Do You think that the album cover of "Sign O The Times" was the original 1987 "Crystal Ball" album cover. It works if you think about it.
Big Chick

BigChick said:

probably didn't get that far...

errant said:

From the decision to go from "Crystal Ball" to "Sign" Time wise wasn't that far apart. You would think that Prince would of submitted Cover Art for the "Crystal Ball" project with the material since that project was mamouth and needed to sell his idea. Thematically both albums are the same.
Big Chick
[Edited 4/10/10 20:52pm]

BigChick said:

well Crystal Ball only existed as an "album" up to the point where he presented it to WB and they rejected it. I doubt the art department was already working up a cover design to something that they didn't even know existed.

At that point Prince had his own art department at Paisley. Warners art department wouldn't have designed the cover. He's usually been quite visionary with his album cover art, design and packaging.
Big Chick

I don't think so, since it seems the entire SOTT band was at the photo session.

Cover after color changes:



Session Outtakes:







Photo credits: Those in the know

thanks. I guess that pretty much answers my question. Didnt know about the band being present or the color correction on the "Sign" album cover
Peace
Big Chick

This is just total conjecture on my part, but I had always figured that the goofy little plasma globe laser touch thing that Prince and Kat were messing around with in the SOTT movie was supposed to be the "Crystal Ball."

I'd wager that the Sign O the Times cover was the Crystal Ball cover. If you just look at the cover of Sign O the Times, the first thing you notice is Prince in the corner, and the second thing that jumps out is this Bright Pink electric ball on the left side of the pic. Seeing as most of the cover is Peach, Black, or a little blue, the neon pink seems like an odd choice that was put there for juxtaposition. The "Crystal Ball" was put there for a reason.

Though I've also heard people on the org say that this pic was going to be the cover for the Camille album. Does anybody have the dates of when these pics were taken? Borris? Ernest? Squirrel?

To repeat, all this is just personal speculation on my part, and I have NO evidence supporting this so no one yell at me if it's not true lol

Wildboy said:

Same thinking here. I guess the answer might rely on when the date the photos were taken.
Anybody know
Big Chick

I'm currently working on artwork for my own compiled version of 'Crystal Ball'. I'm designing the artwork as if it were for a 3-vinyl gatefold set. Imagine it with three records in it, and folded in thirds. I hit a dead end though cause I can't find a decent looking sign o the times font. The one i found is shit. Anyway, here's where I am so far... and like I said... it isn't close to finished.

Exterior


Interior

[Edited 4/11/10 16:23pm]

^^nice work, gamera.
We don't know too much about Crystal Ball except for the tracklist. As far as I know, there isn't a circulating copy of the actual album, just compiled tracks from what we know to be the tracklist. Some questions that come to my mind are: what version of Crystal Ball (the track) would Prince have used? Certainly not one with Wendy and Lisa's "Purple Undergrund" speech. He was trying to distance himself from the Revolution and Wendy and Lisa's input at this point. Ditto Strange Relationship. It would most likely have been the stripped down one from Sign, not the Dream Factory version. Which version of Shockadelica, single or extended? All of this is conjecture, and it's fun to compile our own versions of Crystal Ball, the truth is, until a tape surfaces, we'll never know exactly what it would have been like. Prince is known for changing arrangments, edits, song order, etc. for his albums. Look at the differences (minor, however) in the songs Sign O the Times and I Could Never Take The Place...bewteen the Dream Factory versions (1986) to Sign O the Times versions (1987).
So, that would go for album art as well. But I do agree the SOTT art would work well for CB, whether or not Prince intended it.

squirrelgrease said:

i dont know if those came from the same session. his hair is more curly in the outtakes and he even has "bangs"

the hair on the cover , however, is atrocious.

fms said:

He should have kept the Revolution together. Big dummy. "Oh no! My black fans have a problem with my white band members! Better get a bunch of black dancers in my band asap who add nothing to the music but cost me advance money that I could be spending on videos and actual musicians."

Tsk, tsk, what a pitty. Sometimes life can be so shitty.

gamera said:

The font that I have is called "signott.tt". It doesn't seem to include the Peace Sign (used in the "O" on the album cover), but it's a decent approximation of the original hand lettering.

Nvncible1 said:

If you look at the position of the stage monitor on the riser, it's in the exact same position on the LP cover and the outtakes. Also note the asian lettered box on the cover and the other pic with Prince and guitar - it's in the same spot.

Re: The hair... the album cover received a ton of old-school manual retouching, so this would have been one of the easier things to change with an airbrush.

fms said:

always irritates me that the best versions of CB and Camille that are out there (Pimpsandwich) use the version of "Good Love" from the 1998 release.

surely the original line-ups for these albums would have used the full version that got released in 1988. i always assumed the 1998 version was just some arbitrary edit as were so many other tracks on there.

then again, if so, I've never figured out why there's 30 seconds of street noise at the end of it if it's not meant to lead into that opening market-place chatter in If I Was Your Girlfriend.

puzzled.

squirrelgrease said:

Thank you so much. I'll keep an eye out.

gamera said:

Orgnote sent.

Spanky said:

the quote

I've read somewhere that he asked Susannah to do the cover, and that all the members of the Revolution had submitted quotes, kind of like they did for Parade. I just can't remember where I read that.

WonderU said:

I think that was Dream Factory.

You know I read this a few times and for some reason I STILL thought we were talking about Dream Factory lol wow.....

Spanky said:

sorta sums it up

This would have been interesting.

Spanky said:

Musically, The Revolution couldn't TOUCH the Sign O the Times/Lovesexy band!!!

They blew them out the water every night. Hell, just listen to the aftershows from that era. It's not even close.
[Edited 8/19/12 1:08am]