Publication: New York Daily News [US]
Date: March 22, 1998
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Title: "Prince Drops 'Crystal Ball' Artist's 4 -Disc Set Is Heavy"
Reviewed By: Jim Farber

THE ARTIST FORMERLY KNOWN AS PRINCE "Crystal Ball" (NPG Records)

It's not news that the artist everyone should still call Prince can't get enough of himself. A mere 15 months ago he bench-pressed into stores a triple CD set, "Emancipation." Now he has forklifted onto the market a quadruple LP, originally sold via the Internet, but currently available in stores. It appears on the star's own label, since he considers all corporate record outfits to be enemies of true art - i.e., his. Over the last two weeks, the album has managed to heave itself up to No. 62 on Billboard's Top 200, an impressive hoist given a price tag of more than 40 bucks.

So is this behemoth worth lugging home? Obsessives may think so. For everyone else, "Crystal Ball" presents a pretty muddy portrait of the artist. Its first three CDs sling together 2 1/2 hours of trial runs, live tracks, alternate takes and afterthoughts pried from the vaults. The last platter offers brand-new, all-acoustic material.

The three potluck CDs fall prey to what most fans worried they'd get with the surprisingly strong "Emancipation": The tracks keep lurching from the cool to the exasperating. On the one hand we get a spirited Spinners-style ballad, "Crucial" - originally planned for the "Sign o' The Times" LP - and a charging rocker, "Calhoun Square," which makes great use of the sexiest musical instrument associated with the '70s, the clavinet. On the other hand, we get a 15-minute stretch, "Cloreen Bacon Skin," which you can guess before reading Prince's liner notes was made up on the spot.

In between, we get lots of filthy funk anthems, useful for parties but hardly worth paying attention to sober. Even the best of these groove pieces cover ground Prince long ago trod bare. At least the fourth CD presents a consistent sound and vision (hey, like an actual album!)

But even here, there's a problem with emotional consequence. Since Prince never offers any real insight into himself in his lyrics, the vulnerability he means to present seems pat.

Not only does Prince lack the kind of self-awareness he needs in order to truly open himself up, he often throws his vocals away, settling for easy sentimentality.

Yes, Prince is a genius. But his gnat-like attention span prevents him from seeing potentially great ideas all the way through. The result winds up contradicting his argument against record companies - that they're too restrictive in what they think the market will bear. Sifting through all the excess Prince puts out just makes you long for the music biz filters that help stars release only their cream.