Crystal Ball (box set)

Crystal Ball
Box set by
ReleasedJanuary 29, 1998
Recorded1983–1996
Genre
Length149:10
LabelNPG
ProducerPrince
Prince chronology
Emancipation
(1996)
Crystal Ball
(1998)
The Vault: Old Friends 4 Sale
(1999)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[1]
The A.V. Clubfavorable[2]
Entertainment WeeklyB+[3]
Rolling Stone[4]
Yahoo! Musicfavorable[5]

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.

In 2018, NPG Records released Crystal Ball and The Truth digitally on Spotify, iTunes, Tidal, and Apple Music.[6]

In 2021, a special limited vinyl edition of The Truth was released on Record Store Day.[7]

  1. ^ AllMusic review
  2. ^ Klein, Joshua (March 29, 2002). "Prince: Crystal Ball". The A.V. Club. The Onion. Retrieved March 28, 2012.
  3. ^ "Crystal Ball – EW.com". Entertainment Weekly's EW.com. Archived from the original on October 9, 2012. Retrieved May 6, 2016.
  4. ^ "Crystal Ball". Rolling Stone.
  5. ^ "Prince Reviews on Yahoo! Music". September 28, 2011. Archived from the original on September 28, 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  6. ^ Birzniece, Elsa (August 16, 2018). "23 Prince albums made available to stream for the first time". Official Charts Company. Retrieved August 17, 2018.
  7. ^ "RSD '21 Special Release: Prince - the Truth".