KingSausage said:

Sure, sure, there are images. But now we need to know what it smelled like to believe there were CDs pressed. Derrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp. This fucking site sometimes. Oh lord.

darkroman said:

EnDoRpHn said:

OnlyNDaUsa said:

this is the one i have... under the sticker it says "Nelson"

http://the-black-album.in...cid=BO-002

[Edited 6/3/16 19:03pm]

That's a bootleg LP copy.

yeah i know i said i bought a bootleg and then i said that was the bootleg i got and I added info i did not see mentioned.

As as aside i used to do stuff for Warner Brothers, Disney, TOPPS cards, and Lucasfilm for counterfeit stuff.... the biggest get was counterfeit Star Wars Pogs. I got a call from George's secretary thanking me. He ended up giving them to one of his kids.

nonames said:

darkroman said:

I first read about this new album when it was promoted in the music press. Obviously this was long before the release was then cancelled.

.

Was it promoted as a Prince album? I mean, were fans aware at the time hat there was a new Prince album coming?

absolutely: It was on Mtv News. I remember Kurt Loder referred to it as a "funk album with X-RATED lyrics..." A few days/weeks later he announced it had been "Shelved indefinitely"



EDIT: it was not as far as I know promoted as Prince... but word got out and it was a news story.

Lore has it that it showed up as "coming soon" as "Album" by "Somebody"

[Edited 6/4/16 6:17am]

This is the vinyl version I bought back in 89. Quality was awful with made up names on the vinyl.

It didn't matter though cause I finally had a copy of the infamous album that I had never heard.

First time I had heard iamd and offs as well so it was pretty cool.

Oh. And I loved it btw!

[Edited 6/4/16 6:48am]

I have a CD that looks like the photos in post #59. It is buried in my apartment somewhere - I'll try to dig it up later. It has excellent sound quality and looks like an official pressing.

I am trying to remember where I got it. I knew about the Black Album and had been looking for it. Like other posters, the fact that we were told by Prince NOT to buy it made me want it even more! I am guessing I got it at a record show in or near Albany, NY because that's where I bought some other Prince bootlegs in the late 1980s. It didn't cost a ton (maybe $15?) and I was pleasantly surprised how good the CD sounded. I originally had the CD case, too, but I may have lost that during a move.

Anyway, I really liked (and still like) the album. I do kinda miss the days of having to track something down, rather than just buy it on ebay.

terrywastecake said:

This is the vinyl version I bought back in 89. Quality was awful with made up names on the vinyl.

It didn't matter though cause I finally had a copy of the infamous album that I had never heard.

First time I had heard iamd and offs as well so it was pretty cool.

Oh. And I loved it btw!

[Edited 6/4/16 6:48am]

A-haaa! Yes, this is the cover that was on my copy of the CD I bought in a store here in Wales. It was very early on in my Prince fandom, maybe 1991, and I was so happy I'd got hold of a copy. It was my first non-heavy metal bootleg, lol.

.

The thing was, when the store assistant handed it over to me, I opened it up (it wasn't even legit enough to be shrink-wrapped, lol) it had a completely different artist and title on the CD itself - it looked like a legit release from someone else. When I queried this with the assistant and highly sarcastically she said "Yes, that's why it's called a bootleg", cheeky cow, lol, I'd been buying bootlegs for years but this was the first time it was bootlegged to such an extent I bought it without even the correct name on it!

.

When I got it home it was obvious that the source was an LP (presumably the copy in the image above) as the sound quality wasn't the best - but I owned far worse. I didn't mind it as an album actually, although I prefer the 2nd half of the CD than the 1st half.

.

When I heard Bob George for the first time I understood why either Prince or Warners wanted the album shelved as it wasn't particularly commercial! I loved that tune though, still do. Of course, I loved the Camille flavoured tunes like Rock Hard in a Funky Place the best. The fact that Prince was using different characters on his albums just blew me away, I thought it was terrific.

.

Fun fact: I actually got hold of this copy of the Black Album before I bought LoveSexy, so I remember feeling very proud that I'd heard the albums in the correct order, lol. For years, when burning mix tapes or CDs of Prince, I'd always refer to this album for When 2 R In Love because of the bonkers 1-track sequence on Lovesexy as it was easier to rip, despite the shitty quality, ha-ha.

.

I was so bummed when it got an official release a short while later because I'd spent so much on the damn bootleg. So much so, I never did buy the official WB release.

.

