If you want to know what the first chapter of Alan Light's just-published Let's Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain is like, read this.

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Prince's Purple Rain turned 30 this year. Both the incredible rock-opera movie and its soundtrack are still every bit as amazing in 2014 as they were when first created in 1984. Today, an entire generation of listeners has a shaky relationship with Prince, because Prince has a shaky relationship with the internet.

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In an age where fans expect direct relationships with the artists they love, Prince has turned himself into a reclusive legend. But 30 years ago, he was still a young artist on the cusp of releasing his greatest record — and former Vibe and Spin editor-in-chief Alan Light's Let's Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain documents how the record and film came to be. This is an exclusive excerpt from the first chapter of the book, which goes on sale today.

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Follow the link for the text and some nice graphics and more.

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(Wondering if this finally gets a homepage mention, considering the book is out NOW.)

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[Edited 12/9/14 11:24am]

Enjoyed reading that chapter. Going to order the book now.

And yeah, I'm gonna put this on the front page.

EDIT - Feature function isn't playing nice, will try again later.

thanks2joniandu said:

EVERYTHING about the 30 th anniversary of Purple Rain is out EXCEPT for the remastered album.....AAAAAAH!!!! (Ok, I feel better now )

Here ya go.

Links to other excerpts from the book and related material:

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• Rolling Stone: An exclusive excerpt from Alan Light's 'Let's Go Crazy' http://prince.org/msg/7/409366
• Relix magazine publishes excerpt from Alan Light's upcoming book "Let’s Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain" http://prince.org/msg/7/411522
• "Amazon Essentials: Rediscovering Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ 30 Years Later" by Alan Light: http://prince.org/msg/7/412745
• When “Purple Rain” Came Falling Down: At the apex of his success, Prince made a high-profile decision that damaged his reputation for years http://prince.org/msg/7/411789
• New York Post article that totally ripped off Alan Light's work: http://prince.org/msg/7/412667

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And totally unrelated to Alan Light but an equally worthwhile read on the topic of Purple Rain is this post by Anil Dash (a name well-known to old time Prince fans): http://medium.com/message...032d87c97b.

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[Edited 12/10/14 0:39am]

BartVanHemelen said:

Links to other excerpts from the book and related material:

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• Rolling Stone: An exclusive excerpt from Alan Light's 'Let's Go Crazy' http://prince.org/msg/7/409366
• Relix magazine publishes excerpt from Alan Light's upcoming book "Let’s Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain" http://prince.org/msg/7/411522
• "Amazon Essentials: Rediscovering Prince’s ‘Purple Rain’ 30 Years Later" by Alan Light: http://prince.org/msg/7/412745
• When “Purple Rain” Came Falling Down: At the apex of his success, Prince made a high-profile decision that damaged his reputation for years http://prince.org/msg/7/411789
• New York Post article that totally ripped off Alan Light's work: http://prince.org/msg/7/412667

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And totally unrelated to Alan Light but an equally worthwhile read on the topic of Purple Rain is this post by Anil Dash (a name well-known to old time Prince fans): http://medium.com/message...032d87c97b.

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[Edited 12/10/14 0:39am]

Anil Dash doesn't really add any new information, I think.

I'm about halfway with the book, and at this point the album and the movie have been released. So I'm wondering what the second half of the book will be about. Hopefully not more of the "let's hear what Tori Amos and Darius Rucker have to say about this album/movie" kind of things, because their thoughts were barely disguised padding.

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So far this book is a nice compilation of things we've known for ages, and it is really up to date: it even includes that rather ridiculous interview Apollonia gave this Summer about almost dying while filming the Lake Minnetonka scene. But I don't think I've read anything that wouldn't have been there if us fans had gotten our act together and compiled all of this using the existing sources on a wiki -- at least then we could have direct links to the sources. Plenty of the interviews seem fresh, but since they are the usual bunch of subjects there's really nothing new to learn.

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I'm really missing the eye openers we used to get from the likes of Uptown and Per Nilsen. I remember reading their books and just being astonished time and time again, even in later years. Nilsen's DanceMusicSexRomance had so much great stuff, even though we'd already had A Documentary by then and years of Uptown. Even Alex Hahn's Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince contained plenty of news.

Thanks Bart! Wait...did I just say that?

where is the Purple Rain 30th anniversary 2cd remaster??????????????????????

2014 will be purple???????????????

I am afraid not.

I'm at 72% and basically the book is finished: there are no more chapters, the next bit is called "Acknowledgments", followed by "About the author" and then a lot of pages containing the Index.

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Overall impression: a nice compilation of just about everything WRT Purple Rain, but I don't think there's any information here that you didn't know. There are some glimpses of insight, but again these are old news.

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Quite frankly, the word that comes to mind is "flimsy". Buyer beware.

BartVanHemelen said:

I'm at 72% and basically the book is finished: there are no more chapters, the next bit is called "Acknowledgments", followed by "About the author" and then a lot of pages containing the Index.

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Overall impression: a nice compilation of just about everything WRT Purple Rain, but I don't think there's any information here that you didn't know. There are some glimpses of insight, but again these are old news.

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Quite frankly, the word that comes to mind is "flimsy". Buyer beware.

How many pages is it? 28% of the book is index, thanks and "this is me"? Did the author write an autobiography about himself or something?

Rebeljuice said:

BartVanHemelen said:

I'm at 72% and basically the book is finished: there are no more chapters, the next bit is called "Acknowledgments", followed by "About the author" and then a lot of pages containing the Index.

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Overall impression: a nice compilation of just about everything WRT Purple Rain, but I don't think there's any information here that you didn't know. There are some glimpses of insight, but again these are old news.

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Quite frankly, the word that comes to mind is "flimsy". Buyer beware.

How many pages is it? 28% of the book is index, thanks and "this is me"? Did the author write an autobiography about himself or something?

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Hardcover is 304 pages, Kindle is 288 pages.

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Acknowledgments and About are two pages each in my Kindle, there are a couple of pages for Contents and Copyrights; the rest are the actual book + the index.

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Index is location 3380-4552, actual chapters are location 10-3324. Total amount of locations is 4627. So Index is 25% of the book (on my Kindle, but I expect also in the physical books).

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[Edited 12/12/14 8:15am]

BartVanHemelen said:

Read the book, nothing too special or nothing we didn't know already like Bart said. There were a few minor inaccuracies in the book, however it was a nice read.

BartVanHemelen said:

I enjoyed the beginning of it. But it became very negative toward . Wendy & Lisa said some horrible things about him. So ungrateful! Noone would know who they were if it wasn't 4 . They painted Brown Mark as very miserable & bitter also.

Alan just because U work for D'angelo now, doesn't mean U have to throw under the bus. Eye guess got the last laugh, since U thought U was going to capitalize on the 30th anniversary release huh.

NME01 said:

Key bits that spring to mind that I find interesting: His whole reclusive enigma image was quite carefully planned by himself and less about being 'painfully shy' as we're often told.

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Already known for ages. Uptown debunked this long ago, for instance.

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I wonder if he really understands what a great team he had around him then

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He obviously didn't.

KCOOLMUZIQ said:

I enjoyed the beginning of it. But it became very negative toward . Wendy & Lisa said some horrible things about him. So ungrateful! Noone would know who they were if it wasn't 4 . They painted Brown Mark as very miserable & bitter also.

You, my misguided friend, have no idea if this is the case. Maybe they would have started their career as tv composers much earlier and wouldn't have to put up with the "ex-revolution" bullshit baggage they have to carry with them otherwise.

Alan just because U work for D'angelo now, doesn't mean U have to throw under the bus. Eye guess got the last laugh, since U thought U was going to capitalize on the 30th anniversary release huh.

jdcxc said:

When is there going to be a SERIOUS documentary made about Prince's career with a brilliant director and a well-intentioned producer? He would have to open the video vault and lose some critical control.

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Ain't gonna happen. That Omnibus portrait was a decent chance since thye used to do in-depth stuff, and he blew them off, didn't want to do the interview he'd promised them and which they traveled to Minneapolis for in the Winter. The upside was that he compensated them (I think there was a strong contract with severe clauses for time wasting) by giving them access to all that great stuff: rehearsal footage, early live footage, footage from recording sessions,... Basically excerpt from docus and videos he'd made himself but never released.

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Nobody serious is gonna touch the subject because the only people talking are the same ones as always and they won't go on the record for the juiciest bits. Prince alledgedly bought the rights to Jon Bream's Inside The Purple Reign; Uptown can't do digital releases or updates of their books because they're severely restricted by the settlement deal... Those aren't the actions of a man who'd collaborate on a documentary; hell, let's forget about that, just imagine how much he'd hinder anyone making such a documentary.

