On December 7, 1987 Prince was set to release “The Black Album“, his follow-up to the “Sign O’ The Times” album. “The Black Album” had no printed title, artist name, production credits or photography printed; a simple black sleeve accompanied the disc.
The album was recalled a week before it’s release and replaced with the album “Lovesexy” which was released on May 10, 1988. The reasons behind the recall vary from, Prince being convinced the album was evil, or that Prince decided to scrap the album after experimenting with the drug Ectasy and having a bad trip.
Whatever the reason it is pretty clear that Prince did not like “The Black Album” because he added this split second hidden message in the video for “Alphabet St.” the first single off of “Lovesexy”. DON’T BUY THE BLACK ALBUM, I’M SORRY.
The album was heavily bootlegged and Warner Bros. ended up releasing it in November 1994 as a strictly limited edition and deleted it after the release. IMO, I heard the record and it is really really bad, not Prince’s best work by far.