Camille
Prince's shelved 1986 album sung by his pitched-up feminine alter ego, Camille.
Camille is an unreleased studio album that Prince recorded in 1986 under the name of a feminine alter ego, created by raising his vocals to an androgynous pitch. He meant to put it out with no mention of his own identity. The project was pulled a few weeks before release, and several of its songs moved to other records, above all the 1987 double album Sign o' the Times. In March 2022 Third Man Records said it had secured the rights to issue the album, but no release date or format has been announced since.
Quick Facts
- Released
- TBA; January 1987 (withdrawn)
- Recorded
- Late 1986
- Genre
- Funk
- Label
- Paisley Park/Warner Bros. (canceled); Third Man (TBD)
- Producer
- Prince
Facts from the source article.
Background
In mid-1986 Prince dropped his Dream Factory album and disbanded The Revolution. In late October he went into the studio with engineer Susan Rogers and began singing in a sped-up voice, a trick he had used earlier on the B-side "Erotic City". He called this voice Camille. Starting with the dance track "Housequake", he finished enough songs for an album within ten days and told Warner Bros. that his face would not be on the cover. One suggested source for the name is Herculine Barbin, a French intersex person of the 19th century who also went by Camille. The album was being mastered by November 5 and some copies were pressed, but Prince abandoned it, possibly because the label would not release a record not credited to him.
Track listing
Side 1
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rebirth of the Flesh | 4:54 |
| 2 | Housequake | 4:34 |
| 3 | Strange Relationship | 4:04 |
| 4 | Feel U Up | 6:27 |
Side 2
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 5 | Shockadelica | 6:12 |
| 6 | Good Love | 5:11 |
| 7 | If I Was Your Girlfriend | 4:47 |
| 8 | Rockhard in a Funky Place | 4:30 |
Track listing from the source article.
Did You Know?
- A rare early LP pressing sold at auction in 2016 for $58,787.
- The release was given catalog number 25543.
- Prince later blamed The Black Album on Spooky Electric, a dark counterpart to Camille.
- His plans for Camille at one point stretched to ideas for a movie.
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