I just got through listening to this this morning. It has been ages. And even then, in ages, I never really listened ot it all at once like a big gulp (props to 7 -11..get a slurpee this weekend yall..cherry). The songs always come on in my shuffle but I usually skip them because I did not appreciate the songs.

Something rmeinded me yesterday about a song on it, and immediatey became ostalgic for its clean production. To hell with the criticisms about its lack of true bootleggage material that folks actually wanted. I realized I had a 3 cd set that was never really listened to.

Hell I een grew to love Good Love now. That lyrc where he states every stroke is like 4th Of July and it sounds so ..happy.

It all flows together too..like the songs were all made in one session or sessions.

Hell, even Cloreen went by quick. Even the back then was wack songs such as Loose, Love Sign remix etc are ok when taken all at once in the bunch.

So Crystal Ball..here is my official apology for neglecting you. Please forgive me.

For starters, I think those of us who were around and following Prince when this set was released primarily think of the debacle that surrounded it before appreciating its contents. I remember making a call to cancel my preorder and being asked "Why are you cancelling it?" and answering with "because I just came home from Best Buy and bought it." My pre-order became a post-order, and even the rep's feable attempt to upsell me on the fact that my pre-order would include "Kamasutra" while my storebought copy did not was laughable - I appreciate the set more WITHOUT "Kamasutra" than with it - what a mess. There's a reason that 5th disc was included for free.

Content wise, there are undoubtable gems that span all three disks. Just having "Crystal Ball" and "Dream Factory" at the time for me made it worth the time, trouble, and expense. I do think Prince missed another golden opportunity to reward his most ardent followers with a set that lived up to the "Crystal Ball" we all already knew about. Instead, it's a collections of songs, a Prince-made "bootleg," some great, some totally throwaway IMHO. It's a mixed blessing, but again full of enough great material to offset the pain the ass it was to get it and to overlook its shortfalls. (Print my own lyric booklet and put it inside my "Crystal Ball" that was a cheap piece of plastic crap? Uh, no.)

Highlights for me:

Crystal Ball

Dream Factory

Hide the Bone

Movie Star

Da Bang

What's My Name

Crucial

Sexual Suicide

Last Heart

Hitting rock bottom for me:

Love Sign remix

Days of Wild - how about the studio version? Not enough room for that on 3 discs?

Get Loose

Tell Me How U Want 2 B Done

For me, its parts are often wonderful, but it was put together so carelessly that it hurt the entire package.

Inclusion of The Truth was a lifesaver.

[Edited 4/3/13 10:50am]

I LOVED Crystal Ball when it was first release. Like Doozer pointed out, I think a lot of people have a bad taste in their mouthes because of the 1-800-NEW-FUNK disaster that happened. Aside from that, I think the album (as a whole) is really good.

I LOVE this set. I still listen to this on a regular basis. I don't have a ton of unreleased stuff so most of this was new to me at the time. I almost shit a brick the first time I heard Crystal Ball. I almost shit twice and died after Dream Factory. Most songs are killer and the only ones I wasnt crazy about were the remixes. But even those arent TOO bad. I DID wish there was more stuff from the 80's...but I am not complaining...Da Bang is on of the coolest songs he ever did imo. I also avoided the whole phone order fiasco and bought it in the store so I never got burned. I get why people might have a bad taste because of that as I did the whole Lotusflower website dupe and it definitely took the wind of the sails on that release.

Poplife88 said:

...Da Bang is on of the coolest songs he ever did imo.

This. 3rd Eye Girl would be suited to this song.

I wonder if he's ever played it live anywhere? I think he forgets what songs he's put out officially or not to be honest.

[Edited 4/3/13 11:44am]

I am not a big bootleg person, so I had heard none* of the songs on Crystal Ball upon it's release. To me, it was like a generous smattering of all sorts of Princey goodness...some was great right away, some songs took years of listening before I really appreciated them ("Honest Man").

*I had "Good Love" on the Bright Lights, big city soundtrack. The CB version is shortened and that irritated me.

[Edited 4/3/13 11:39am]

I meant ot mention that yes, the debacle of the online fiasco is what tainted my listening to it previously. The songs were always centered and related to that year and oh what a year. So after all of this time I actually gave it a chance as the online fiasco is long over. I didnt have a problem with my order as some did but thats when I started looking online and saw all the complaints and such.

Well, thats over. Not excused, but its over. So now I can listen with more objective ears if you will.

And like Skywalker mentioned, I was not aware of 99% of these songs being available elsewhere or in iforms, or even of their existence. So it is less semantic to me overall in that I dont have the "oh this version sucks" mentality to mar my subjecitve listening pleasure.