I figured Prince would have been proud of me, in a fashion.

.

Nice memory refresh, thank u.

The whole "different artist/song title name" thing on the CD was a trick the bootleggers used to make sure that the discs were able to get through customs. I guess the artwork was easier to get through. I wish I could remember some of the funny names that I saw on CD's back then.

GirlBrother said:

Behold! The crappy bootleg CD.







I'm pretty certain that Kris Dawson (Chris Dawson?) was a major player in late 80s UK Prince fandom. I think the story went that he finally met Prince and Prince stared at him across a table and said nothing - for like ten minutes. HAHAHAHA!

I was 13 and it was spring break. My family took a roadtrip from Chicago to Orlando, and we tent camped at a Yogi Bear park. One day, we went to town looking for souvenirs. I found a record store and told the cashier guy how much I loved Prince. He put this hot purple and black bootleg cassette in my hand - I almost died of exitement.

.

My little friend and I sat on a blanket outside the tent that night, playing the tape over and over in my pink casio boombox. We had all the words learned in a week. Good times!

jaypotton said:

Chris Dawson was a "big player" in the UK Prince fan scene and owned a record shop (in Leeds I think). He co-founded Controversy magazine with Eileen Murton before going their separate ways. He then produced several rather lavish magazines called Crystal Ball including a very special Lovesexy commemorative issue (it was quite beautiful with very high production values, easily as good as the Lovesexy tour programme). At some point I think he went bankrupt and there were a lot of disgruntled Prince fans who had paid him for an event that Prince was supposed to be coming to but failed to show...might have that a bit wrong.

.

I recall a short interview with Chris in UK Esquire (IIRC) in the early 1990s, in which he talks about how he was invited to meet Prince and came away utterly disappointed and closed up shop. (Funny how so many Prince fan mags share similar experiences...)

.

There was a rumor he was behind that lavish magazine that published a lot of pyramids baloney and semi-spiritual nonsense (called "The Truth" IIRC) which got semi-authorized by Prince; they started offering subscriptions and then never released another magazine and never paid back subscribers, and Prince's organisation then pretended they never were involved with it.

.

[Edited 6/5/16 10:08am]

Kinda funny to be referred to as 'old timers' but I guess it applies.

.

Agree with earlier posts - the late 80s was awesome time to be hardcore into Prince - v exciting underground culture in tandem with official releases.

.

Cant rem where I first heard about it but I bought a poor quality cassette boot of black album on o'connell bridge in dublin in '88 for a few quid (maybe 5) - some guys used to have suitcases full of boot cassettes and sell them on the bridge - after purchase i listened to it then and there on the bridge on my walkman - it sounded so completely different to 'anything' else with its dead funky beat and was a real hit with me and my mates - we ran alternative music discos for a few years (the word disco seems so outdated now).

.

A few months later I saw an ad in the music press for an original vinyl copy of the black album for sale - it turned out to be a bootleg pressing but i bought it anyway i haggled cos i had virtually no money as a student and i got it for a much reduced price. The sound quality is very good.

.

i remember my brother for a short time was into the black album and was for a time a DJ on a regional radio station - he didnt give a monkeys and he played the entire black album on the radio one evening non stop - there were phone call complaints cos folks liked 'country n western in them there parts' but all they were hearing was 'bob george' and 'superfunkycalifragisexy'

.

I ended up with around 50 bootleg cassettes of unreleased tracks and live recordings - one i played a lot was lovesexy tour live - and another called chocolate box - i kept them all in storage until about 12 months ago - the tapes got old and didnt play well I had a big clear out and threw them all out - plus I rarely listened to them due to the quality not being as good as digital. i have some pics somewhere of them all.

[Edited 6/5/16 12:48pm]

[Edited 6/5/16 12:50pm]

BartVanHemelen said:

LEATHRSAIL said:

My feelings about this album then and now havent changed. I have been called out on this site for my view point and was called a liar. That posting my view point was spreading lies because it wasn't in any Per Nelson books <eye roll> I don't need someone to write a book to tell me what my viewpoint should be.

.

If your opinion is contradicted by FACTS, your opinion is wrong. You can claim the sky is green, but that doesn't make it so. Simple as that. Instead you continue to spread your long debunked nonsense as a possibility.

