Crystal Ball is an unreleased studio album

Studio album

A studio album is an album made up of tracks recorded in the controlled environment of a recording studio. A studio album contains newly written and recorded or previously unreleased or remixed material, distinguishing itself from a compilation or reissue album of previously recorded material, or...

 by Prince

Prince (musician)

Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...

 recorded throughout 1986. The album was planned to consist of 3 LP

Gramophone record

A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...

s and cover a broad range of musical styles

Music genre

A music genre is a categorical and typological construct that identifies musical sounds as belonging to a particular category and type of music that can be distinguished from other types of music...

.

Evolution of the album

The beginnings of Crystal Ball can be traced to late 1985 with a concept album

Concept album

In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...

 called Dream Factory

Dream Factory (album)

Dream Factory was an unreleased double LP project recorded by Prince and The Revolution from 1986.-History:Unlike the three previous Prince and The Revolution albums, the entire band was invited to the studio to contribute to a majority of the album's material, with the notable exceptions of "The...

. Since the release of Purple Rain

Purple Rain (album)

Purple Rain is the sixth studio album by Prince, the first to officially be credited to Prince and The Revolution, and is the soundtrack album to the 1984 film Purple Rain.Purple Rain is regularly ranked among the best albums in pop music history...

, each successive album included more of a collaborative effort between Prince and female band members Wendy and Lisa

Wendy and Lisa

Wendy & Lisa are a music duo consisting of Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman. They began working with Prince in the early 1980s and were part of his band The Revolution, before branching out on their own and releasing their debut album in 1987...

. Dream Factory would mark the pinnacle of this collaborative effort. Dream Factory evolved quickly from a 9-track single album to a double-LP with an ever-changing tracklist of songs. A large body of tracks were considered or rejected. A final configuration of the album was finally decided upon and the album was mastered. However, during 1986 Wendy and Lisa had increasingly become disillusioned with Prince's decision to expand the Revolution with non-musicians Wally Safford and Gregory Allen Brooks along with Prince's increasing machismo that these new members brought with them. Unhappy and vocal about their feelings, they were eventually convinced to remain with the band and go on tour for that year's Hit n Run – Parade Tour. However, Prince felt spurned and by the end of the tour decided he would dissolve The Revolution

The Revolution (band)

The Revolution was an American rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1979 by Prince. Although widely associated with rock music, the band's sound incorporated heavy metal, pop, funk, R&B and hard rock elements. Before their official break-up, The Revolution had released one studio album,...

 once the tour was complete. Hence, the album was never released. Interestingly those songs that went on to gain an official release, sometimes years later, had the contributions made by Wendy & Lisa either toned down, or removed altogether.

Once Prince abandoned the project, he began recording a new album. He recorded a track, "Housequake", in a sped-up vocal style similar to the title track of Dream Factory. Pleased with the results, Prince continued to record in this style and ended up recording an entire album of songs with this new vocal style. Prince fashioned the idea of releasing the album under the pseudonym Camille with no picture on the album cover

Album cover

An album cover is the front of the packaging of a commercially released audio recording product, or album. The term can refer to either the printed cardboard covers typically used to package sets of 10" and 12" 78 rpm records, single and sets of 12" LPs, sets of 45 rpm records , or the front-facing...

 to mystify the public and see if the album would stand on its own without Prince's name attached to it. The album reached the mastering stage, but as Prince continued recording songs, he felt the need to expand beyond a single album. Eventually he decided to combine various tracks from Dream Factory, Camille and other newly recorded tracks into a 3-LP opus called Crystal Ball. His record company at the time, Warner Bros.

Warner Bros. Records

Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...

, balked at the idea, convinced the album would not perform well as three album set, especially after the poor sales for his previous release, Parade. Warner Bros. and Prince compromised and settled on a double album

Double album

A double album is an audio album which spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically records and compact discs....

. Disappointed, Prince added a duet with Sheena Easton

Sheena Easton

Sheena Easton is a Scottish recording artist. Easton became famous for being the focus of an episode in the British television programme The Big Time, which recorded her attempts to gain a record contract and her eventual signing with EMI Records.Easton rose to fame in the early 1980s with the pop...

, but cut seven tracks. The set was renamed Sign o' the Times and the title track appropriately describes a chaotic state of the world which coincided with Prince's own troubles.

