Prince

I'm a huge Prince fan and as the book suggests, this is the definitive work on the man. If you are as much of a fan as Matt Thorne then i highly recommend this book. Enjoy

a christmas gift and insight into prince and his music

This is a very in depth study of a musical genius at work. Definitely worth the money. Thanks

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On the face of it, a good Prince book. It falls down because of its subject matter. If Prince's work was limited to 1980-1988 then there would be a clear narrative arc, as with similar books written about the Beatles and Smiths. The problem is that Prince has so much material, over so much time, of such varying quality and with so much that is inaccessible. It means that the author here struggles to find new ways to keep the reader's interest but also give the necessary details for each song. If he had limited himself to one volume for each decade a greater balance could have been achieved between quality and quantity. I think the lack of permission to use the song lyrics also hurts the book. I personally liked the 'blog' section on the O2 shows but only because I went to one of the shows - others may feel different and skip over that section.

good book, good price

Over the years I think I've read every book published about Prince, some good, some bad. The last twelve months have been a bit of a Prince bonanza in terms of biographies, with Ronin Ro's " Prince: Inside the Music and the Masks " and Jason Draper's " Prince: Chaos,Disorder and Revolution " now being joined by this huge book, and the comment in the flyleaf that this "will stand for years to come as the go-to book on the great man" gave me high hopes. Yes, there are some good points to the book. The cover photos are both great, as are some of the shots inside, some of which were new to me, and there are some entertaining interviews with former band members and associates, plus unlike the Ro book which seemed to finish abruptly several years ago then rush to cram the remainder into a hasty epilogue, this book is much more up to date, finishing with Prince's appearance at the Hop Farm festival last year. So what's so bad about it? Well, surely an "authoritative" book on an artist should tell you when they were born for example, give some detail on their childhood, even tell you their full name, but all of these are glossed over or even ignored, as though the author had no interest in Prince's background, maybe as this has been covered in numerous other books, but again surely a "go-to book" should cover everything? There's also infuriatingly sketchy coverage on the first few albums, which were covered in much greater depth in the other two books published this year, and this patchiness continues throughout the rest of this book too: "The Black Album" for example is recorded, then suddenly disappears without explanation why; Paisley Park records is suddenly wound up with no detail on why it failed; significant personnel appear in the text without any information on who they are, but they are treated as though we already know them, mentioned often by their first name only; Prince's marriages end inexplicably; he and Mayte have a child and it dies, all within a sentence, never mentioned again... It feels as though the book was either hacked to pieces in the edit, or the author assumed the reader knew everything already, or the proofreading was brief to say the least. For a man who has led such an interesting life it is also a deeply boring book. Instead of focusing on the events that have shaped Prince author seems to prefer to describe every track on every album instead, ignoring the impact and critical reception of each release in favour of personal opinion after personal opinion, and this for me was the critical failing of the book - there is just too much of Matt Thorne in it. From the beginning he peppers the book with his own views on songs, albums, videos, concerts, and in any critical writing the critic shouldn't appear, instead presenting opinions as the general verdict rather than their own. It doesn't help that some of his views are bizarre to say the least, describing classic tracks and albums as weak whilst ones disliked almost universally are praised as works of genius. There are also countless inconsistencies in the book. On one page Thorne will describe one of Prince's recording and touring bands as being excellent, then a few pages later he'll say they are a weak line-up; he describes Prince's after-shows as not being as good as people say they are and usually a bit dull, then later he'll say they're the best thing he does and are "as good as ever"; he says Prince is a phenomenal live performer then says he's boring live... and so on. This last point is exacerbated by an infuriating chapter where the author goes to 19 of Prince's 21 nights at the O2 (and 14 after shows), describes them all in detail, then describes it as a boring experience and by the end he's sick of seeing Prince play live, adding that he'd prefer it if Prince played shows free of his famous songs, but then says everyone loves it when he plays his hits and finds it disappointing when he doesn't. Several of the interviews with the likes of Wendy & Lisa also display an infuriating trait. Just as something interesting is revealed, Thorne seems to stop probing. I was desperate for him to pursue some of these revelations, but I imagined him closing his notebook and walking away, almost like the character of Peter O'Hanra'ha'hanrahan in "The Day Today" ("as the minister lies sprawling on a pin, it's back to you Chris!") Yes, it's a thick book (562 pages, including two indexes, two sets of photos, a bibliography, and 48 pages of notes) but sadly the content is too opinionated and omits too much from Prince's story. In short it's the most infuriating biography I've ever read, and is one of the worst books on Prince I've bought. The Draper and Ro books mentioned at the start of this review are far, far better than this.

An enormous amount of time and energy went into the writing of this book and there are some interesting quotes from early members of his entourage that give some insight into Prince's mindset. But this is NOT a biography of the man or the musician so much as a catalogue of every single song he ever wrote, published or unpublished, for himself or any of his multiple side projects. As such it soon becomes very tedious. There is so much detail (lists of songs, brief comments on lyrics and lists of collaborators) that it's very hard to get an overview of any particular period in Prince's career - or indeed to remember, at the end of a chapter, what that chapter has been about. In short, you can't see the wood for the trees The book would have benefited hugely from a good edit. It's OK for archivists who like lists of tracks (and want to know whether the lyrics of a song are about love, sex or God, which is how most are summarised) but if you want to know about what made Prince tick, what inspired his music and how he evolved as a musician, then this tome is not for you.

Awesome book. One of my favorites regarding PRINCE. A must read! So very comprehensive. Great sources. This guy really did his homework.

pour les fans, ceux qui veulent tout savoir sur le génie de Minneapolis. Par contre la discographie s’arrête après 20Ten, en 2010 donc... (dans la langue de Shakespeare).

Awesome

Very interesting book that suffers from an author, who is reviewing the songs like a district attorney. Constant moralizing and humorless judgements make this a very hard read at times. Way too earnest and rigid approach but especially interesting because it puts a perspective on lesser known albums of the musical genius.

A flawed but ultimately worthwhile read. Thorne assumes his reader already knows a lot about Prince, so glosses over things as he lurches quickly from album to album, often given key songs only cursory mentions and then inexplicably lingering over forgotten side projects like Carmen Electra's album. He always writes almost as much about himself as Prince - it's really about his personal feeling and reaction as a fanboy (and he's an enthusiastic fan, for sure) about Prince's discography. Some of his conclusions are completely off-base, some I found myself agreeing with. The best parts are the interviews with former associates, and the segments about the Dream Factory period are particularly enlightening (especially the notion that the firm "tracklistings" for "The Dream Factory" that have been published over the years might not be anything other than a collection of songs on a tape for Prince's personal review rather than a possible album configuration. Which is something I long suspected... I never imagined that "Movie Star" would have been mooted for that album.) Still, it's a fast and ultimately interesting study of Prince's music by a die-hard fan, and if it ultimately fails to shed much new light on Prince overall, that says more about Prince than Matt Thorne. Worth the read.