Crystal Ball

What did I like about Crystal Ball? Well, a collection of previously vaulted material is a treasure of course. It was a joy listening to songs like Crystal Ball and Sexual Suicide in top of the notch sound quality. It blew me away. Also, the given info was great to read.

But there is always a but. To me it was horrid to listen to songs I love in edited form. Not one song we previously knew was untouched. Dream Factory was empty without Wendy & Lisa’s input, Crystal Ball missed some parts, as did Moviestar. Crucial and Good Love were edited in length.

Also, the info given was riddled with mystery. It takes away the fun. I would love to see Prince give his fans some info on the old recordings like The Beatles did with their Anthology releases. State title, recording info and then tell a story about the song.
About how it came into this world, under what circumstances. And that, with the beautiful photography I know is out there, the booklet should be a joy to thumb through.

And the last critique I want to give is that the Crystal Ball collection seems a bit hotspotch. It is all over the place. The songs are rudely segued into one another and the choice of songs seems a bit erratic.

Could I do this better? Only with the help of Prince, I guess. And being so harsh about the Crystal Ball release I am sure I can forget it. But let me give you an idea of what I have in mind.

The Profile Series

First, let’s get rid off the title Crystal Ball. It is a title meant for a project that was cancelled and now that it was used once, it kinda lost it’s meaning.
The new title should be Profile. It uses letters from the word Prince, but also implies a collection of old material, instead of new material.

Crystal Ball was, in my opinion, erratic. How to deal with this? Easy. Prince has done so many diverse things, it’s easy to think of.
Make strong song selections in one theme. Themes are real easy.

Outtakes. Like All My Dreams and Possessed.
Unedited versions. Like The Beautiful Ones and Dream Factory.
Demo’s. Like Tick Tick Bang and Strange Relationship.
Satellites. Songs Prince recorded for other artists like Sheena Easton’s 101.
Live material. Like entire tourdates or the best from one kind of music (covers/blues).
Remixes. Released stuff and new stuff by hip young dj’s like Björk does.
Music recorded for movies. Mia Bocca instrumental. And scores.
Rehearsals. Hear a song take shape.
Jams. Soul Psychedelicide. Billie’s Sunglasses. White Girls.
And In The Works singles. Different version of one song. Feel U Up.

After the songs are chosen, the info about them should be gathered. Info by Prince, the band members, the recording engineers. How swell that would be? The right pictures, to fit the right era and voila; Profile takes shape.

How cool would it be if Prince would let someone he trusts into his vault and let that person compile something for him, with him. I am sure Prince’s vaulted material would not conflict with his new music. He can take his new music out on the streets; tour with it, release it through retail.
And his vaulted material would get it’s release on the internet. It would not conflict, I am sure. Would it get them crazy fans off his back? Again, I am sure. But it would also give him exposure. How many people are waiting for some top of the notch live material? His new fans might not know his past. His old fans are craving it.

And then I am not even talking about striking that golden deal with Warner Bros.
The deal that states that together they will re-release all Prince’s old material. Remastered, with new liner notes, more photos and including b-sides, demo’s and maybe outtakes.
After which WB makes money one more time and then transfers the masters to Paisley Park.

Imagine a Purple Rain triple album; the original remastered album with b-sides. A second disc with unedited versions and maybe outtakes. And a third disc with Wendy Melvoin’s first public outing with The Revolution.
Uhmmmmm.

Dream on? U tell me. Don’t ever lose your dreams…..

I've said it before, and so help me i'll say it again.

It was a shame that he put all those great 80's tracks on the same disc as (a lot of) those horrible 90's tracks, especilaly those remixes, with lame R&B Dance beats and on top of that edited them too. If disc 1 would have contained only undedited 80's stuff and disc 2 only 90's stuff with disc 3 filled live material and remixes Crystal ball would have been a much better compilation.

I think we'd all like to hear some more songs from the vault in top sound quality. However I read somewhere that it is likely a lot of the recordings aren't much better than the quality of the bootlegs, Prince just quickly putting something onto tape like an audio memo.

I think Prince would rather be known by his uptodate recordings rather than songs made 10, 20 years ago. If he thought they were finished to his satisfaction, he would probably have already put them out. He might have to put a lot of work into getting them polished up, and he'd rather put that effort into new stuff.

It's a lot like an artist, with sketches done for a painting. You don't necessarily want to be critiqued on half-finished sketches, rather the finished article. And it is upto the artist, not the fans, to decide when a painting is done.

That's just my theory on why another Crystal Ball hasn't been forthcoming - but I think Prince will eventually do something along those lines again.

You notice how there's been a lack of new bootlegs from recent years? Seems Prince has finally managed to put a lid on all the stuff leaking out.

