A great set, but the turning point in Prince's career as to how he treats his fans. We slowly learned how he loved to taunt us with what he's NOT giving us. OH, you like outtakes? Here's a remix of Dark. FUNKY! And then I'll announce Crystal Ball 2, then take it away... then here's Welcome 2 The Dawn - ACOUSTIC! Cuz you can't handle the real one!

He then did this shit with the Rebirth of the Flesh - REHEARSAL!, a half-assed remake of Extraloveable, Madrid 2 Chicago, Chocolate Box, "The Divine", the songs mentioned on 3rd Eye Girl that never came to be.

It's like we're supposed to get all horny because he gets to listen to Katrina's Paper Dolls all day and we don't! Dick.

Love Poom Poom, so silly.

billymeade said:

A great set, but the turning point in Prince's career as to how he treats his fans. We slowly learned how he loved to taunt us with what he's NOT giving us. OH, you like outtakes? Here's a remix of Dark. FUNKY! And then I'll announce Crystal Ball 2, then take it away... then here's Welcome 2 The Dawn - ACOUSTIC! Cuz you can't handle the real one!

He then did this shit with the Rebirth of the Flesh - REHEARSAL!, a half-assed remake of Extraloveable, Madrid 2 Chicago, Chocolate Box, "The Divine", the songs mentioned on 3rd Eye Girl that never came to be.

It's like we're supposed to get all horny because he gets to listen to Katrina's Paper Dolls all day and we don't! Dick.

Love Poom Poom, so silly.

reply #25 and #26 William

Lot's of great music, a few terrible remixes, horrible sequencing and several bad segues into tracks.

I listened to it fully in one sitting just once.

bob dylan bootlegs all fuckin day long mf .. u can't respect dylan than ur opinion is poo

dylans done some crap but nothing as 2live crew stoopid as p control or hide da bone ..

tons of artists put out great boot material official and unofficial .. prince fans live under a rock

Genesia said:

Loved it then...love it now.

Except for PoomPoom. And Animal Kingdom.

2 of my favorite songs!!! I mean, yeah, they are both absolutely, ridiculously absurd. But man, I love them. "4:59, could you be so fine, as to drink a little faster, so I could...so I could...so I could find..."

"Thinkin' about yr....empty poom poom!"

And then the classic: "No funky, funky blue cheese!"

Definitely not songs I would play to prove the brilliance of Prince. But definitely songs that never fail to make me smile and dance and feel all warm and gooey.

Fantastic set. Thankfully I didn't get caught up in Prince's games, and I just waited until it was in the stores and bought it. My favorites? Pretty much the entire thing is awesome, but the cream of the crop is:

Dream Factory

Love Sign remix (by far the best version, this would've been a hit if released properly)

2morrow

So Dark

Calhoun Square

Crucial

Strays of the World

Last Heart

Goodbye

Circle of Amour

3rd Eye

TrevorAyer said:

bob dylan bootlegs all fuckin day long mf .. u can't respect dylan than ur opinion is poo

dylans done some crap but nothing as 2live crew stoopid as p control or hide da bone ..

tons of artists put out great boot material official and unofficial .. prince fans live under a rock

who said I didnt respect Dylan mutherfucker? did u read what wrote where I said I did respect etc or are you just doing your usual angry unrecongized musician bullshit steeze again? Miss me with that bullshit because as I said: aint nobody here tryna here no fucking Bob Dylan bootlegs over Prince.

Learn to fucking read before you talk shit which I already covered in my posts.

You gatdmaned guitar strings are too friggin tight Trevor.

.

[Edited 4/3/13 22:09pm]

I listen off and on. I listened last week and this week. Crucial is one of my all time faves, (love the falsetto), so I listen to that one along with Goodbye a lot. Cloreen, What's My Name, & The Ride, are some other picks. Movie Star is fun, always makes me laugh. I do listen to Tell Me How U How U Wanna B Done, Love Sign, Calhoun Square and Strays Of The World but not as much as the others.

[Edited 4/3/13 21:54pm]

Some of his best stuff is on that set. Hell, some of the best music ever made is on that set.

The sequencing is indeed horrible, but had he put all the SOTT era tracks on one disc it would have made his current albums look pretty damn poor in comparison (especially NPS that was about to get released then). I've always thought it was a deliberate effort to mask that aspect of it.

That's not to say the 90s stuff on it would be bad either and most of those songs were actually better than what followed the set's release.

Hmm. Paragraph spaces don't seem to work on the site at the moment.

This is a pretty serious issue.

TrevorAyer said:

bob dylan bootlegs all fuckin day long mf .. u can't respect dylan than ur opinion is poo

dylans done some crap but nothing as 2live crew stoopid as p control or hide da bone ..

tons of artists put out great boot material official and unofficial .. prince fans live under a rock

the only people who live under a rock are clowns who make false claims, get proven wrong and stubbornly refuse to admit it. Plus they while alot. Hint: you know who i am talking about.

