Is it possible that the 1998 incarnation of CB was misunderstood by many of us thinking that it was supposed to be a duplicate of the famed and legendary piece that was the "Dream Factory' later called "Sign 'o' the Times" in 1986-1987.

I hear a lot of negativity refering to "Crystal Ball" on this org about the cohesiveness of the album. I have always listened to as nothing more than a group a Prince's Greatest Bootleg Non-Hits and not as an actual album as say "SOTT" and such. I mean the original Lp (Crystal Ball 1986-1987) did not have many of the songs that wound up on this rendition. Such as "Love Sign" or "Ripogozda" or "2morrow". The last 2 could to this day still burn up the charts and dance floors even against what one orger recently called in so many words "ALMIGHTY RAP". I do wish that he would have left "Tell Me How U Wanna Be Done" the same as the version at the end of 1992's "Continental" and just elongated it.

The only actual LP in that box was the "The Truth" which should be included as one of Princes true classics. I mean come on an all acoustic LP by the master of music of the last century. U gota love it.

lmas said:

Spooky, I just posted a similar thread at the same time as this. The Truth is a Classic and has only made me realise since all this uproar about Prince. The music is a mature, stripped down Prince. Should be re-released by Sony maybe?

I don't think many (if any) people thought this was related to the original CB at all . . .

I think most people thought it would be a retrospective of unreleased tracks, in chronological order with proper liner notes. Something professional, like what Bruce Springsteen put out (or even the Smashing Pumpkin's box set).

There were too many remixes, and too many "recent" songs on that set. It should've covered the late 70's/early 80's, and then left the late 80's/early 90's stuff for a CB2.

I like it, either way. The Truth is a nice bonus, and it's nice having all those tracks in CD quality.

Se7en said:

exactly

When I got Crystal Ball, I didn't have any bootlegs so I'd never heard most of those songs - I thought it was fantastic at the time and I couldn't understand what all these fans were moaning about.

Now I'm a lot more savvy and realise there's so many more unreleased tracks waiting to be put on a proper CD - I hope eventually he does a Crystal Ball II, this time I will probably have heard most of the unreleased track but it would still be good to hear them in non-static perfect quality!

Nearly all the songs themselves are excellent, it's just how poorly they have been put together.

I mean...
Days Of Wild
Dream Factory
Calhoun Sq.
The Ride
Crystal Ball...

...there are some fantastic songs on the collection, it's just a shame they're not in chronological order, I might actually listen to it a bit more if it were.


Still, The Truth is one of Prince's best albums of the 90's.

lmas said:

No.

Dream Factory was an album by Prince & The Revolution, it shares tracks with SOTT, but SOTT was a cut-down 2LP version of the 3LP Crystal Ball.

I thought I'd clear that up because there is bound to be a thread in the next couple of weeks entitled "What is this about Dream Factory being the same as Sign O' The Times?"

1998's officially released Crystal Ball album is a poor release for several reasons:

1) The whole ordering blunder.
Let's never forget this, it was the most prominent in a long string of marketing and commercial disasters by Prince that bordered on fraud.

2) The terrible, unforgiveable editing.
For whatever reason you may wish to assign, there is no excuse for the horrific editing of several tracks on the album.

3) The bizarre track order
The most logical and satisfying track order would be chronological, but Prince gave us an odd track order of a length of tracks, that could have almost fit onto 2 CDs instead of the released 3, no consistency is evident - the timeline jumps from the mid-80s to the mid-90s, giving no cohesion to the listening experience at all.

4) The inclusion of previously released material.
The release acknowledges the existence of bootlegs in it's packaging and artwork, so the release is made with the acceptance that the audience for the release has at least a basic knowledge of Prince's unreleased material.

Yet the release contains several songs that have been previously officially released and/or remixed versions of said tracks. Choosing mediocre remixes over any one of the hundreds of unreleased full songs at Prince's disposal shows a distinct lack of will to release these unreleased tracks that the creators of the package know and understand that this is what the audience wants to hear and is willing to purchase.

/

This does not deter from the inclusion of many A+ grade tracks on the release, many of the songs, standing alone, are indeed Prince classics IMO - but as a whole, it is a sub-par release and an insult to the relatively tiny collective (no pun intended) of listeners who made up his buying fanbase at the time.

