Ball "era" unless you mean '86 or '87 when the original album was being recorded.

The actual Crystal Ball release had some true gems but was disappointing. He had so many more songs in the vault that he could have put on there instead of ones previously released (like Good Love) and crap like that alternate version of "Loose" (I forget what it was called).

If you'd never heard any of his unreleased work (or you had slept on songs like Good Love that were publicly released but relatively obscure), you probably loved this release.

OTOH, if you were fairly familiar with boots, this release was a huge disappointment in just about every way.

Has there ever been a more bland live version of Days of Wild (ok, maybe there has, but there sure as heck were dozens of much funkier versions)? Do the 80s tracks sound right with chunks cut out, or with W&L's voices removed? Did he really need to waste space putting on filler like Tell Me How You Wanna Be Done?

When you combined this with all of the drama of trying to deal with staffers at 1-800-NEW-FUNK literally putting post-it notes on the wall with your credit card info, losing about half the orders placed during the first few months, with his people having no ability to check whether the order you had placed 6 months ago was in or out of their system... it was a disaster, and the moment when the "HATERZ" he whines about today stopped giving him the benefit of the doubt anymore.
[Edited 4/3/09 9:33am]

BorisFishpaw said:

Actually, I think P threw them together the way he did because he wanted each CD to feel like an "album". Disc 2 was intended to be more of a rock album.

He tried to make the whole thing segue together from song to song, and in that sense, he did a decent job.

Also, I think he intentionally kept it from being internally chronological (as boots often are) because he didn't want to give ammo to people who would have then said: "see, Disc 1 is so much better because it's from the 80s and all his recent stuff sucks."

For the record, it WAS Prince on "shuffle" or "random". It still could have been whittled down a bit and been a stronger 2 CD set.

Sdldawn said:

I hated it for the longest time because he fucked up the title track. Crystal Ball in its original form without all those sound effect laid on top of it was perfect. I will take the hissy, hard to hear original any and every day.

errant said:

All I know is I was not on the net and I just waited to buy in the store

ernestsewell said:

Funny coincidence I guess that songs like Strays of the World and Goodbye, that were originally written as album closers, closed their respective discs, or that album 2 started with Interactive (originally written as an album opener after the Poem intro), then going into three hard rockers before Crucial (a song that transitions at the beginning from rock to R&B, allowing the disc to do the same)?

One of the biggest problems of CB is that instead of being a random or chronological anthology, Prince instead tried to make 3 cohesive albums from his back catolog. That's partly why the song selection sucked, and why songs like Crucial and Movie Star are ruined because he felt the need to edit them to make them seque into what followed. Prince admitted to much of this in interviews (or in statements at concerts) at the time (not to the songs selection sucking, but to the discs being "thematic" (disc 2 - rock; disc 3 - party), just like Emancipation was with disc 2 being the "Mayte" disc).
[Edited 4/3/09 10:13am]

What I remember most about this era:

1. Was the ordering screw up from 1-800-NEW FUNK (didn't happen to me but the bruhaha over it went on for months)

2. Despite the fact that a good number of songs on this set were from the so called "golden age" of Prince and the Revolution and Prince w/the '94-95 NPG the set was mostly appreciated by just the hardcore fans that already had this stuff on boot. To my knowledge nothing off this set got significant radio play, if any at all.

BorisFishpaw said:

I know that! I was just a kid @ the time I said. Anyway there was an "era" it was 1998 The Truth era the kamasutra era..whatever..it was the era before Rave....

One of the biggest things I like about Crystal Ball is that it contains the tracks I needed to create an ultimate Gold Experience album . . . rightfully including Interactive, Ripopgodazippa, Acknowledge Me, and Days Of Wild.

cb70 said:

There's a longer, better version of Good Love out there?!? I must have it!! I don't ever recall reading about a Bright Lights CD?

LivingSilver said:

Bright Lights, Big City soundtrack from early '88

Se7en said:

[Edited 4/3/09 23:35pm]

errant said:

I actually just ordered and received a used copy of this CD from Amazon in mint condition. They're not expensive at all.

