I was at the overpriced, and locally based, a$$hole store FYE (aka Record Town aka Rip Off Artists), and was poking through the Prince stuff.

I noticed Musicology in some sort of slip case. It was a very flat envelope type thing you could almost print out yourself w/ card stock, fold in half, and you're done. It was even thinner than a normal cardboard slipcase like you'd find a single in; it was odd for a full album like this. The cover was the same front, and the tracklist on the back. Had a UPC code and all, of course.

I found this more interesting because of the recent post about the Walmart digipak of Purple Rain. (That one is only $7 by the way.)

There was another in a slip case, and for the life of me I can't remember which one it was. I should have picked them both up for the sake of being a completest, but I didn't.

Anyone ever heard of the Musicology thing, or any other, besides Purple Rain, in a different packaging? I'll edit this post if I can remember the other album.

ernestsewell said:

the musicology in slip cases were given out a prince concerts when musicology was released.
[Edited 12/26/09 22:30pm]

I wish he would cut this shit out, and release albums in jewel boxes!

The slipcase packaged Musicology CD was also given away to attendees of the theater viewing of the Staples Center simulcast. It should say "Promotional copy. Not 4 sale." in tiny text on the sleeve and disc. The Musicology CDs sold at Sam's Club were packaged in a long box - odd since WalMart is promoting the "green" digipaks, while it's sister retailer sells CDs in excessive packaging that was forced out of favor in the 1990s.

Maybe the other slipcase you saw was a copy of Planet Earth that was given away with The Mail in the UK?

There was also a sampler of The Rainbow Children packaged similarly, but it's fairly rare.

yeah, the musicology slip cases were given away at the concerts

planet earth also came in two slightly different slipcases, one for the daily nazi newspaper and one for the concerts. the concert version was shrinkwrapped like musicology and had rounded corners, but more rounded/extreme than musicology. the newspaper version wasn't shrinkwrapped as it came inside a shrinkwrapped bag with the sunday magazines, and the edges were straight, not rounded

i have a few thousand spare copies of both versions of planet earth that i am prepared to sell for vastly inflated prices to people with more money than sense (they type who refer to themselves as collectors and see no shame in living in thier mothers basement)

i also have a few spare copies of musicology slip case

prince should have some scheme where you can cash in your spare copies of his albums in exchange for t shirts that don't fit and other general crap like posters. i'm sure his 40+ fanbase love to stick posters up to show the grandchildren they haven't reached maturity either

I have one of those. I got it when the tour came to NY, some years ago.

No Prince albums here have been in Jewel cases since Rave except for Ultimate (Which was a warners release) all Prince albums have been in cardboard fold out and slip cases.
By Jewel I assume you mean plastic hard shell.

Huggiebear said:

Those are digipaks you're talking about. Rainbow Children, Planet Earth, Musicology, N.E.W.S., 3121, are all digipaks. LotusFlow3r was more of an elongated slip case....to me. Rave Un2 was a weird plastic case. Rave In2 was a regular jewel case.

Huggiebear said:

While true for US releases(not counting One Nite Alone-Live and It Ain't Over), other countries have released later Prince CDs in jewel-cases. Parts of Europe had Rainbow Children in a JC. France and Thailand copies of Musicology were in jewel-cases as was the Ukrainian edition of 3121.

squirrelgrease said:

We must be on to it, My copies of TRC, Musicology, 3121, Planet Earth and Lotusflow3r are all digipaks, but the Lotusflow3r was an import I bought off an American on ebay. Yet I bought the SST single in Melbourne in 2006, and it was in a Jewel case, maybe the Australians are behind us.

Yes, i remember 'Planet Earth' being given away in the daily mail here in the UK. They even reported it on the BBC news over here and they didnt seem to understand why an artist would want to 'give away' there brand new cd. Man,that news paper is so big, they could of given away the vinyl