You and the other fool who have placed themselves as self appointed Prince police were not present during the conversations I had with my friends back in 1987. That is what this post is about. Conversations that are 30 years old. So the FACTS are true.... The conversations DID happen. They are facts. Now that Prince is gone. We will never know the truth on most of his music. He was never up front about anything. I take all books written on him with a grain of salt. I don't even take words that have come out of his mouth as to what he truly did, believed, or thought. He has said one thing and in time proved to be something different. The person who started this post asked for my thoughts on this. They got them. You don't like them? Move on.....

EnDoRpHn said:

BartVanHemelen said:

The master of the 1994 release is AFAIK exactly the same as the one used in 1987.

How would you know? The original was only pressed on vinyl. CD releases in the 1980s tended to follow LP releases by at least a few (if not several) months. IIRC, Lovesexy was his first album released directly to CD.

Respectfully, you could not be more incorrect. I mean, if you stick to your story, you can do that. But you'll be maneuvering in some self-concocted illusion, not the truth.

By the time SOTT came out, CDs were issued right along side vinyl, not after the fact. THey were the new trendy format, and people loved it. Record companies scurried to fill orders for CDs, as well as vinyl and cassette, until the cassette finally died off a few years later.

CDs had been on the market since 1985. By 1987 they were standard fare along side vinyl and cassettes. If you think The Black Album, what was to be another major Prince release like anything else, was only pressed on vinyl, then homework is required on your part. Do you really think something like 1999 CDs were sitting on the racks in 1988, but The Black Album wasn't going to be?

Then there's the pesky issue of people actually owning the original CDs. So - there's that.

TrivialPursuit said:

EnDoRpHn said:

BartVanHemelen said: How would you know? The original was only pressed on vinyl. CD releases in the 1980s tended to follow LP releases by at least a few (if not several) months. IIRC, Lovesexy was his first album released directly to CD.

Respectfully, you could not be more incorrect. I mean, if you stick to your story, you can do that. But you'll be maneuvering in some self-concocted illusion, not the truth.

By the time SOTT came out, CDs were issued right along side vinyl, not after the fact. THey were the new trendy format, and people loved it. Record companies scurried to fill orders for CDs, as well as vinyl and cassette, until the cassette finally died off a few years later.

CDs had been on the market since 1985. By 1987 they were standard fare along side vinyl and cassettes. If you think The Black Album, what was to be another major Prince release like anything else, was only pressed on vinyl, then homework is required on your part. Do you really think something like 1999 CDs were sitting on the racks in 1988, but The Black Album wasn't going to be?

Then there's the pesky issue of people actually owning the original CDs. So - there's that.

The first CD I remember being released was ATWIAD (1985) in the long box format. The long box folded out and had the lyrics were printed just like the vinyl version. The CD was in a cardboard folder. The CD inside this folder was wrapped in a white paper napkin like sleeve. The lettering was in the same font as the B-side of the vinyl version. This cardboard holder fit in a slot inside the long box holder. Most CD's came in a jewel case and you threw out the long box packaging. Overtime, people complained about the long box because they felt it was wasteful. So ATWIAD was reformatted to be sold in just a jewel case. The lyrics were in a booklet with white lettering on a black background. The CD was printed in black, not green like the first pressing. But was not in the standard WB label format. It still was in the same font the vinyl had. It was just in black. I have both versions in storage.

When the CD's for Purple Rain and earlier ones came out. They lacked the artwork that new releases were getting. I was disappointed that Purple Rain didn't have the same artwork the vinyl album had. 1999 was missing the song DMSR. The printing on the CD of Purple Rain and 1999 were in a standard format. They were missing the artwork label the vinyl version had. What I noticed that if a record company re-released an album on CD, it didn't get a special artwork pressing. It got a standard font printed label on the CD. So this is how I remember when the first album Prince's music was released on CD.

When The Black Album came out. The rumor going around was all copies were destroyed. Vinyl albums, tapes, and CD's. I never saw a 1987 pressing of The Black Album until the internet came along. What I was shocked to see is that is was missing the Paisley Park logo. Or even the WB logo. The WB lettering was there, just not the logo.

TrivialPursuit said:

EnDoRpHn said:

BartVanHemelen said: How would you know? The original was only pressed on vinyl. CD releases in the 1980s tended to follow LP releases by at least a few (if not several) months. IIRC, Lovesexy was his first album released directly to CD.

Respectfully, you could not be more incorrect. I mean, if you stick to your story, you can do that. But you'll be maneuvering in some self-concocted illusion, not the truth.

