Prince - Camille (Unreleased Album 1986)

OK, this wil be the last Prince post for the forseeable future, I know the non-Prince fans are getting restless. In much the same way this began to look like a Smiths/Morrissey blog last month; I guess I will be focusing a few posts per month on a particular artist and that's how it will be. People seem to enjoy it so far so I will run with it. I have had this album as an mp3 for a few years now but information is kind of sketchy on it so I did a search an found a great description at a great blog 'Raw Like Sashimi' (only used his description, not his link) which I would urge all to check out and comment. Here's the lowdown from RLS -

"Camille is an unreleased album by Prince from 1986. The album was planned to consist of 8 tracks in a sped up vocal that sounded like a female voice. Although it has never been verified, the origins and beginnings of the Camille persona are arguably audible on the mighty infamous b-side called "Erotic City." The album was to be released under the name of "Camille" (who would not be pictured on the cover) and not as a "Prince" album.

After the cancellation of the Dream Factory project, Prince went right back into the studio to record new material. He wrote a track called "Housequake" with a speeded vocal that resembled a woman's voice. He was so pleased with the track that he composed an entire album's worth of material in the same altered vocals. The voice itself began to take on the persona of "Camille" (named after the French hermaphrodite) and an album was configured. The album had gotten to the stage of being given a catalogue number when Prince changed his plans and began work on the 3-LP opus Crystal Ball.

Many of the Camille tracks were incorporated into Crystal Ball but when the album was trimmed down to Sign 'O' the Times, only three made the cut. A fourth track, "Shockadelica," was actually written as a tongue-in-cheek message to long-time friend of Prince and former guitarist for The Time, Jesse Johnson, who had released a highly-successful solo album entitled Shockadelica the year prior to Prince releasing Sign 'O' the Times.

It was Prince's way of communicating to Johnson Prince's own belief that an album with an incredible title like "Shockadelica" should have an equally incredible title track. (Johnson's album "Shockadelica" did not have a song with the same name on it; conversely, the only albums that Prince has recorded to date which have not had a track bearing the album's name were his self-titled debut, and the infamous Black Album, which was pulled from release at the last minute by Prince and only saw the light of day years later as a result of contract disputes with Warner Bros. Records.)

Despite the project never seeing the light of day in its original form, Prince was reportedly very pleased with the Camille material, and most of the tracks have since been released on other Prince projects.


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