Prince Album of the Day (Day Off!): Behind the Scenes

So today is a day off, in a sense. In fact, it's not really a day off for me at all, but for the ten or so of you who have been following this little experiment, you have the day off. No Prince album reviews for you today, at least not from me. If you're reading other people's Prince album reviews, I hope they are smaller then mine. Be sure to use protection.

But it is a day off here, as I said. Or not, actually. Because the deal is this: I'm working my way through Crystal Ball, which is three CDs in length. Or five, if you count The Truth and Kamasutra, the two bonus CDs that came with certain incarnations of the Crystal Ball release. I'm counting it as three because I'll review The Truth when I get to the Ts, and I have been as of yet unable to locate a copy of Kamasutra. (If you've got access to a copy, please get in touch with me so I might be able to hear it. That is, to my knowledge, the only officially released album I do not have.) So I've got three discs to work through for Crystal Ball, and that's going to take some time. And so, what I wanted to do this evening is give you a basic overview as to how the process works for me, what I do to get these reviews together for you (and me).

Each day, of course, I listen to one album from Prince's catalogue, in alphabetical order rather than the chronological release date. In doing so, I listen to each album a minimum of two times: once in the car, and once on my home stereo. I do this so I can get the songs into my head enough to be able to say something about them, as well as to hear how they sound through different speakers. It wouldn't be fair to review them based only on how they sound in my car, right? Hell no. So I listen to each album in its entirety a minimum of twice, so with something like Crystal Ball, I've got five hours of listening to do just for the minimum.

After I listen all the way through for the second time, I go through the album again, track by track, spending more time with certain ones and less with others. Some I'll listen to three or four more times. Others I will skip entirely. For some tracks, the two minimum listenings are more than enough, but I still do it. It's only fair. It is at this point I start making notes about what I want to say.

I do a certain amount of research too, be it through the reading of liner notes to looking over other reviews from real critics. I am embarrassed to admit that I have referred to Wikipedia on occasion, but only for release dates and occasional chronological information in order to put into context in my own mind where things go, and where I may have been at the time. I realize no true journalist (and I am using the term loosely here when directing it at myself; I am not a journalist but I think I deserve a higher pay grade than the term "blogger" would award me) would ever choose to cite Wikipedia in his or her work. The site is utter garbage. But as a matter of minor information such as release dates and which album came when, I am content to trust it. (There's a lot of bad information on there though! Yowza!)

So after all that, I compile my notes into a short review and post it for you all to read. Yes, a good deal of time goes into this, and so when I get to something like Crystal Ball and its three discs, I just can't possibly pull it off in a single day. I'm about halfway through my first listen, in fact, so it may take a few days to get through this. And with the kid here until Tuesday, well, let's just say Prince isn't always the best music to have on when an 11 year-old is wandering in and out of the room.

So, until Crystal Ball gets through my ears, I'll be signing off. Thank you, the few of you who are interested. This is a worthy experiment and we have a very long way yet to go!