Maps of Music

Crystal Ball (1998)

Where the lyrics of Crystal Ball take you, and where it was really made.

The first copies went out by phone and internet order about two months before the box set reached record stores.

Key places

Recording location of the album's tracks (1998)

Recording site Galpin Blvd Home Studio — This place is recorded as a recording location for tracks on the album. The source gives only the periods 1985–1986 and 1993–1996 for the recorded tracks. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Recording location of the album's tracks (1998)

Recording site Ocean Way Recording — This place is recorded as a recording location for tracks on the album. The source gives only the periods 1985–1986 and 1993–1996 for the recorded tracks. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Recording location of the album's tracks (1998)

Recording site Paisley Park Studios — This place is recorded as a recording location for tracks on the album. The source gives only the periods 1985–1986 and 1993–1996 for the recorded tracks. Google Maps · Apple Maps

How to get there: See the map for directions.

Album story

Overview

• Crystal Ball is a box set by Prince
• The set includes the triple album Crystal Ball, Prince's twentieth studio album
• It also includes The Truth, Prince's 21st studio album
• Crystal Ball consists of previously bootlegged material
• It is Prince's second triple album in succession, following Emancipation
• Each of its three CDs contains ten tracks and lasts about fifty minutes
• Emancipation's discs had twelve songs and ran about sixty minutes each
• The direct order edition added a fifth disc, Kamasutra

Background

• The box set was first sold only through direct orders by phone and internet
• The limited 5-CD direct order edition began shipping on January 29, 1998
• The 4-CD version reached retail stores on March 21, 1998
• No tracks were recorded specially for this album
• "2morrow" was recorded after Emancipation was completed, so it could have been included here
• Prince avoided tracks that strongly featured the Revolution
• He intended to release a companion album, Roadhouse Garden, in 1999
• Roadhouse Garden remains unreleased

Recording

• 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
• The album contains seven remixes or alternate versions of previously released tracks
• Examples include "Love Sign (Shock G's Silky Remix)" and "So Dark", a remix of "Dark"
• Copyright information is given as 1997

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Tracklist

Disc 1

Disc 2

Disc 3

Disc 4

Disc 5

Sources: musicbrainz.org

Artist

Formation

• Prince Rogers Nelson, born June 7, 1958 in Minneapolis, Minnesota; died April 21, 2016 at Paisley Park in Chanhassen, Minnesota.
• Signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1977 at age 18; first album For You released April 7, 1978.
• Career spanned funk, rock, R&B and pop, with estimated sales over 100 million records.

Career

• Breakthrough with Dirty Mind (1980), Controversy (1981) and 1999 (1982).
• Purple Rain (1984) made him the first singer to hold the number-one film, album and single in the US at the same time.
• Sign o' the Times (1987) is widely considered his greatest work.
• Changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol in 1993, becoming known as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince; reverted to Prince in 2000.
• Won seven Grammy Awards and an Academy Award for Best Original Song Score.
• Inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Reception

At release

• Prince did not tour or make any TV appearances to support the album
• No singles were released from the album
• "Love Sign" and "P. Control" had earlier been available as promo-only singles tied to their original albums
• Videos for "Acknowledge Me", "Interactive" and "18 & Over" were made a few years before this release
• Those videos were not connected to any album and were not used to promote Crystal Ball

Records

• Billboard 200: number 62
• Billboard Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums: number 59
• "Days of Wild" was released as a limited-release single in 2002, using a different live version than the one included here
• In 2018, NPG Records released Crystal Ball and The Truth digitally on Spotify, iTunes, Tidal and Apple Music
• In 2021, a special limited vinyl edition of The Truth was released on Record Store Day

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

Trivia

• The direct order edition added a fifth disc, the instrumental album Kamasutra by The NPG Orchestra
• Kamasutra was written to be played during Prince's wedding to Mayte Garcia in 1996
• The track "Cutz" uses the sound of scissors snipping as its basis
• "The Plan" was previewed in an excerpt on the 1996 3-CD set Emancipation
• The Truth was released as the fourth CD in the Crystal Ball box set
• A CD single of the first two tracks of The Truth was released before the album

Sources: en.wikipedia.org

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