I received the book as a gift (No I didn't ask for it). I know a little about this book. I hear it's the "Bad Prince" book that does not shed Prince in a good light at all. I noticed the first sentence starts with "The problems in Prince's life..." It can't be a good story strating there . I also noticed who contibuted to the book...Not a lot of major players and those with axes to grind.

So how much of a grain of salt do I take this book?

superspaceboy said:

stock up!

I have this book ... interesting read. The way I see it - who doesn't have problems or for that matter enemies? I would assume that the story is based on what's factual to the contributors. I'm sure Prince would have a different perspective (or not) on his life events.

Anx said:

maybe I'll just wear a salt lick around my neck...just in case.

I loved the book. Prince isnt a super hero He fucks up & we have seen so many examples of him not being able to work with people and be a actual cool friend.



The book should have another chapter about not. "Rise, Fall & Rise Again"

who is Alex Kahn. I tried to google him but nothing came up. Was he a former employee?

http://gmms.lafourche.k12...ST_khan.au

Anx said:

that's funny, but true

Anx said:

Ha! I was thinking the same thing.

I actually like the book. I'm sure everything in there isn't a 100% correct but I'm sure it is not all fictious either. When Musicology came out I got and read this book after a long hiatus from being a Prince fan. This book actually along with the album got me back into Prince's music and rediscovering him.

wonder505 said:

Go to www.google.com

Type in "Alex Hahn" - using the quotation marks.

Click the first link that is given:

http://hahnlawgroup.com/B...t_Inf.html

Background:

http://music.yahoo.com/re...v=25023071

.

langebleu said:

thanks a lot. I was wondering what the connection is.

just say NO!, IMHO it's pretentious, puts P on an unrealistic pedastal and above all else the title shoots itself in the ass BIG TIME. The author makes a simple yet fatal mistake i.e. he forgets that P is just a human who should be allowed to make mistakes , his tone is wholly unforgiving in its attitude to his 'failings'. In terms of documenting his career there's other books out there that are just as effective although you can get so damn much of it from the net.

Alex Hahn is a good man and a fan, not a backbiter. He interviews some very deep, connected players in the Paisley Park empire, so the information he uses is impecable. Plus he uses Per Nilson, who is the world's Prince expert. Sure, the book makes Prince look awful, but that is Prince's fault for being a bad person, not Hahn's. Hahn had to tell the truth, or the book would have been like Stalinist propaganda. Bringing him down could be good for Prince. He became more humble because of it.

I didn't like the book, dwells too much on the negative and it had some shocking details about his baby's death and Prince being linked to Satan, no thanks!

The book is a good read. I read it in 4 days. It is fairly believable.

wlcm2thdwn said:

WTF?!?!

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. POSSESSED is an very good book (just short of excellent, but the typos and minor facts bump it down a notch). Alex did a HELL of a lot of research on it and as someone who has done several dozen interviews with Prince associates, it was fairly accurate. Even Alan Leeds praises the book.

A lot of fans didn't want to know about the reality of Prince on a day to day level and that's cool. Just stay away from the book if that is the case. If you are looking for an interesting read, pick it up and give it a spin. You'll walk away with some new information about the man, and about his music and his art.

The people who don't want you to read the book are the ones who don't want to have their illusions shattered.

I thought this was an excellent Prince book. The best book ever written about him, I think. I didn't have any problem with Alex Han's supposedly 'negative' assessment of Prince, because I'm from Minneapolis and I grew up with stories of Prince's bad behavior. It wasn't surprised. Alex Hahn is obviously a fan.

Having follwed Prince forever, I agreed with alot of Hahn's assesments and found alot of my own thoughts about Prince re-confirmed. I read that book in one sitting. I couldn't put it down.

JudasLChrist said:

It was one of those page turners. But I don't think the book really made Prince out to be a monster or anything like some people think, it still showed a human side too..like about he uses his work to escape and to some extent keep people at bay in his life. Some interesting things in the book was reading about the S ign of the Times period were people in his life said his dark side was starting to take over and was sorta falling into a depression. And how, I think, Susan Rogers tried to talk to him about depression and he acted like being depressed was a paractically a sin or something.

