squirrelgrease said:

And what exactly is wrong with the line 'funky funky blue cheese'? Clearly your perceptions have changed.

By the way, you can still sample Crystal Ball songs here as WAVs:

love4oneanother.com

squirrelgrease said:

I remember going to Border's and buying it, as well as Liz Jones' horrible Purple Reign book. I read the book while listening to the CDs. I wasn't thrilled w/ the book, nor "Calhouse Square" and "Da Bang". I liked the set overall though. Still do.

I still have that shirt that came with it (I like safe sex) never worn lol.

xlr8r said:

haha same here , never worn it....


maybe ebay wants it ?

Agnieszka020 said:

The original Crystal Ball in 1987/1988 had some of the songs from SOTT, as well as other yet-unreleased songs like "Train", "Big Tall Wall", etc.

The one released in 1998 was nothing but a compilation of outtakes. It was great that we had cleaner versions of the title track, "Acknowledge Me", "Dream Factory", "Sexual Suicide", "Ripopgodazippa", etc, but it wasn't how Crystal Ball was originally intended. Prince stated that he wanted to "clean up the bootleg market a bit" with the CB release. It was good that he did, and there was a CB II in the works, but it never materialized. God only knows why - but it's probably Prince losing interest in something, yet again.

CB original and final configuration as of November 30, 1986:

A
Rebirth of the Flesh
Play In the Sunshine
Housequake
The Ballad of Dorothy Parker

B
It
Starfish and Coffee
Slow Love
Hot Thing

C
Crystal Ball
If I Was Your Girlfriend
Rockhard In A Funky Place


D
The Ball
Joy In Repetition
Strange Relationship
I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man


E
Shockadelica
Good Love
Forever In My Life
Sign O The Times

F
The Cross
Adore
It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night

The only outstanding song not released is some fashion is "The Ball". "Rebirth" was released as a live cut during NPGMC 2001. On 30 Years of Unreleased Funk, the original first two tracks, and how they segued together was bootlegged out. Interesting to hear "Rebirth" segue into "Sunshine". Also, there is a slightly different version of "ICNTTPOYM" out there. Just a bit of a rearrangement, and a some extra stuff at the beginning that's floating around out there.

It just seems that Prince using the "CB" name was a cheap ploy to gain interest in the project. The original CB wasn't an outtake set per se, it was new music, although the eventual CB was "new" in the regard that those tunes had not been released before, a lot of it wasn't new (like the remixes, or even "Good Love" which was already out on the soundtrack).

Was the first version an official release?

aazzaabb said:

No, 3 disks was too long for Warner Bros., so they made Prince whittle it down. It became what we know as Sign O The Times album.

I Love the version of "Dark," as well.

ernestsewell said:

Wow! So 'Sign O' The Times started out as CB? I've learned something!

& when he finally released C.B,it was the tracks he removed from Sign' on the original?

aazzaabb said:

No

In section 4.2 the FAQ for this forum:

http://prince.org/msg/7/145050

you will find links to past threads about some album configurations that might be helpful on this matter:

http://prince.org/msg/7/116565

The released version of Crystal Ball drew on a variety of material from over the years and, song-wise - only drew on a couple of tracks from the earlier project.

I bought it for $5 or $10 at the garage sale at the first celly. Love The Truth too. Hated KS (we got a cassette of it at the garage sale for a buck or two coz our rented car had no CD player - we put it on and almost barfed! )

wasitgood4u said:

The first celly was an absolute bargain basement for that stuff

I don't even remember how many copies of the War I got and TMBGITW Valentine editions .. NPG Samplers , oh so much stuff for a dollar !