By the time SOTT came out, CDs were issued right along side vinyl, not after the fact. THey were the new trendy format, and people loved it. Record companies scurried to fill orders for CDs, as well as vinyl and cassette, until the cassette finally died off a few years later.

CDs had been on the market since 1985. By 1987 they were standard fare along side vinyl and cassettes. If you think The Black Album, what was to be another major Prince release like anything else, was only pressed on vinyl, then homework is required on your part. Do you really think something like 1999 CDs were sitting on the racks in 1988, but The Black Album wasn't going to be?

Then there's the pesky issue of people actually owning the original CDs. So - there's that.

The first Prince album released to CD on the ORIGINAL RELEASE DATE was Lovesexy. In the mid- to late-1980s, I regularly watched the Swann updates and Billboard to track new release street dates. It was not unusual to see flags indicating a CD-only release of an album issued months earlier. It was also not unusual to see catalog numbers and format flags indicating multi-format issues (LP/CD/CS, etc.) and then for the CD to be delayed after the street date, sometimes for just a week or two, but delayed nonetheless.

I got up early the day Lovesexy was released and walked to the local shop and was thrilled to see they had actual CDs in addition to cassettes and LPs. Purple Rain, ATWIAD, and Parade (not to mention the Madhouse CDs, Jill Jones, Ice Cream Castles, Jesse Johnson's Revue, etc.) were all released to CD months (if not years) after the original LP/cassette street date. I bought my first CD player in 1985, and hated the surface noise and fussiness of LPs, so I had no reason to buy LPs of those releases, except for the uncertainty of when (if ever) they would be released to CD. A great example is Andre Cymone's 1985 A.C. album (which contains The Dance Electric) -- despite indications to the contrary, it was never released on CD by Columbia (it would not see a CD release for over 25 years).

All of this misses the original point of my post, which was to say that the 1994 Black Album CD release suffers sonically in comparison to contemporary releases, such as Lovesexy. A simple comparison of When 2 R in Love from the 1994 Black Album CD and the original 1988 Lovesexy CD release bears this out. Bart asserted without any support that the 1994 release is sonically identical to the original 1987 CD pressing.

You all have too much time on your hands to be arguing about every damn thing said here. I realize it may take some effort, but stick to the main point under discussion. There are reasons that some of us spend time reading this site -- and it's not to argue trivialities.

MIInsane said:

EnDoRpHn said:

You all have too much time on your hands to be arguing about every damn thing said here. I realize it may take some effort, but stick to the main point under discussion. There are reasons that some of us spend time reading this site -- and it's not to argue trivialities.

1) You don't know me or my time, but that's cute.

2) Try that yourself - sticking to the point.

3) You must have a lot of time on your hands to read this site that much.

4) The Black Album was pressed on CD in 1987.

Spanky said:

MIInsane said:

The whole "different artist/song title name" thing on the CD was a trick the bootleggers used to make sure that the discs were able to get through customs. I guess the artwork was easier to get through. I wish I could remember some of the funny names that I saw on CD's back then.

My bootleg CD said it was an album called "A White Thing" by The King I totally didn't realize what they were doing with that title until I read this thread-HA!

So what were the contents? what was the quality?

I found a CD that said simply "Black Album" and which was all black, in a used wrecka stor in Vancouver in the late 80s. The sound quality was good, but the eq/mix was a little odd on some of the songs.

I thought it was a great album, and feel it should have been released. The Camille personality was very dominant on the album, and Prince may have been feeling that he was somehow possessed by this personality. Not releasing the album may have been a way of putting the Camille thing behind him.

Spanky said:

MIInsane said:

The whole "different artist/song title name" thing on the CD was a trick the bootleggers used to make sure that the discs were able to get through customs. I guess the artwork was easier to get through. I wish I could remember some of the funny names that I saw on CD's back then.

My bootleg CD said it was an album called "A White Thing" by The King I totally didn't realize what they were doing with that title until I read this thread-HA!

a friend had 3 cds: one was the black album it was called something like "Betsy's Boy In Black" on the CD itself but "Black Album" on the cover. I think it was just the normal 8 songs.

The other was 2cds of the Lovesexy Rotterdam show that was released on video, which was called "Betsy's Boy In White" on the CD but the cover said "White Album"

jaypotton said:

My dad has always been a Prince fanatic and paid an enormous sum at the time to buy what we still think is an original copy of the album. He had to make a special trip to London from Cornwall for it and paid hundreds of pounds. He also used to sell casette copies of it and The Chocolate Box at car boot sales and flea markets, for a couple of quid a pop, along with some Dylan and Beach Boys boots. I remember the Prince ones having poorly photocopied pictures on day-glo paper, and from memory it was green for the Black Album and orange for Choc Box.