No one person is all bad..the book kinda just showed me that he has human struggles just as we all do...he just deals with them in different ways because of his money and fame.

2freaky4church1 said:

your reply is as arrogant as the Book. Do you seriously think P changed his ways because of this trash?. As for Alex being a 'good man', i bet yu could round up people / family members and get them to say things that can be construed as unfavourable and paint him to be a bad person. Bottom line is that , like MANY people in show biz, P had a single minded determination to get to where he was going and possibly broke a few hearts on the way. I also bet that half the people who wrote about P being bad wouldn't have half the career they enjoyed without him.

I thought it was a good book. I enjoyed reading it. Hahn's sources seem to be pretty solid, and it seemed very believable to me.

That being said, I disagree with the premise of a "rise and fall". Anybody who has been in music for as long as Prince has will have dry periods of commercial success. That doesn't necessarily equate to a "fall." Look at Elton John, David Bowie, Neil Young, Madonna, U2, REM, Springsteen, etc.... all of them have had periods where they didn't sell as well or weren't as well-respected, and they all bounced back. Same with Prince, who came back in a huge way commercially with "Musicology" and "3121" after the publication of Hahn's book.

From a music standpoint, it's all in the eye of the beholder. Hahn makes clear his opinion of some of Prince's 90's stuff, and reports it as fact, as if he were an expert. His opinion is every bit as valid as mine, or anybody else on this forum, or any other fan. Many Prince fans love the 90's stuff, myself included, and while I don't think it's as consistent or strong as the 80's material, I would hardly consider it an artistic "fall."

So is the "rise and fall" referring to the commercial success of the music, the music itself, Prince's personal life, or all of it? Who knows. To me, it's a failed premise that there was a "rise and fall" and Hahn seems to have focuses his work in such a way as to emphasize this premise.

THAT BEING SAID - I did enjoy it. I just didn't agree with the way all of the information was presented, and I didn't agree with some of the conclusions that Hahn made.

I didn't like the book. When it is not emphasizing something negative about Prince, it it pointing out that Prince's music isn't that good as most people think. Alex, the new part-time Billy Jack Bitch.

Thank you, Gyro34!

northernlad is spot-on. there is a lot of great information in this book including lots of negative stuff about prince which is undisputable (in fact the vast majority of the negative stuff in the book is undisputable). but the whole "rise-fall/prince in and out of control" story arc he forces everything through almost ruins the entire thing completely. the writing is very tabloidy, childish and sensationalistic. it also brings itself down by "sexing up" reliable accounts from reliable individuals with rumors or hearsay from "unnamed sources". it's definitely a must-read if you're a prince fan, it has some really fascinating stuff in it (the stuff about the black album/lovesexy epiphany blew my mind, the stuff about his arguments with WB in the late eighties early nineties were eye-opening too) but yeah...giant mountain of salt.
[Edited 12/29/06 14:22pm]

wlcm2thdwn said:

Hi, Wlcm2thdwn.

Another thing to take into account is that Alan Leeds himself says that this is the best book ever written about Prince.

I enjoyed it because it wasn't full of just "good" Prince stuff. If it had been, it would have been boring.

Alex Hahn is the Lawyer who acted against Prince on behalf of 'Uptown'.

He is a poor excuse for a writer and the book contains many factual errors which I'm sure you will spot.

Apart from Hahn's obivous bias and terrible writing skills and research, all that remains is gossip-style storytelling, expose's and circumstantial evidence.

If you enjoy a bit of dirt digging you might enjoy the book.

I didn't think much of this book.
Can anyone point me to a complete list of all books written about Prince? My collection is stored elsewhere, and I can't remember the name of my favorite book- written late 80's I believe and out of print now I think. (But I'll know it when I see it ).