Prince - Crystal Ball 1998

 

Crystal Ball is a box set by American recording artist Prince. It includes Crystal Ball, the artist's twentieth studio album, which is a three-disc set of "previously bootlegged" material, together with a fourth disc, The Truth, the twenty-first studio album by Prince.

The box set was initially only available through direct orders by phone and internet. The direct order edition included a fifth disc, an instrumental studio album by The NPG Orchestra titled Kamasutra. Shipment of this limited edition 5-CD version started on January 29, 1998, approximately two months before the release of the 4-CD version to retail stores on March 21, 1998.

The album Crystal Ball is Prince's second triple album in succession, following Emancipation. Each of the three CDs contain ten tracks and last fifty minutes, resembling Emancipation's 12-song, sixty-minute disc lengths. 

 

The album is largely made up of tracks recorded in two periods: 1985–1986 and 1993–1996. The only exception is "Cloreen Bacon Skin", recorded in March 1983.

No tracks were recorded especially for this album (although "2morrow" was recorded after his last album, Emancipation, was completed, so Crystal Ball was the first album for which it could have been considered). Additionally, the album contains seven remixes or alternate versions of previously-released tracks, "Love Sign" (Shock G’s Silky Remix), "So Dark" (a remix of "Dark"), "Tell Me How U Wanna B Done" (a remix of "The Continental"), "Interactive", "Good Love", "Get Loose" (a remix of "Loose!"), and "P. Control" (Remix).

As such, this album marks the first time material has been re-used from one album to another, although this album should perhaps not be viewed as a cohesive, canonical piece in the way others could. Prince avoided using tracks that strongly featured the Revolution, as he intended to release a companion album, Roadhouse Garden, in 1999, containing previously unreleased Prince and the Revolution material (this album remains unreleased, however).

Copyright information on the album is given as 1997. No singles were released from the album, although "Love Sign" and "P. Control" had both previously been available as promo-only singles connected to their original albums, 1-800-NEW-FUNK and The Gold Experience, respectively. Although videos for "Acknowledge Me", "Interactive" and "18 & Over" were made a few years before this release (and not connected to any albums), they were not used as promotional tools for Crystal Ball. "Days of Wild" was released as a limited-release single in 2002, using a different live version than included here.

Prince did not tour or make any TV appearances to support the album. The album reached number 62 on the Billboard 200, and number 59 on the Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart.