I wanna buy ONE book about Prince's bio, what do you recommend me??

Speaking of which, who wrote DMSR???

WHO are you??

'Sigh' Ahh man, not this shit again

Read above the avatar and you'll know who's ME,,PUNK
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
LOL nah I'm only J/K :p c'mon nah answer the goddamn Q

"Purple Reign~ The Artist Formerly Known as Prince", personally... I really enjoyed reading this book.

Harlepolis, I feel horrible about the CD...perhaps it will show up when you least expect it.

Beautiful Day, truly.

Wasnt it Per Neilsen or something like that who wrote DMSR,Im sure it was he .

Much love Pochacco

Freespirit said:

Ahh c'mon man, it'll show up and I'll Orgnote you when I get it.

BTW what this book talk about exactly?? And where can I find it??

Pochacco-Per Nelson?? Is he a kin???

DMSR stops @ 1988, and DOW is like a log of releases. What are the alternatives?

Freespirit said:

What are you talking about?? Shit, you were putting the spice on them food potan

I don't have time to get into all the details but "Purple Reign" is not a very good book.

It's full of many assumptions by the author and facts that are not correct. She also uses other interview sources and passes them off as her own.

She talked to him for like five minutes as part of the "Emancipation" promotion and tried to make it seem like she had an exclusive interview.


In my opinion "Purple Reign"is a book for the non-hardcore fan while "DMSR" is the book for the real fans.

DMSR" is by far the Prince bio that you can buy through regular outlets. By Per Nilsen of Uptown. It only goes through 87 though.

Even better is "Days Of Wild" from Uptown. Order it from their website. Well worth the money.

Can Days Of Wild be ordered from Barnes N Noble?


Hey Harepolis, DMSR is the BEST BEST BEST OF BEST!

Purple Reign is aiight, but like said previously goes by othger peeps quotes and stuff. Per Nilsen really really does his work.

Another one is PRINCE : A DOCUMENTARY by Per Nilsen also. I hope he comes out with another book.
[This message was edited Sun Oct 13 14:05:14 PDT 2002 by paisleypark4]

paisleypark4 said:

DAYS OF WILD is the update for A DOCUMENTARY.

AaronForever said:

DMSR far&away easily IMHO.

lovemachine said:

I echo all that, she plays off the Oprah Winfrey interview as her own. Full of rumour and gossip.

Was my first Prince book and although I enjoyed it at the time I see the holes now. I appreciated the album reviews at back most of all.

DMSR is so so so the best book ever written about Prince. If I had to choose just one, it'd be that one. It was written by Per Nilssen of course. Yes it does end at around 1988 but that doesn't matter. I talked to Per about it before over email and he said that he lost a lot of money making the book, and it was never really going to pay off as a commercial endeavour - rather it was a real "labour of love".

"Prince: A Pop Life" wasn't bad either, I'm not sure who wrote that. Avoid "Slave to the Rhythm" and "Imp of the Perverse" - they stink. "Turn it Up" unfortunately is unreadable to my eyes (the font size is tiny) so I can't tell you if it is good or not.

Get DMSR.

Essence said:

Agreed 100%, that book is some bullshit. Somebody bought it for me so I didn't wanna seem ungrateful by tossing it. I read it...

Yeah, Purple Reign is crap. In fact, isn't that and Slave 2 The Rhythm (what a completely idiotic name for a Prince-book, by the way!) the same, only with different titles?

DMSR is DanceMusicSexRomance, if you wanna find it at Amazon or wherever. It relies heavily on Prince - A Documentary, and I guess it has to be counted as the best Prince-biography. It covers all and every little thing Prince did from 1976 to 1989.

I actually like Prince - A Pop Life by Dave Hill better. It's written in 1988 and does not dig as deep into Prince's every day to day as Per Nilsen's book(s), but it has more of an outsider's sobriety to it. Hill doesn't know Prince, all the people around him and everything about him, instead he's getting to know, trying to understand.

The book offers some interesting perspectives on Minneapolis, black/white, the battle of the bands, Prince's parents and the Andersons, the sexual explicity in soul music and a lot of other stuff that Nilsen really doesn't dig into that deeply. His book is a phenomenal day-by-day account of Prince's carreer: A Pop Life has discursions and digressions that makes for an even more interesting read, I think. Get them both.

ian said:

Dave Hill, I believe. THE first serious bio on Prince I owned, and its brilliant. It was published in 1988 or 1989. Much like the Uptown publications, it has deep analysis about Prince's work. Unfortunately, it's out of print today. Perhaps you can still find it at the library, though.

disdain4theunfunky said:

oops sorry didn't see this.

Oh, and I forgot to mention: Purple Reign are two different books. Some dude, was that Stephen Ivory? wrote a book by that name in 1986, or something.

So this chick, Liz Jones, really got the whole deal messed up. The book itself is a painful read. "He told me that recent analasis has proven that there are probably two people inside him. It's like a gemini. They haven't figured out what sex the other person is yet." And we're sitting there reading this, going "Wtf...?"

A friend of mine has got this bio called "INSIDE THE
PURPLE REIGN " by Mpls journalist Jon Bream. It´s out
of print an back then Prince bought the rights for it,
I think it was too personal or something...you might
get it second hand...

DMSR is so good because Pier Nielsen interviewed the right people, the ones who know about music : Prince's former musicians and sound engineers (Susan Rogers has so many interesting things to say!). It's fascinating. I love that book.

Liz Jones' "Slave 2 The Rhythm" was re-issued in USA as "Purple Reign", only difference being it has the update of Crystal Ball review etc.

Not to be confused with Jon Bream's "Inside The Purple Reign".

disdain4theunfunky said:

That's actually a direct quote that Prince made on the Oprah Winfrey show that Liz played off as something Prince said to her.

The only one I've read is DMSR and I was absolutely AMAZED at this book. I was afraid I'd get it and it'd turn out to be a gossip mag type book. It wasn't. It was very informative and brutally honest in all the right ways.

I've been wondering about Days of Wild. I've seen people here mention it, but wasn't sure if it was a CD or a book. If it's a book, I'd like to check it out; especially if it's more up to date.

WW thanx u guys you all are helpful

"Prince: A Pop Life" by Dave Hill. Published by Faber and Faber in the UK. Also published in the US. Now out of print and goes up to the LOVESEXY period, I think, because it was published around 1989.

This, to me, is by far the best biography. It's well written by an esteemed music journalist. Well researched and
objective, relevant and intelligent.

Start here, if you can find it.