Make Your Moms happy, Last Heart, and Sexual Suicide are all jams I appreicate for the 1986 Revolution feel..Sexual Suice sounds like it could be right next door to Life Could Be So Nice imo

As big of a rambling mess that "Crystal Ball" was, I will forever love it for introducing me to the incredible song "Crucial". I must have listened to that one track a zillion times over the years.

And then, when I discovered there was a LONGER version, with more GUITAR, I just had to have it. And I do. And it's awesome.

Is it just me and Safari/Chrome/Firefox, or does this thread suffer greatly from the lack of being able to put a couple returns in a row to break up your thoughts into reasonably readable chunks?

Doozer said:

Is it just me and Safari/Chrome/Firefox, or does this thread suffer greatly from the lack of being able to put a couple returns in a row to break up your thoughts into reasonably readable chunks?

That is happening to me too.

Ghetto azzed website. The landlord is a slumlord.

I don't enjoy it as a set, it just makes no sense to me - beat the bootleggers, great - so beat them don't ape them.

A good slab of the tracks are great, I like that it became an old folks home for all the great Come/Gold odds n ends, but it's uneven and disappointing as a set overall.

Great set IMHO.

Still listen every other month or so.

I never listened to it in its full, only know some songs, because there is actually a lot of filler. But there are a lot of tracks, so can't blame him.

Crystal ball is great of course,

wish it had the full version of dream factory on it, amazing song.

Crusial rocks,

Hide the bone is very funky, i use it a lot to workout to.

good life I already knew from to soundtrack, and it's the best song on ths set, it has everything I like about Prince...the voice, the dogs sounds, the madness.

oh and I love Last heart, it's great to have a clear version of it, it's perfect popsong.

Most remixes are terrible, they all take the energy away from the original. They are all typical 90's remixes, but compare Love sign to the original. But Love sign was already released.

Pussy control, tell me how you wanna be done both stink, get loose is really a waste of space.

So dark is cool, but the Come version is much better.

The Kamasutra stuff is a real miss, I like that he tries to go classical, but it's to simple and well it's all keyboards, would be nice if he had used a real orchestra.

Can't say I've ever bothered going through it in its entirety. I was really excited to finally get it a few years ago and almost instantly I found myself moving through to the next track before one had finihed. It has some awesome tracks, don't get me wrong, but as a set, it sucks!

It was a disappointment. I had never heard any unreleased Prince songs before the album was released but I knew that tons of them existed. I was expecting pre-Purple Rain "Old Prince" era stuff before he became all artsy/fartsy with the horns and strings. I was immediately happy with "Cloreen Bacon Skin", even though it was a longer sounding version of "Tricky". I was also happy with "Hide The Bone", "Sexual Suicide", and "Crucial" even though they weren't the era I wanted but they still sounded great.

I immediately didn't care for "Crystal Ball" and "Dream Factory". I just saw it as a continuation of more artsy/fartsy Prince from the "Parade" era. Stuff like "Good Love" and "Movie Star", I could take or leave. "Interactive" and "Days Of Wild" were good but they were present day Prince so I didn't feel like I had something unreleased. I just simply felt like I had a new B Side of that era. Those remixes of "Dark" and "Pussy Control", he should have left off because they sounded absolutely horrible, especially the remix of "Dark" which sounded like some modern day shit hop/neo stool bullshit that everyone else was making at the time and is still making.

Overall, the majority of it just didn't feel like it was bootleg or unreleased material because when I think of unreleased or classic Prince, I think...."Damn, I'd love to hear some unreleased classic "Old" Prince"....and when I think of "Old Prince", I think pre-Purple Rain Prince. After "Purple Rain", Prince doesn't even seem like he's the same person that he previously was.

[Edited 4/3/13 13:19pm]

How many other artist has released a set like this?

NouveauDance said:

Graycap23 said:

Graycap23 said:

How many other artist has released a set like this?

Not many of any.

Thats another thing I wanted to mention. I kind of also thought of this thread because on another board there was this poll Bowie vs Prince...someone said the new Bowie was better than anything Pronce had done in the past quarter century. Made me think of CB..the ong itself puts him above mos artists..espeically that meat n potatoes rnb funk of Rick James and other funkateers

CB the song itself is on some eclectic out there vibe

But the set as a whole with so many songs and styles and such....regardless of its origin or connection with its distribution and bootleg lore and disappointments, an artists creating songs of this status and diversity is testimony to his greatness.

