My apologies if this has been discussed already...

Having already read "Purple Reign" and "Possessed" and not owning a copy of "The Vault" yet, all of the magazine articles have done a great job of keeping my nightstand stocked with Prince reading material, but imagine my surprise when, while at the Borders on Michigan Avenue in Chicago on Thursday, I stumble across one copy of a tiny little book...120 pages written about "Sign 'O' The Times"!!!!!

The book, written by Michaelangelo Matos, has a 2004 publishing date and his part of a series of books called "33 1/3," written by various music critics and writers about their picks for the most significant albums of all time. (The book says that others in the series include books about albums by Pink Floyd, Dusty Springfield, Abba, The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix and Velvet Underground (to name a few), with titles soon to come on landmark albums by Radiohead, Jeff Buckley, The Beatles, and Jethro Tull.

I read the thing in one sitting! The book includes a bit of the author's personal story... "I head to the store's music department and find a cassette of "Sign 'O' The Times." Then I locate Mom, ask if I can buy the tape, drop nine dollars and ninety-eight cents worth of merchandise next to Brittany in the cart's baby seat, and permanently alter the course of my life."

Highlights of the book include a song-by-song analysis of the album, written by a guy who is truly a gushing Prince fam but still able to be realistic and critical where needed. His descriptions of the songs: how they were created, what they remind him of, what impact they have and what they can each be compared to, will make you want to listen to each song through headphones just after you've read about that section in the book. Hell, his detailed analysis of the album cover made me spend five straight minutes staring at it after pulling it off the shelf, and I've NEVER really done that before!

In addition....YES...there is a detailed breakdown of the tracklistings of "Camille" and "Crystal Ball" and "Dream Factory," since there are so many configurations that we never seem to have it down. (By the way, I must be a moron because a few song titles are mentioned here that I don't think I've seen before...?)

And, YES, the book discusses Prince's career leading up to it and what follows. Some of you won't like everything Matos has to say. For instance, he says of "Lovesexy" that "half the album sucked," calls the title track of "Diamonds and Pearls" "the worst single he's ever released," and argues that is Prince's "best album since "Sign..."." Most of you, though, will laugh as I did when Matos describes Tony M. as "something Prince won at an arcade."

All in all, it's a fun and fast read. For those of you who list "Sign 'O' The Times" as your favorite Prince album, you really have no choice but to own this book ($10). And for those of you who are huge Prince-heads, you should read it too.

...and that covers just about everyone!

Keith/Kacey

Hmmm, I've seen this book around on my visit here in the US and now I think I just might have to get it! Thanks for the review!

It's a cool book, from a slanted but fun perspective. I too read it in one sitting. My wife thought I died on the toilet...

Ha ha! Yeah...I read a good chunk of it on the commode as well.

As for the "slanted" part...of course it's slanted! It's written by a guy who says that the album changed his life and it's a part of a series of books on albums considered to be the best of all time! With those things in mind, it's just refreshing that he's critical of Prince at all (shows he's human, and besides...we do a pretty good job of being critical of Prince here, no matter how much we love him).

Cue "Jughead."

Keith/Kacey

some ppl get all the luck

see, yall love the book, but i was just on amazon.ca and read some customer reviews on it...and 2 out of the 3 hated it...the 3rd was so so....

http://www.amazon.ca/exec...37-3939217


???

SammiJ said:

Those reviews come from people that can't read without moving their lips.

u lost me when u said he said half of lovesexy sucked...

Kacey725 said:

(humming "Sign O' The Times" while trying to sync it with butt-bass)

squirrelgrease said:

You ain't right.

i read it and i liked it. i wasn't expecting to like it, cuz i heard it was kind of an autobiographical rant, but i was really charmed by it. highly recommended.

squirrelgrease said:

as for the book, i got a copy of it at shinders...it's pretty good.