I recently read a review where the reviewer was observing that Prince should realease a striped down acoustic album and I though to myself well since he pretends to be so knowledgeable about Prince why hasn't he heard about the Truth disk. This is one of my favorites, beautiful well constructed songs.

wow, you people really do over think this shit... damn, must suck never being satisfied... if you dont like the order you can always make your own cd...

personally i never over thought it and just let it play and rather enjoyed its eclectic-ness...

yeah the packagin was very LOW FI... but who fuckin cares... i have 64 prince albums on my i-pod all without art work... artwork is a thing of the past.

manonearth said:

True Dat!!!

2 factors ruined this release... just the release, not the music (aside from the edits).

1. Most of the songs are edited

2. I pre-ordered the CD a year in advance from 1-800-NEW-FUNK. It was in stores before I got mine in the mail.

manonearth said:

Wow. I guess I'm out of a job...

NouveauDance said:

bravo - very well said.

CB is not a disappointment for what it IS, so much, as what it COULD HAVE BEEN.

missed opportunity.

as it is, there are some stellar tracks on there. But I can't help being disgusted by it.

r1ghteousone said:

Do what I did (which actually got me to make this observation in the first place). Burn the songs U like the most from the 3 cd's in to one in the ORDER U LIKE THEM

Can someone please post a picture of the cover for "The Truth"?

The larger the better, but 5" square, 72dpi would be fine . . .

Thanks in advance!

i thought 'the truth' was great but was dissapointed with it at first b/c it WAS NOT the stripped down 'acoustic' album we were led to believe it would be. IT WAS PRODUCED AND LAYERED. i am STILL WAITING for a record with JUST P AND AN ACOUSTIC GUITAR.

JonSnow said:

Co-Sign. You hit all of the reasons that we were disappointed with it. We all think there are CLASSICS like Cloreen Bacon Skin. I even shed a tear or two when I heard it.

The name does evoke an older time period. We weren't expecting the actual Crystal Ball...but certainly something that was from around that time. As stated...there were certainly trax that should have been included and NOT included. The ordering via New Funk was a disaster...completely.

My biggest problem with it came after I had owned it...and a Boot called Dreams came out...and was exactly what CB should have been IMO beautiful art work (Like a pic of a cup of coffee next to a starfish) and a killer track listing. My friends and I even had a hunch that Prince put this out there himself (there were photos that had serial numbers...Prince owns all of the pics of him...it's an assumption). So there's that and I dared not get the "Hockey Puck" box design.

And the Truth is great and worth getting the set for that alone.

Love Crystal Ball, It was put 2gether this way on purpose! There r some classic cuts on this CD! The Truth is just that!

Spunky said:

Why does everyone claim The Truth is an acoustic album? There are electric instruments (synths, electric bass, overdubbed vocals, sound effects) ALL OVER this album. Is there even one truly acoustic song?

ONA is closer to being truly acoustic, although even that suffers from overdubs (to a lesser degree).

I'd love Prince to sit down with an acoustic guitar, maybe Lisa or Renato on acoustic piano, Rhonda on acoustic bass, and (since Miles is gone ) perhaps Atlanta Bliss on trumpet, and several candles, and just play 12 well-crafted gentle songs.

Now that would be a true classic.

booyah said:

co-sign

LoveMe said:

That's the problem

The truth is about as acoustic as any modern acoustic album
remember Eric Clapton's Unplugged???

The Truth (1998)
An acoustic guitar-based set recorded in 1997 and given away for free to purchasers of Crystal Ball. Some tracks are focused and compelling, including the smooth love song "The Other Side Of The Pillow," and the gritty title track. The bare sound is effective when he sticks to it, but too often he can't leave well enough alone, layering on distracting ambient background noise or superfluous keyboard parts ("Don't Play Me"). Plus there's a lot of easy listening filler - "Dionne" (like an acoustic version of "Dinner With Delores"), "Circle Of Amour," "Fascination" - Steely Dan-style soft rock is not his strong point. On the other hand, the arena rock vegan rant "Animal Kingdom" is shockingly good. Like most of his late 90s work, this has no appeal to the broader public: he's preaching to the converted, but he does come up with some good sermons. [The rating reflects the record's value if you could get it as a single disc, which you can't.] (DBW)

booyah said:

[This message was edited Tue Apr 27 11:05:59 2004 by Drkman]