He wont ever let anyone else into his vaults to compile stuff like that because he has a 'thing' about his material being portrayed in the right way and it'll only be seen in the right way if he does it himself.

As for CRYSTAL BALL.....well personally when it came out I was so excited I almost shit myself HAHA!!!!! Seriously, it was just full of incredible material and promising features!!!!

However, because I know the background around the original CRYSTAL BALL and DREAM FACTORY projects I kind of felt some of the other included tracks wrecked the album as they didn't really belong on there. It should have been an album of tracks originally intended for those 2 albums and surrounding projects of 1986-1987 (Parade, Sign The Times, Black Album) and nothing else!! Tracks like CRUCIAL, POWER FANTASTIC, BIG TALL WALL, GOOD LOVE, MOVIE STAR, IN ALL MY DREAMS, THERE'S OTHERS HERE WITH US..... etc etc!!!!!

The compilation starts fantastically going from CRYSTALL BALL into DREAM FACTORY but then it goes slightly erratic including tracks like the 1993 ACKNOWLEDGE ME and then into tracks like LOVESIGN (DMSR Remix), HIDE THE BONE, RIPOPGODAZIPPA etc etc which were recorded YEARS later and even after he changed his name to so therefore have NOTHING to do with the original project!!!!!

Of course, it's great having more previously unreleased material from ANY era but it needs to be compiled properly so it 'makes sense'.

Even though they were out of place I was pleased they included remixes of (LEMME C THAT BODY GET) LOOSE!, P. CONTROL (Club Remix) etc etc but it would have been better suited on an entirely different album/project which could have also included tracks from THE VERSACE EXPERIENCE and remixes etc.

Don't get me wrong, the CRYSTAL BALL set is amazing but it's just disorganised.

The best part of it, in my view, was the inclusion of the 4th disc THE TRUTH which has to be among some of the best work he has EVER done!!!!! Sheer genuis and heavenly!!!!!

I would have loved tracks like: THE GRAND PROGRESSION, BABY GO-Go, MOONBEAM LEVELS, ELECTRIC INTERCOURSE, POSSESSED, BILLY, HEAVEN, ALL U CAN DO IS...., PURPLE MUSIC, POOR LITTLE BASTARD, WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION.... etc etc to have been released too!!!!!

I mean, how the hell did amazing pieces of genius like THE GRAND PROGRESSION, ELECTRIC INTERCOURSE & MOONBEAM LEVELS slip thru the net so badly and never get released?????!!!!! It shocks me!!!!!

And YES there are SOOOOO many beautiful photos and pieces of artwork that could have been used for the booklet but it was just so empty and didn't have any pictures at all!!!!! Dissapointing!!!!!

He seems to start so many projects and ideas only to just give them up or let them go as quickly as they came about!!!!!

I'd LOVE remastered versions of all his albums, like they've done with DAVID BOWIE, THE BEATLES, ELTON JOHN etc etc....including bonus material and artwork!!!!!

Imagine 2 CD sets of PURPLE RAIN, PARADE, 1999, LOVESEXY, , AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAY..... etc!!!!!

I just wish he'd get down to it and release some of this stuff cos it'll be so sad if we have to wait till he's dead before we hear this stuff, as has happened with people like Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix, Marc Bolan etc.

Come on Mr Prince.....we're waiting!!!!!

This is what it's like in the Dream Factory!!!!!

Crystal Ball II came Soooo close to being released, and so did a video compilation of tracks
from Crystal Ball I & II. But alas it wasn't to be (and probably never will).

BorisFishpaw said:

Oh god Boris, yer KILLING me. THE PAIN, THE PAIN!!!

When did it almost come out? Do you know why it didn't? Do you know why it will probably never be released? Has Prince made comments indicating that he won't release the vault tracks?

Oh shit I can only imagine what was on there...think about how much joy that would create all over the world for the purple underground, and he's just sitting on it. Songs save lives. It's like he doesn't realize the power of his own music.

theblueangel said:

Crystal Ball II was started in 1999, and carried on being assembled in 2000 (and the compilation
video was being put together at the same time). The full tracklisting for Crystal Ball II is not
known, but it was going to include the following tracks, amongst others...

Electric Intercourse
Love & Sex
Xtralovable
3 Nigs Watchin' A Kung Fu Movie
Evolsidog
Adonis & Batsheeba
Eye Wonder
Others Here With Us
American Jam
Lust U Always
Strange Way of Saying Eye Love U
Everybody Wants What They Don't Got
Girl 'O'My Dreams
U're All Eye Want
Turn It Up
Kiss - Xtended Version (never released b4)
Katrina's Paper Dolls

The above tracks were voted for by fans at the first Celebration (out of a list of 22 tracks).
But by the time this 'vote' was instigated, the album had already started to be sequenced. So
the voting would only have a marginal effect on the finished album. It's pretty safe to assume
that the 17 tracks listed would have made it onto the finished album.