The Crystal Ball version is 4:55, the BLBC soundtrack version is 5:12.

..well it came in the mail yesterday!!!..man it is such a good collection..but now that i have both crystal ball AND dream factory..i can honestly say dream factory kicks crystal ball up and down the street..dream factory is more concentrated and the quality of prince's music is in his voice...so talented..
..mzsexybaby

Se7en said:

except the last 30 seconds or so of the CB version is just ambient street sounds, whereas the BLBC version is music from beginning to end.

"good love part 2, na na na na na na na, good love part 2" etc.

Sdldawn said:

People really over assume what Prince has in the Vault and how good it is. Honestly im not a fan of alot in the Vault, but people will give a pass to any song from that era because its his 80's work. I find alot of the Vault tracks from that period, following a similar theme and sound, and honestly if he liked them so much they would have made the albums at the time. That being said there are alot of great songs in there too, but i dont think Prince will release them. Two of the most requested Prince songs are "moonbeam levels" and "Empty Room", though they exist in the bootleg form, Empty Room gets better with each updated version, making me think that given its killer Guitar solo and LOTUSFLOWER being a guitar record, why not re-work on their and lose that "Love like Jazz" which really ruins the Lotus record, or even throw it on the MPLsound album instead of the rehash, remixed, waste of "ure gonna C me", but there again when i think these things, i just realize that Prince is going to leave alot of the most requested songs, buried.

Romeoblu said:

Good list, i agree on most, though even though i love Days Of Wild, enough with LIVE versions, i hate listening to bullshit crowds and their chants, Prince has studio versions of this song and should have placed it over this. Not crazy about Make Yo Mama at all, its one of those songs you hate or love, all of the remixes i hate with a passion and never replay at all. She Gave her angels is amazing, and hearing it makes you wonder why this track didnt make a regular Prince Album along with "Empty Room" his best Vault song

Im still enjoying that set to this day. A couple stinkers and fillers, but overall a great set.

Slightly off-topic, but not too much:

Who remembers when Prince asked everyone to mail in their bootlegs to him? I wondered who in their right mind would do that, and then I wondered if those who DID do that would be rewarded?

Im so glad we are having a good open GREAT discussion about this era. i long for this on the org.

yeah I never would have known Good Love exsisted if it wasnt for it being on Crystal Ball. me being 16 @ the time and not knowing any other Prince fans and the internet wasnt really big i didnt know the extent of his catalouge..the org or anything else..his live shows..anything. Plus it was out of print.

I still have the free t-shirt it came with lol. "I like safe sex"

I would welcome as many of these compilations as Prince feels like putting out.

I got a credit card for the first time because of CB. I remember thinking it shouldn't be so difficult to get a hold of someones music. It took about 6 months for it to arrive and I'd moved house by the time it arrived but once I got a hold of it, I was happy with the free t-shirt. I didn't fall in love with it and I didn't hate it but I think there are some nice songs on there. I'm glad I have it. I bought 3 copies from Amazon when they were clearing them out for $8.99 each.

BorisFishpaw said:

Except that the boots had TWO versions of Crucial, none of them butchered. Etcetera.

Brofie said:

Bwahahahah. All it did was show how bootleggers were way better at this game.

Brofie said:

Bwahahahah. Yeah, it's not like Bruce Springsteen released a box set of live recordings, or that the Beatles released a multi-disc outtakes set (+ dvd + book). Dude, what are you smoking?

Brofie said:

Those two were thrown in there in an attempt to lessen fans' anger at a) seeing the collection in stores before it arrived at their homes and b) seeing it for LESS money in stores than the money they paid.

Brofie said:

Which was a complete failure in the first few months until he finally kicked out the incompetent doofuses after a ton of fans bitching all over the internet.

Brofie said:

Pathetic publicity stunts.

paisleypark4 said:

Except that there were plenty of ways to find info. Uptown had been publishing mags for years, Per Nilsen had published his excellent "A Documentary" in the early 1990s, there was the bi-weekly "Prince Family" newsletter,... I knew about these things long before the WWW got big.