Releases over time

Though seven tracks were cut from Crystal Ball, they have all been released in some form over the years. "Shockadelica" was the first to be publicly released as the B-side

A-side and B-side

A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...

 to "If I Was Your Girlfriend

If I Was Your Girlfriend

"If I Was Your Girlfriend" was the second single off Prince's widely-acclaimed 1987 double album Sign “☮” the Times. While it is today considered one of his most notable songs, at the time of its release the song did not chart well in the U.S....

" in 1987. "Rockhard in a Funky Place" was slated to be the closing track on The Black Album which was shelved by Prince in late 1987 and heavily bootleg

Bootleg recording

A bootleg recording is an audio or video recording of a performance that was not officially released by the artist or under other legal authority. The process of making and distributing such recordings is known as bootlegging...

ged by fans. It finally saw a limited official release in 1994. "The Ball" was reworked, given new lyrics and became "Eye No", the opening track to 1988's Lovesexy

Lovesexy

Lovesexy is the tenth studio album by Prince, released on May 10, 1988. Lovesexy was issued as a substitute record after the release of the infamous The Black Album had been suddenly cancelled. The Black Album and Lovesexy almost act as companion pieces, sharing the song "When 2 R in Love", but...

. Later in 1988, "Good Love" was released on the soundtrack to Bright Lights, Big City

Bright Lights, Big City (film)

Bright Lights, Big City is a 1988 drama film starring Michael J. Fox, Kiefer Sutherland and Phoebe Cates, based on the novel of the same name by Jay McInerney. It was the last film directed by James Bridges before his death in 1993.-Plot:...

. Prince released "Joy in Repetition" on his Graffiti Bridge

Graffiti Bridge (album)

Graffiti Bridge is the twelfth studio album by Prince and the soundtrack to the 1990 film Graffiti Bridge.The album was much better received in sales than the film, reaching #6 in the US and #1 in the UK. Nearly every song on the record was written by Prince despite the handful of artists...

soundtrack in 1990 (and many critics hailed it as the best track on the album). In 1998, Prince revived the concept of Crystal Ball with the release of a 3-CD

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

 album of the same name. The title track was the same one from the original 3-LP version; however, the set

Crystal Ball (album set)

Crystal Ball is the twentieth studio album by Prince . Crystal Ball is a four-disc set containing a three CD set of the same name featuring a much anticipated collection of "previously bootlegged" material, with The Truth, the twenty-first studio album by Prince which is a bonus disc of 12 new...

 had little to do with the original concept other than the title track, a slight edit of "Good Love" and the fact that it contained three discs. Finally in 2001, a live rehearsal of "Rebirth of the Flesh" recorded with the Sign o' the Times band was released on Prince's website, this version however had a profanity edited from the lyrics. Though the studio version officially remains in the vault, it has surfaced occasionally on file sharing programs.

Track listing

Side 1

• "Rebirth of the Flesh"
• "Play in the Sunshine"
• "Housequake"
• "The Ballad of Dorothy Parker"

Side 2

• "It"
• "Starfish and Coffee"
• "Slow Love"
• "Hot Thing"

Side 3

• "Crystal Ball"
• "If I Was Your Girlfriend
  If I Was Your Girlfriend
  "If I Was Your Girlfriend" was the second single off Prince's widely-acclaimed 1987 double album Sign “☮” the Times. While it is today considered one of his most notable songs, at the time of its release the song did not chart well in the U.S....
  
  "
• "Rock Hard in a Funky Place"

Side 4

• "The Ball"
• "Joy in Repetition"
• "Strange Relationship
  Strange Relationship (Prince song)
  "Strange Relationship" is a song from Prince's 1987 double album, Sign “☮” the Times. A live performance of the song was released as a digital single, made available on Prince's website on March 26, 2005."Strange Relationship" has a long history...
  
  "
• "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man
  I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man
  Jordan Knight, of New Kids on the Block, recorded a cover of the song as a ballad for his 1999 self-titled solo debut. The video debuted on TRL on July 27, 1999 at number 10.-Track listing:US Single...
  
  "

Side 5

• "Shockadelica"
• "Good Love"
• "Forever in My Life"
• "Sign o' the Times"

Side 6

• "The Cross"
• "Adore"
• "It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Night"