Memory is a little hazy as I was 10 at the time...

jaypotton said:

GirlBrother said:

Behold! The crappy bootleg CD. [img:$uid]http://i.imgur.com/X0Uvad4.jpg[/img:$uid] [img:$uid]http://i.imgur.com/ZdcCzty.jpg[/img:$uid] [img:$uid]http://i.imgur.com/BLkSCDF.jpg[/img:$uid] I'm pretty certain that Kris Dawson (Chris Dawson?) was a major player in late 80s UK Prince fandom. I think the story went that he finally met Prince and Prince stared at him across a table and said nothing - for like ten minutes. HAHAHAHA!

Chris Dawson was a "big player" in the UK Prince fan scene and owned a record shop (in Leeds I think). He co-founded Controversy magazine with Eileen Murton before going their separate ways. He then produced several rather lavish magazines called Crystal Ball including a very special Lovesexy commemorative issue (it was quite beautiful with very high production values, easily as good as the Lovesexy tour programme). At some point I think he went bankrupt and there were a lot of disgruntled Prince fans who had paid him for an event that Prince was supposed to be coming to but failed to show...might have that a bit wrong.

"Things began to sour for Controversy when (reportedly) Prince wanted total editorial control of the fanzine. Eileen was even offered an office at Paisley Park. Not wanting to give up editorial control, let alone uproot herself from Croydon UK to Minneapolis USA Eileen refused. There was a falling out which led to the fanzine's subsequent demise."

http://www.thedawnexperience.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1267

electrodyne said:

Some questions for everyone: 1. Where, when & how did you first learn of & listen to The Black Album? What were your thoughts on it then-and-now? 2. Do any "old-timers" who traded or bought bootleg cassettes still have their cassettes & sleeves? What was story behind your cassette tape? If so, would anyone mind sharing hi-resolution pictures of your cassettes, please? It's for a project. Feel free to send a private message or post here.

I bought it on vinyl at a market stall in Camden, London - early 1988. Alarm bells should have rung loud when I asked to hear a bit of it, and the seller said that he couldn't because of police walking around (this was at a time when raids had happened in Camden Market on people selling bootlegs). Despite not being totally convinced by his excuse, eager to hear this album, I paid probably £10 for the bootleg. I'm pretty sure I ran home, beyond excited to play the disc. That excitement turned into extreme disappointment within seconds. It sounded like someone had put a Walkman down a toilet and recorded the sound of a distorted 4th generation copy of the album being played 7 metres away. I felt like an idiot. I had to wait a few months to get a tape of a decent copy of it. I do believe I smashed the record up a few days later.

Oh, that seller - he runs a record shop called Sister Ray in Berwick Street. I grimace every time I pass it on my travels in Soho.

I actually have two Black Albums (both CDs)

One is the official WB 1994 release.

The other I bought earlier at a used record store in 1992 or 1993. It is a Black Album/Crystal Ball bootleg.

The track listing of the bootleg as it appears on the back of CD (there is no front cover insert):

BLACK ALBUM

1. Le Grind 6:42

2. Cindy C. 6:14

3. Dead On It 4:35

4. When Two R In Love 4:12

5. Bob George 5:36

6. Superfunkycalifragisexy 5:55

7. 2 Nigs United 4 West Compton 7:00

8. Rockhard In A Funky Place 4:30

CRYSTAL BALL

9. Witness 3:50

10. Wonderfull Ass 6:12

11. If U Break My Heart 1 More Time 2:57

12. Moviestar 4:11

13. She Wants A Place In Heaven 2:56

14. Girl of My Dreams 1:36

15. Can't Stop 2:07

16. We Can Funk 5:32

The CD is of middling quality, sometimes poor, but its audible.

Only 2 of the Crystal Ball tracks appear on the offical Crystal Ball release

There's a sticker on the CD that says "Made In Germany."

I rememeber hearing about The Black Album around 1991 - learned that it was an aborted album and that Sign O' The Times, Crystall Ball, Dream Factory, and the Black Album (at least 3 of the 4) were all related in some form or another. I remember reading about it in some music magazine.

[Edited 6/7/16 20:56pm]

[Edited 6/7/16 21:25pm]