Prince - Black Album

The Black Album is a Prince record that was originally planned for release on December 7, 1987, as the follow-up to Sign o' the Times. Referred to as The Funk Bible by preceding press releases, and in a hidden message within the album itself, the work seemed to be a reaction to criticism that Prince had become too pop-oriented. The 1987 promo-only release had no printed title, artist name, production credits or photography printed; a simple black sleeve accompanied the disc. On promotional copies, only a song listing and catalog number—25677—were printed on the disc itself. The commercial version was to only have the catalog number printed in the color peach on the spine. The album was withdrawn weeks before its release date, and was replaced with the album Lovesexy, a brighter pop-oriented album with elements of religious affirmation.

The Black Album was legitimately released by Warner Bros. Records in November 1994—again, containing only a track listing and a new catalog number (45793) printed onto the disc itself, the copyright date of 1994 (with the exception of "When 2 R in Love," which was released in 1988 on Lovesexy), and only legal copy appearing on the spine. It was released in a strictly limited edition and deleted by Warner Bros. the following January. It is believed that this release was legitimized so that Prince could get out of his new seven-album contract with the label (which he had signed the previous year) because he wanted ownership of his master recordings. Soon before the release of The Black Album, Prince started to appear with the word "slave" written on his face and changed his legal name to an unpronounceable symbol.