The main reason it was shelved was Prince's new religious beliefs. A lot of the material Prince
now deemed too racy (particularly a lot of the videos), and he also felt the need to 'leave the
past in the past' as well, regardless of lyrical content.

Back when he started his online shop (1-800 New Funk), I hoped he might actually use it to sell some of his old material. He could've put CD's like The Undertaker, Dream Factory, Madhouse: 24 and such up for sale in there, exclusively, like he later did with Rave In2 The Joy Fantastic. But he did no such thing, using the store mostly to sell merchandise like earrings and briefs.

He always did have a bad business sense. Instead of earning money on his old, unreleased albums himself, bootleggers are earning money off 'em.

As for Crystal Ball, it was a mess. I'm sure Crystal Ball II would have been no better, so...

Sometimes you have to know when to step back and trust others to do good work. I think he should drop the control issue a bit, give Per Nielsen the keys to the Vault and let him pick out tracks for a chronological presentation of unreleased tracks/versions spanning Prince's entire career. At this point, such a retrospective could only help Prince further the mainstream success he seems so intent on reclaiming these days. And it would be fitting for the 20th anniversary of Purple Rain. Not only would such a collection cash in on it, but I'm sure it would be a critical success as well.

So in the end, everybody would win - even Prince.

Oh, well... one can dream. :

scififilmnerd said:

UR SOOOO RIGHT!!!!! Per Nilsen would do a superb job!!!!! He knows what we want and would arrange everything to make sense like he does with his fantastic books and stuff!!!!!

scififilmnerd said:

Me too....

Can I lay down next to you and cuddle up?

We could dream together...

BorisFishpaw said:

Love ya Boris.

Thanks

. Dream Factory was empty without Wendy & Lisa’s input, Crystal Ball missed some parts, as did Moviestar. I didn't even know that
I want Crucial xl , with Eric 's part it's pure magic! if someone who works @pp read this please!

jn2 said:

Keep dreaming.

BorisFishpaw said:

Extraloveable almost made it out!!! damn. Now i'm depressed

As for Kiss, wouldn't that extended version be the same as the definately released CD single that also contains Girls&Boys and UTCM?

Marrk said:

Supposedly, there was an even longer version. I have no idea if this is true, but that is the rumour.

BorisFishpaw said:

At one point, if I'm not mistaken, he was toying with including the Roadhouse Garden stuff with this collection, but decided not to when he couldn't get W&L to work on the material (again, this is totally hearsay). Perhaps, the intention was to include it as an extra disc like The Truth and Kama Sutra?

Of course, there's always the rumour that a lot of that stuff was on the original CB set, but he pulled it off about a month or two before its release when he got the idea to do RG. Can you imagine how much better CB would have been with that stuff on it? I know I would have rather had "In All My Dreams" than those stupid remixes!

Marrk said:

The 'Xtended version' of Kiss lined up for inclusion on Crystal Ball II was completely different to
the released extended version. How 'different' it is I don't know, as this alternate extended
version has never surfaced (maybe it was even a 'new master' recording!)


Also, one early rumor I'd heard about Crystal Ball II was that it was just going to be a 2CD set,
and would be shipped in sleeves for 'Kamasutra' and 'The Truth'. The Idea being that you would
take the 'Kamasutra' and 'The Truth' discs out of your existing Crystal Ball round case and
replace them with the new 'disk 4' and 'disk 5' of Crystal Ball (II), and then use the new sleeves
for the 'Kamasutra' and 'The Truth' discs.
[This message was edited Tue Mar 23 9:53:47 2004 by BorisFishpaw]

I still have high hopes for this cd set.

Somehow I know that Prince's old material can co-excist alongside his new material.

Ask Jamie Starr.

Yep we sure can still dream!

Personally I always thought Prince could release a series of albums called...

The Vault volume 1, 2, 3 and so on

This would have made a nice addendum to "The Hits"

I also think they should have been chronogically themed (though not necessary to release in that order) so for example "The Vault Vol2" would contains songs from 84-86

gooeythehamster said:

... of the stuff that dreams are made of.

jaypotton said:

Spookily this did almost happen back in '94 when Prince's relationship with WB had soured.
They came to an agreement where Prince would fulfill his contract with 3 albums of Vault
compilations. In the end this changed and we ended up with 2 sort-of-vault releases instead.

I think now that Prince has FINALLY got the pay-per download system up and running, we will begin seeing more of these tracks appearing.

Prince will see how they get gobbled up and the floodgates will open.

#1 at the bank!!!