Neli said:

Here we go again!!

PR was NEVER, EVER - (EVER!) gonna be a double-album.

The 'double album Purple Rain' is a myth.
Purple Rain was ALWAYS intended as a
single album (and that's info direct
from Prince himself!).

There were rumors about a double album
around 86, but these were totally false.

BorisFishpaw said:

Thanks!Anybody have a vault key and Prince"s schedule?

I thought it said in the hits and b-sides liner notes that there was never going to be a camille album and that those tracks were really the stuff Prince took out of the original Crystal ball to make it Signs O times. Camille was only an alter ego made up for crystal ball.

thedog said:

Nah.

Crystal Ball was basically a development of the Camille album and came after.

Camille + Dream Factory = Crystal Ball.

Neli said:

lol...this rumor just won't die

The 'Purple Rain' album was NEVER planned as a 2-record set,that is a purple myth.The rumor was that the album was gonna contain these songs...

"Let's Go Crazy"
"Take Me With U"
"The Beautiful Ones"
"Computer Blue" (long version)
"Darling Nikki"
"2 Late Darling"
"G-Spot"
"Land Of Paradise"
"17 Days"
"When Doves Cry"
"Electric Intercourse"
"I Would Die 4 U"
"Baby,I'm A Star"
"Take All 4 Granted"
"God"
"2 Many 2 Soon"
"Erotic City"
"The Loser In Life"
"Father's Song"
"My Special World"
"instrumental ("Divinity")
"Jamming Til The Dawn"
"Purple Rain"



It would have been interesting,but there's only one problem...those unfamiliar song titles do not really exist!

BorisFishpaw said:

How different is the regular version of "Good Love" from the edit on 1992's Crystal Ball? I saw the CD of the Bright Lights Big City album in a bargain bin years ago but I didn't have a job and couldn't afford it... I have CD quality versions of the long "Feel U Up" and "Shockadelica" plus a pretty passable version of Rebirth Of The Flesh, so I've assembled my own copy of this album but used the edit of Good Love (with the traffic ambience at the end filtered out).

Am I really missing much by not having the full-length version of "Good Love"?

BinaryJustin said:

All you're missing by not having the full length version of Good Love is an extra instrumental part, and Prince shouting "Good Love part 2!". Nothing really noticable.

BorisFishpaw said:

Boris you're a star!

Its amazing how these songs flow when you put them in the intended order.

funkbible said:

Is this the set from 1995? I reckon I sure it at the NPG shop in Camden, London.

sabaisabai said:

The 7CD sampling set was never manufactured or sold.

I can't remember off the top of my head exactly
when it was first advertised, but I think it was
a lot later than 1995. More like 1999.

BorisFishpaw said:

Strange, but when I remember back to the trip to the shop (I was on holiday from Australia) I recall something about the sampling CD set, and how expensive it was (due to not having to pay further royalties). Still, that was a long time ago and my memory could be playing tricks on me.

I wonder what happened to Prince's time capsule buried in the shop. Maybe it's still there?!

MiaBocca said:

I guess you know better then Alan Leeds. After all Mr. Leeds only worked as his tour manager and vice president
of Paisley park records for 10 years. So you should know more then him.

thedog said:

Actually MiaBocca IS quite correct.

Camille is not a collection of Sign O' The Times Outtakes. It was compiled and sequenced BEFORE Crystal Ball or Sign O The Times was assembled. The fact that it is not a collection of 'outtakes' is evident from the tracklist, as 3 of the songs appeared on Sign O' The Times anyway.

Here's the sequence of events with dates...

July 18th 1986: The final version of Dream Factory is sequenced ready for production.

November 5th 1986: The Camille album is sequenced. It even got as far as getting it's release planned into WB's 1987 first quarter schedule, with a projected first single of Shockadelica coupled with Housequake.

November 30th 1986: Prince shelves the Camille album, and assembles Crystal Ball, a triple album which includes all but one of the Camille tracks (he even considered releasing Crystal Ball under the Camille pseudonym at first).

December 21st 1986: Crystal Ball is cut down to a double album at the request of WB. It is re-titled 'Sign O The Times', as the old title track was one of the first songs to be cut. It still includes 3 tracks from the Camille album.

thedog said:

Sarcasm can make one look so unintelligent - especially when one is wrong like you are.

MiaBocca said:

No, I think you are wrong

MiaBocca said:

No, you are wrong. I'm going by what Alan Leeds has said. Who are you and Borisfishpaw to believe?

