Has anybody read any of these Books? Whee any of these books every determined to be truthful? What is the most interesting or disturbing fact do you remember reading about Prince?

it should read: Were any of these books every determined to be truthful? Sometimes I type too fast.

don't know but ;

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i've read everything i can get my hands on, nothing shocking to me. Most people have huge shortcomings and flaws, part of being human. Prince is just human.

Dave Hills was an excellent bio in my opinion, although it was written way back in the eighties. I din't like the one by that one lady, forgot her name, seemed too tabloidy. DMSR is excellent and focus' on the professional Prince or rather the prince in his setting, the studio. Possessed was pure garbage, one of the worst pieces of writing by anyone on a major pop star. biased beyond reason, only worth reading for some of the rarer anecdotes like nearly getting into a fight with Miko and poking fun at matt fink for looking dumpy and old. I wonder if the anecdote about him od'ing was true? I've read it in a couple places, I don't think it is. but maybe someone on here can say more.

I am reading "Possessed" right now. I also read Purple Reign. Possessed is the "bad" book about Prince, while PR focuses less on the bad things and more on the artistic stuff.

Some of these books are a little old now. Have any of these things mentioned in the books that to ended up being true? You never hear anything about his life in the media. You never hear of him drunk, smoking, etc. It it strange that a lot of his x-girfriends have had alleged drug problems? He has always lived a clean live as far as I know.

I read Possessed and I thought it was damn good. It gives credit to Prince where credit is due and it slams him where he deserves slamming. The thing I liked about it is he uses direct quotes from people like Alan Leeds, Susam Rogers, Karen Krattinger, and Eric Leeds. And all of those people praise Prince where its due and rip him where its due. You can't argue with that. There are a few times in the book where the author quotes an anonymous source. You can dismiss those but not the numerous direct quotes. It goes into incredible detail both on the artistic side and the personal side. Imo the book is not baised it just tells it like it is.

Per Nilson's DMSR is a great read too. It cuts itself off at Lovesexy and comes to the (I believe) correct conclusion that this was the first subpar Prince album and that there would be many more subpar albums to follow. DMSR even quotes Susan Rogers as saying "I don't think he's written a truly great song in a very long time." But she also says that she knows his immense talent couldn't just have disappeared - that it has to still be there somewhere and hopefully he'll find his muse again.

LinnLM1 said:

Really in retrospect, the cutoff is closer to Diamonds and Pearls than it is to Lovesexy. Though I can say the Lovesexy was the first album after a long stretch that included what many fans to believe to be a filler track or two i.e.Glam Slam or Positivity. It was also the first album to "have issues" in regards to Black ALbum being pulled, the racy artwork, 1 track, and it did NOT hit the audience he had at the time like the one preceeding it did.

Personally I think it was his last "Great album" in the stretch that pretty much lasted (depending on your view) from Dirty Mind to Lovesexy. Even though Batman was solid and kinda underrated amongst the fans, it was tied to subject matter that Prince did not conceive and was very commercial, making it not one of his better works.

But really everything after Lovesexy, while some very wonderful moments, was patchy. Lovesexy was his last "envisioned" album (even though it really wasn't and was "thrown" together, I feel that he did a very good job with putting the pieces of that album together in a cohesive way) until Rainbow Children.

D.M.S.R's about the best thing i've read on Prince. Days Of Wild is pretty damn good too, even if it is more of a chronology than anything else.

superspaceboy said:

Completely agree with you.

I've read 2 of them and I swear the next one I read HE will have written himself, the others STINK!

wlcm2thdwn said:

never happen and it would most likely stink infinitely worse than these others. I really don't even like Prince's interviews let alone a whole book full of crap about how much of a genius he is, probably because i am a musician, every musician thinks they are the greatest thing in the whole universe and it's really tired to put up with. He's a talented cat but that's all, all the image crap is the reason he's not number one in my book.