Overall there are about 10 good songs on the album IMO. Crucial, Interactive, Last Heart, She Gave Her Angels, Dream Factory, The Ride, Crystal Ball. Stuff like "Acknowledge Me" and "Ripopgodizippa" isn't great but they are fun to listen to every now and then.

Crucial IMO is one of the very best songs he has ever done. Period.

Unfortunately i am not a big fan of the rest of the set. Its not bad but the rest of the songs aren't brilliant like Crucial or exciting like Interactive. Like Emancipation, some serious quality control was needed.

hhhhdmt said:

Overall there are about 10 good songs on the album IMO. Crucial, Interactive, Last Heart, She Gave Her Angels, Dream Factory, The Ride, Crystal Ball. Stuff like "Acknowledge Me" and "Ripopgodizippa" isn't great but they are fun to listen to every now and then.

Crucial IMO is one of the very best songs he has ever done. Period.

Shame it's butchered and not the full version. That fade out on the guitar solo is a crying shame. More Prince dickery.

i prefer crucial with saxophone, IMO it suits the song better.

GiggityGoo said:

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.

I was pretty pissed. There was the big positive of having about 7 or 8 songs I had never heard before. Getting the Truth was Forever Awesome. The bad? 3 Cds worth of music spread on 5 cds? He may as well have released it as 50 songs on 50 cds. One cd per song. To this day, very few in the industry seem to understand that cds hold 80 minutes of music.

It's worth buying it for Get Loose alone

That mix of Crucial sucks too

haven't listened to it all for a while

i still love the drum groove on cloreen bacon skin... after all this time i'm not sick of it... it's simple perfection to me like zep's levee breaks

jaimestarr79 said:

I think the official crystal ball smokes any non official demos or boots circulating out there. Give me something better so I can listen and compare it too.

NouveauDance said:

jaimestarr79 said:

I think the official crystal ball smokes any non official demos or boots circulating out there. Give me something better so I can listen and compare it too.

jaimestarr79 said:

I can't believe people didn't like the remixes of "tell me how u wanna be done" and " Love Sign". I thought they were both better than original. I like get loose too. Normally I don't like songs like that. I didn't like ever song but for a three disk set it was pretty good. the Truth disc was garbage. and kamasutra was cool for mellow music. I give him credit for attempting kamasutra. there would be a market for kamasutra if he would of promoted it right.with no dis repect to bob dylan...you can't compare bob dylan and prince. I give dylan credit for him protesting the war,etc. But I don't know how anybody can really get down to his music. Like I said lyrical content may be there but music sound is not my thing.Do people really enjoy dylan's music or are they just trying to make a statement by saying they are big dylan fans? if your a dylan fan....enlighten me. tell some of his jams so I can check them out.

You think The Truth was garbage but that there could be a market for Kamasutra...orchestral music with stock sounds of scissors cutting? And you prefer getting remixes of stuff you already have to getting legendary unreleased songs from the past that only exist in hissing, garbled quality?

God bless all us people who endure Prince's madness and for the crazy opinions each of us have.

A lot of you made a great point, it really was worthless for him to release remixes and edits of songs that had been released already.

I remember the point being brought up on a message board (I can't remember if it was on PPML or here), but everyone kept saying that he supposedly has hundreds of unrealesed songs and for him to release remixes as part of the album was a waste.

I think it would have worked better if he had released CB as a 3 cd set, added in The Truth and switched out Kamasutra for a remix cd/ep. After him releasing Kamasutra on cassette, that was more than enough.

It was the counterpoint to Emancipation.

I loved it on first listen, I hated Emancipation on first listen. CB is exciting, Emancipation is bland. I grew to like CB less with each listen, (certain songs aside) I liked Emancipation more and more as I listened. Emancipation was smooth and perfect, CB was jagged and uneven. CB has several classics. Emancipation arguably has no classics.

It's the funniest thing...I was cleaning my room yesterday and I found this Crystal Ball set under my bed I had totally forgot about it! Haven't played it in years.

It's an interesting set with some truly great songs ("Hide The Bone","Da Bang","Ripopgodazippa","Movie Star") but it has its share of flaws.I would have preferred more of the pre-Purple Rain outtakes....stuff like "Extra Lovable","Purple Music",etc....the good stuff!!

Plus,it's a messy,unorganized collection with alot of unnecessary remixes and an inferior live version of "Days Of Wild" (I'm one of the few fans who prefers the studio version,lol).

But when it's good,it's very good.Such a shame that he hasn't released a follow-up set.

rdhull said: