Crystal Ball Club

Despite being in one of his all-time prolific periods in the early 90s, Prince still had creative juice to spare: writing, recording, and often producing tracks and albums for collaborators old and new.

Join Mike and Nathan as we examine the best -- and the rest -- of this incredible explosion of creativity.

While we mostly stay focused on the music at Crystal Ball Club, Prince's epic fight with Warner Brothers and his concurrent name change loom so large it would be almost impossible to understand some of his artistic choices in the rest of the decade.

Join Mike and Nathan as we explore this turbulent time in Prince's life and art.

While we mostly focus on the music here at Crystal Ball Club, it's impossible to understand Prince's music in the mid to late 90s without grappling with his epic battle with his own record label and his simultaneous name change into a world-famous unpronounceable symbol.

Dive in to understand how Warner somehow let Prince self-release his last massive hit single.

In the midst of one of his all-time most prolific periods as a solo artist / bandleader, Prince was also generating dozens of tracks with side projects and collaborators. Mike and Nathan dive into some of the best, as well as some dead-ends from this fascinating era.

Prince entered the 1990s as prolific as ever, churning out CD-filling albums for himself and the NPG, but also writing and recording dozens more tracks for collaborators and side projects. Most were also demos for the sparkling new production facilities at Paisley Park.

Join Mike and Nathan as we run through the highlights (and a few lowlights) of this era.

Forget reading the morning papers, Mike and Nathan break down Prince's most ambitious recording project yet, 1992's simultaneously amazing and frustrating [LOVE SYMBOL].

Fans earnestly debate how Prince's early 90s work stacks up against his 80s golden period, but there's little disagreement that his cinematic output was a straight arrow down -- from the exhilarating heights of Purple Rain, to the lovable oddity of Under the Cherry Moon, the clunky Graffiti Bridge, and finally here: the largely embarrassing 3 Chains o' Gold.

3 Chains might be tough to defend as a movie, but it helps us understand where our hero is at -- artistically, professionally, personally -- as he moves into his 36th year...

After the triumph of DIAMONDS AND PEARLS, our hero continued to bet on his instincts with the perplexingly untitled (self-titled?) album we now know as [LOVE SYMBOL]. Featuring on massive hit alongside refinements of the the hip-hop inspired funk and adult contemporary R&B explorations of D&P, the Love Symbol finds at the peak of his powers but treading somewhat familiar ground. What would this augur for the years ahead?

(Jump to 35:00 for album talk)

By 1991 the music video as a commercial and artistic medium was in full flourish. Could Prince -- master of the recording studio and stage, and sometime movie star -- compete with music video powerhouses Michael Jackson and Madonna? Or were his DIAMONDS AND PEARLS era videos early signs of his anti-commercial instincts?

Join Mike and Nathan for a conversation about every single official (and unofficial) D&P music video, including confirmation of their thesis that Diamonds & Pearls is Prince's Gulf War album.

NOTE: all videos discussed should be easy to find on YouTube -- viewing these ahead of time is recommended.

Prince may have been departing his true "golden period" by 1991 but he was as prolific as ever.

Mike and Nathan take a deep dive through the vault (aka the DIAMONDS AND PEARLS SUPER DELUXE box) to carve out bonus albums from the dozens of tracks left on the floor of Paisley Park.