Alan Leeds sleevenotes for The Hits/The B-sides are an excellent overview, but you have to remember that they are an extremely condensed account of events. The whole 'Camille', 'Crystal Ball', 'Sign O The Times' evolution is reduced to ONE SENTENCE.

The sequence of events I quickly outlined in my previous post are FACT. The sources comes from Paisley Park studios and Warner Bros records directly, believe me, there is no argument about which albums came first.

Having said that, Alan Leeds account is also correct. When WB refused to release 'Crystal Ball' in all it's triple album glory, Prince's initial idea to cut it down to a double was to remove the 'Camille' tracks from the album and release them seperately (as he had originally intended). WB wouldn't go for this idea because it would mean that 'Prince' and 'Camille' would be competing against each other for chart placements and the publics money. They would only do it if the 'Camille' album was released at a later date. Prince didn't want to shelve the 'Camille' tracks so he immediately abandonded this idea. This second version of the 'Camille' album never got further than an 'idea', and it was never sequenced. This is the incident that Alan Leeds refers to.

I hope that clarifies the matter.

BorisFishpaw said:

it's rather interesting that a song that was slated to be the first single from an LP ended up as a B-Side, and not even making the Sign o' The Times album...

anybody know what the single(s) would have been if The Dream Factory or Crystal Ball incarnations had been released? I'm wondering if the song SOTT would have been the first single regardless, in any of the different versions. I guess, probably.

JonSnow said:

Never heard anything about singles from either albums, but as far as SOTT goes, it was just an album track until CB got marred down.

Because Crystal Ball wasn't accepted by WB, it never
got as far as having singles planned from it. Though
Shockadelica and If I Was Your Girlfriend were two
choices Prince was keen on at the time, and WB were
keen on I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man.

BorisFishpaw said:

So was it ever given a Warner Bros. catalog number?

BinaryJustin said:

Probably, although I've not heard what it was.

I made my own Camille CD a while back, using the tracking listing found in DMSR.

1st this has become my favorite workout album by far! I think this album would have been a sizable hit. The songs go together very well. Its a funky & fun little record. I have burned it quite a bit for friends.

2nd...everytime I listen to this album, it makes me realize how badly Prince's back catalogue albums need to be remastered. I took Housequake, Strange Relationship, and If I Was You're Girlfriend directly off SOTT, and the sound quality compared to all the other tunes sucks so bad. I got Rebirth and Shockadelica from Napster a few years back and even those tunes sound better than the SOTT tracks. I know its unlikely remastering will happen anytime soon ...but it SO needs to be done.

BorisFishpaw said:

Warners would have been right on their choice of single. Even though I prefer If I Was Your Girlfriend, it's nowhere near as marketable.

Anji said:

I have to admit that WB were usually right with their decisions regarding Prince's output. It's a shame they couldn't come to a more open agreement where WB would get a new 'Prince' album every year or 2, and Prince would still be free to put out independant and less commercial stuff on his own (maybe with the proviso that he didn't release it as 'Prince'). Ideal situation for both parties.

Okay - I made an imaginary cover for the Camille album.

I had previously hosted it myself but because the jpegs are so large, if everybody went and had a look, it would use up all my bandwith for the month. I tried a free webspace account at Tripod but they removed my site after two days because it also had mp3s on it, I guess...

Anyway, I emailed the nice people at http://www.dawnunder.com and they are now hosting the images for me.

Front: http://covers.dawnunder.c...20alt).jpg
Back: http://covers.dawnunder.c...20alt).jpg

Please note that I haven't got any clue what the covers would have looked like but I assumed the following...

01) As the front would purportedly have a stick-figure drawn on it, I took a Prince doodle from the "Gett Off" single cover to represent Camille.
02) Parade was two colours - just black & white; Sign O' The Times was full colour but heavy on peach & black (the cassette single was plain peach with black writing too); The Black Album was simply black & peach. In keeping with the colour scheme of the period, I've created a black and peach schematic.
03) I've written the word "Prince" backwards on the front cover. I assume that if Warners had released the album, they would have wanted some form of credit to Prince. He has a habit of writing backwards too...

Let me know what you think.

Oh - if you do want to print them out, they will print regular-size through Photo-Shop.

Prince The Asshole, that one never saw the light of day but everybody knows it's true.

Great covers Justin! Thanks!

BorisFishpaw said: