Prince ‎– Black Album

hi i have a copy of the tnt enterprise black album. its grey marble vinyl and has two tracks on it, bob george on one side and superfunkycalifragisexy on the other. lc7706 rb12289. have not been able to find one the same. on the record its self it has a signiture, g pauler 2/rb89b. hope you can help

Even though Prince had a change of heart about releasing the very dark Black Album in 1987 in favor of the Positivity-drenched Lovesexy, he would cave in to pressures from Warner Brothers and release it anyway in 1994 to help finish his contract with them. Albeit with much less hoopla than the controversy that surrounded it originally. The Black Album represents Prince's last truly edgy and "Dirty" release. I always appreciated his attempts at blending religion and sex-- it represents the eternal struggle of humans. There are some missed targets on this album. I'm not sure what the heck "Bob George" is, or why it is on here, but it is original, that's for sure. "Dead On It" is an unfortunately narrow-minded dismissal of Hip Hop and Rap.

The ballad "When 2 R In Love" is Prince at his best and he smartly moved this track over to Lovesexy after scrapping the Black Album. But, it is tracks like the funky "Le Grind" with the signature horn sound that he continued on Lovesexy, and "Rock Hard in a Funky Place" and "Cindy C." that really show the response Prince was aiming for in response to his critics saying he was sacrificing edgy funk for pop to date.

I love the ramshackle fury of the jazz/funk instrumental "2 Nigs United 4 West Compton." This track is certainly a continuation of the work he did with sax sideman Eric Leeds in Madhouse.

When the album was finally released in 1994 on CD, Warner Brothers had vinyl promos pressed, so you can get a copy on vinyl! There are bootlegs floating around, so you need to be careful, but most of the ones with the "PRO-A-7330" on the generic Warner Brothers label with no identifying markings other than the song titles and a "Controversy Music" licensing credit are the real deal. The copy I picked up also had a reprint of an ICE article about the astronomical prices paid of records that slipped from the last-hour destruction the original 1987 pressing.

Since Warner Brothers has been reissuing Prince's catalog on vinyl in the last couple of years through Rhino (much to Prince's dismay, likely), it will be interesting to see if they also drop The Black Album.

While not the strongest release in Princes sprawling catalog, it is noteworthy and more listenable than most of his releases in the last decade or so.

when i listen it seems that Prince has taken his camille's voice ,in fact this record is playing faster
than it should....a little bit strange,not the best of the unofficial(and official) versions....

This is the one & only official and WITHDRAWN release to this LP (on vinyl) - see pics; less than 100 worldwide excist, probably less. Also in this category the WITHDRAWN cd longbox which is even more limited. The rest mentioned in this category are all fakes/bootlegs. Fakes of the vinyl are very easily identified by some 8 particular differences in comparison to the original. Two of them are very easily checked: just look at the track Rockhard In A Funky Place (on the B-side label) - on fakes it is always misspelled as "Rockard In A Funky Place" (missing out on the "h"). Secondly, fakes NEVER have the WB-sticker + WB-logo (indented into the sleeve) on the back-side of the black sleeve. Two easy characteristics to check your copy!

Most of those mentioned here are just bootlegs (vinyl and cd), not the WB withdrawn/official release of Dec 1987! The only two REAL ones mentioned in this category, are the "partially unofficial" ones (German vinyl/LP + US CD-longbox). Check photos for verifications.

1994-release is consired the official release. Of course, there's the far more interesting WITHDRAWN release of December 1987 - please, look at the 'Unofficial Release' section for that one.

Last I heard, this was still the most bootlegged album in history at 2,000,000+ copies of it bootlegged prior to it officially being released when Prince was trying to get out of his contract with Warner Brothers in the late 90's. For those who don't know its history, Prince was going to release this album on the heels of 1987's "Sign O' The Times," but pulled it at the last minute because he felt it was too dark and if he were to die unexpectedly, he didn't want this to be his last work and thus representative of where he was heading musically. Amid much media attention, Warner Bros. agreed to recall the album just as it was being shipped to retail and instead shipped "Lovesexy," which ironically never sold nearly as many albums as were bootlegged of "The Black Album." ("Lovesexy" did sell enough copies, though to be certified gold - which at the time was 500,000 or more copies.)