Bow the fuck down bitches.

rdhull said:

Graycap23 said:

How many other artist has released a set like this?

Not many of any.

Thats another thing I wanted to mention. I kind of also thought of this thread because on another board there was this poll Bowie vs Prince...someone said the new Bowie was better than anything Pronce had done in the past quarter century. Made me think of CB..the ong itself puts him above mos artists..espeically that meat n potatoes rnb funk of Rick James and other funkateers

CB the song itself is on some eclectic out there vibe

But the set as a whole with so many songs and styles and such....regardless of its origin or connection with its distribution and bootleg lore and disappointments, an artists creating songs of this status and diversity is testimony to his greatness.

Bow the fuck down bitches.

I happen 2 listen 2 the entire set one day and played another certain artist BEST of set. Prince's outakes KILLED the other other artist Best of set. I was surprised by that and my intention was not 2 compare.

SuperSoulFighter said:

Graycap23 said:

How many other artist has released a set like this?

Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series is up to vol.9 by now. All live CDs and outtakes centered around a specific period. Wonderful stuff with a lot more thought behind it than Crystal Ball.

yeah but who really...really..wants ot hear Bob Dylan bootlegs?

I mean he is a top ten artists of all time

but fuck ..yall know good and well you dont want to put on no damn Bob Dylan boots at the bbq..when your outside etc

yall would rather have that unreleased perfect sound of a Extraloveable and such

which is why follks were mad..that this set didint contain the primal shit of Prince..yall FEEN for that shit..nobody feens for Sprngsteen, Dylan, or whomever like they do Prince

yall go on and listen to Bob Dylan series no 17..Im go over here and talk to this girl (c) Morris

SuperSoulFighter said:

Graycap23 said:

How many other artist has released a set like this?

Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series is up to vol.9 by now. All live CDs and outtakes (double and triple) centered around a specific period. Wonderful stuff with a lot more thought behind it than Crystal Ball. [Edited 4/3/13 13:30pm]

Nice. I wish the artist that I dig had such a thing.

Graycap23 said:

rdhull said:

Not many of any.

Thats another thing I wanted to mention. I kind of also thought of this thread because on another board there was this poll Bowie vs Prince...someone said the new Bowie was better than anything Pronce had done in the past quarter century. Made me think of CB..the ong itself puts him above mos artists..espeically that meat n potatoes rnb funk of Rick James and other funkateers

CB the song itself is on some eclectic out there vibe

But the set as a whole with so many songs and styles and such....regardless of its origin or connection with its distribution and bootleg lore and disappointments, an artists creating songs of this status and diversity is testimony to his greatness.

Bow the fuck down bitches.

I happen 2 listen 2 the entire set one day and played another certain artist BEST of set. Prince's outakes KILLED the other other artist Best of set. I was surprised by that and my intention was not 2 compare.

Oh, I know YOU werent comparing..I was just making it a juming point to what was going on elsewhere and to make a point of how I even thought of listening to CB and making the thread itself

rdhull said:

Graycap23 said:

I happen 2 listen 2 the entire set one day and played another certain artist BEST of set. Prince's outakes KILLED the other other artist Best of set. I was surprised by that and my intention was not 2 compare.

Oh, I know YOU werent comparing..I was just making it a juming point to what was going on elsewhere and to make a point of how I even thought of listening to CB and making the thread itself

I found it funny how Prince's outakes were better.

That says a lot.

Loved it then...love it now.

Except for PoomPoom. And Animal Kingdom.

I think I can summarize this way:

----

It's a set comprised of brilliant tracks that never made albums, mixed with tracks that were never considered for albums and come off as filler. All tracked by a brilliant musician who is a questionable album sequencer and a far worse businessman.

----

I'd apologize to the set for the inclusion of Crystal Ball alone - though I wish it wasn't edited from the 14-generation copy I had already heard. I was expecting Prince unleashed, and instead I got edits of songs I longed for (Crystal Ball, Movie Star) mixed with extended versions of songs I never cared for (Tell Me How U Want 2 Be Done - I just want it to be done).

----

It's 3 disks long, so there's bound to be highs and lows, and I never hated the set for the process it took to get into my hands. It's just like Prince ran Woot for a day and this is the collection that shipped in the Bag of Crap they sometimes offer - More than enough to love and make you happy you bought in, but littered with things you know were included because it was just too easy.

----

I think it also is a good illustration of how the present consumes Prince more than the past ever will. He can't look at work he's done in the past that has never surfaced and see it as more important or relevant than whatever is tickling his fancy at the moment.

Still disslike it to this day....smh