SassyPants said:

Hmm... I'm afraid I'm going to have to send you running back to your dictionary. 'Duplicity' and 'Duplication' mean the same thing, even if you do have license to use the former for other means. That said, I have a feeling that you believe 'Multiplicity' has nothing to do with 'multiplying', and the fact that the film of the same name goes from having one Michael Keaton to four of him is nothing but a bizarre co-incidence!

As for 'punctual', it should be obvious where this is derived from (or vice versa), and the meaning fully understood from the context. English works like that. Aside from anything else, the strictness of the language you are trying to impose on me renders your own slang statement of 'calling a brother out' as completely nonsensical!

I should point out that the word used by Hahn is 'duplicative', not that it makes any difference. His 'comprehensive' index, through which he boasted so much, is nothing to write home about. He seems perplexed about what constitutes a sideline project, justifying the inclusion of the Eric Leeds 'Times Squared' album given Prince’s song writing involvement. I don’t know why he even thought twice about its inclusion – Leeds’s instrumental talents act as vocals, so it’s not so different from, say, Jill Jones.

Personally, I thought the division should have been more obvious to anyone. Martika’s Kitchen is clearly in the wrong section – sure, it gets more than the usual couple o’ tracks, but it’s still an album that Prince contributed work to, but had no control over. Hahn should have kept to a simple rule – if it’s heavy on Prince and either Warner, Paisley or NPG, then it’s a sideline project.

I suppose Martika should be grateful she even made the appendix at all! She appears nowhere else in the book! And she would have provided plenty of talking points for Hahn. For a start, there were four songs which, in my humble opinion, comprised of two classics and two fillers. It should also be noted that the Martika co-writing credits are more than a little dubious. She probably contributed nothing (unlike the contemporary tracks by Monie Love where she clearly deserved her credit). This would have been a counterpoint to another of Hahn’s grudges – Prince’s lack of giving out song writing credits. Hahn doesn’t seem to notice that on the albums where this seems to be prevalent, credit is shared right from the off as ‘Produced, Arranged, Composed and Performed by Prince and The Revolution / New Power Generation’. Thus Prince feels he has given some kind of blanket credit, and only seems to distinguish on a few individual tracks. Affable Alex doesn’t seem to spot this, however. Ah well.

And I’m sure, if he’d done his homework, that he’d know George Clinton shouldn’t have been credited on We Can Funk. But hey… the man is often generous, which is ignored in Hahn’s book completely. The Eric Leeds album is less clear, but I’ve no doubt that the Spandau Ballet lawyer, who found for the song writer and against Tony Hadley and co, may have disputed Leeds claim to co-authorship of even these numbers! I could be wrong (and let’s face it, I wasn’t there when the tracks were composed) but given that Leeds doesn’t stray too far from the melody (which Prince almost certainly composed), then he adds no more compositional involvement than an interpretive vocalist on an old Beatles standard. But, as I said, I could be wrong.

Back to Martika. Clearly a case of Prince giving co-authorship to women (see also Easton, Sheena) who may not have even been in the country when the song was written and recorded. Perhaps Hahn’s psychological & sexual study of Prince could have benefited from a close look at Love… Thy Will Be Done. Was Martika involved in the lyric? Check this out…

‘I see all of your creations as one perfect complex
No one less beautiful or more special than the next’

Clearly, this is a love song, and the recipient of this deep love can be none other than Prince, whose unmatched body of work is being referred to. Let’s face it, even if you’re a huge Sting fan, the phrase just doesn’t quite work, does it?

So, did Martika write it, and is this another celeb affair we can add to the ‘sex’ section of Hahn’s book? Or did Prince write this love letter to himself, which surely Hahn could have tried to analyse in some psycho-sexual fashion. Oh, and whilst he was at it, he could admit that Prince is often a tad generous when giving out song writing credit. As much as (if not more than) instances where he doesn’t!

And as for that ‘comprehensive’ index – I don’t want to get picky again and point out that he missed listing the company credits on Times Squared. Especially when I can point out that, despite indexing an obscure song given to Kenny Rodgers, Hahn has (in another Homer Simpson moment) suddenly forgot all about the recent Larry Graham / Chaka Khan albums! Par for the course on this book really!
[This message was edited Tue May 20 11:35:49 PDT 2003 by McD]

Let me be clear that I am not one of those who simply oppose Hahn's book because they think it's all a big lie and that Prince is above reproach and should not be "disrespected". Like it or not, Prince has been in the public's eye for more than a quarter of a century, and like many of us he has made bad decisions and a couple of enemies along the way.

But unlike us, he cannot hide behind a facade of anonymity. That's the price you pay when you have been in the limelight... someone's going to put you on trial, and pretty much everything will get aired, from the undeniable to the oh-hum "story confirmed by at least two sources." Have you ever stopped to think what it would be like if a stranger would write a book on you that includes stories told by at least two of your former friends?

That's not what I'm looking for. I want a book written by a real american music expert who focuses on what we know Prince for - his music. I've read many such books about other musicians, and they were full of stories too. But they did not have this "gotcha" feeling you get when you read Possessed. And I'm not interested in gotchas when it comes to a talent of Prince's size... especially when the unauthorized biographer compares him to Duke Ellington yet buries his career with a shoddy title that spells out its lack of scope.