Hi All,
I'm new here so apologies in advance if I post in the wrong place or something that has been posted recently.

I'm just looking for a couple of good biographies on prince, that focus on his life as well as his music. I was looking at Possessed; the rise and fall of Prince by Alex Hahn apparently that includes stuff about him expecting his first child,and being so unhappy professionally and privately what are your opinions on this one.

Was also told the one by Ronan Ro Behind the masks is not a good one??

So any recommendations would be great.

Thanks

Any biography is going to be able to tell you the basic story of Prince's life and career. Each bio will have varying degrees of bullshit and mistakes, but nothing is perfect. They're all basically the same.

I have nearly them all, minus the last two or three/whatever.

I liked "Possessed," and I like "DMSR The First Ten Years." The rest are fairly average but there are good ones. It's only really the most recent books that will bring you his career/story up to the present day as a lot of the books are older. Info in these more recent books I found rather scant though, particularly regarding the last ten years or so of Prince's life.

The new one is getting some positive sounds pre-publication.

According to other threads here it's been many years in the making....

DMSR is the best, but it does only go up to 1987 and the author Per Nilsen is also author of the out of print, The Vault and Days of Wild. 10/10 His Documentaries (Books) from 1990 and 1993 are also great.

Possessed by Alex Hahn is fairly good, goes up to 2002, but is a bit backstabbing and is rather critical of Prince, still its good to read something thats not written through stargazed fan eyes. 8/10

Chaos, Disorder and Revolution is okay but rather dry and factual, it dosen't really do more than scratch the surface, he goes up to 2010, but deep musical discussion is not part of it. 6/10

Slave to the Rhythmn by Liz Jones from 1998 is fairly good and has a good discography in back, it relies a lot of interviews and is great as it deals with the 90s in good detail. 8/10

The best of the old ones, is Prince a Pop Life by Dave Hill, from 1989, although it resurfaces a lot, its the essential 80s view of Prince and leaves the reader at the end of Lovesexy wondering where he goes to next, has a great discography too. If u see it at a 2nd hand shop, buy it! 9 - 9.5/10

Imp of the Perverse by Barney Hoskins from 1988 is okay but leaves the reader wondering about his style which is quite prurient its also shorta nd relies on pictures (Although some great ones). Still a fine curio of the time 8/10

Thief in the Temple by ???? about 2007 is very sketchy, boring and full of mistakes not reccomended 4/10

The Ronin Ro book I haven't read but I have heard its not that great, still I would like to read it and make an opinion of my own.

I also have a small book from 1995 called A complete guide to the music of Prince by Geoff Brown, published in England he reviews all of Princes albums from For You to Come and Black Album, its quite insightful and interesting. It also has a lot of superb Dirty Mind era concert photos.

8/10

djfine said:

The new one is getting some positive sounds pre-publication.

According to other threads here it's been many years in the making....

It sounds promising...