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And it's a fucking shame, because if dickheads like the members of The Eagles can stand being part of a documentary that really shows what assholes they've become, you'd think someone like Prince would be able to. But it is patently obvious he doesn't want that critical light shining on him.

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And quite frankly such a documentary is far less important than proper curation of his back catalogue.

BartVanHemelen said:

jdcxc said:

When is there going to be a SERIOUS documentary made about Prince's career with a brilliant director and a well-intentioned producer? He would have to open the video vault and lose some critical control.

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Ain't gonna happen. That Omnibus portrait was a decent chance since thye used to do in-depth stuff, and he blew them off, didn't want to do the interview he'd promised them and which they traveled to Minneapolis for in the Winter. The upside was that he compensated them (I think there was a strong contract with severe clauses for time wasting) by giving them access to all that great stuff: rehearsal footage, early live footage, footage from recording sessions,... Basically excerpt from docus and videos he'd made himself but never released.

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Nobody serious is gonna touch the subject because the only people talking are the same ones as always and they won't go on the record for the juiciest bits. Prince alledgedly bought the rights to Jon Bream's Inside The Purple Reign; Uptown can't do digital releases or updates of their books because they're severely restricted by the settlement deal... Those aren't the actions of a man who'd collaborate on a documentary; hell, let's forget about that, just imagine how much he'd hinder anyone making such a documentary.

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And it's a fucking shame, because if dickheads like the members of The Eagles can stand being part of a documentary that really shows what assholes they've become, you'd think someone like Prince would be able to. But it is patently obvious he doesn't want that critical light shining on him.

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And quite frankly such a documentary is far less important than proper curation of his back catalogue.

No, why would he want that?

KCOOLMUZIQ said:

I enjoyed the beginning of it. But it became very negative toward . Wendy & Lisa said some horrible things about him. So ungrateful! Noone would know who they were if it wasn't 4 . They painted Brown Mark as very miserable & bitter also.

Alan just because U work for D'angelo now, doesn't mean U have to throw under the bus. Eye guess got the last laugh, since U thought U was going to capitalize on the 30th anniversary release huh.

What did they say?

paulludvig said:

BartVanHemelen said:

But it is patently obvious he doesn't want that critical light shining on him.

No, why would he want that?

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Because he's a grown-up? He'll happily bitch about other artists and the state of music in general, often wildly misinformed and patronisingly (check the slut-shaming interviews by 3EG to promote AOA/PE).

Thanks for the info and the brief review. I was just about to order this but now I see that the book does not contain that much info that I haven´t read elsewhere (I own pretty much every single one of the must-have Prince biographies up until Possessed but was thinking about buying one of the newer ones.....but this one is not going to be it).

Sounds a tad better than that Touré book that turned me off before I even read it but , considering this is written by Alan Light, I would have expected a more in-depth book with new info, not the same old same old...

Guess I will buy one of the other Prince books that have been released in the last two years. I kind of lost track.

KoolEaze said:

Actually the book does cover, unknown facts, about how "PurpleRain" was made. Also how the Wb was reluctant to finance it. It actually wasn't an easy movie to make,by an artist that no one EVER heard talk b 4. It was a page turner in the beginning. It also showed that O( > made the impossible happen by becoming a movie star& TOP recording artist @ the same time. Plus dethroning Mj in the process. Then the negativity started and the book went downhill after that.

I would have liked to have known more about the movie premier in HOLLYWOOD! It was the MAJOR event that summer.\, that MTV did a special and after premier performance. Or his MEGA grammy performance of "Baby I'm a Star", Yet he didn't mention anything about it. Instead he focused on the boring "We Are The World" mess. That the press couldn't wait to tear apart about.

NME01 said:

KoolEaze said:

Thanks for the info and the brief review. I was just about to order this but now I see that the book does not contain that much info that I haven´t read elsewhere (I own pretty much every single one of the must-have Prince biographies up until Possessed but was thinking about buying one of the newer ones.....but this one is not going to be it).

Sounds a tad better than that Touré book that turned me off before I even read it but , considering this is written by Alan Light, I would have expected a more in-depth book with new info, not the same old same old...

Guess I will buy one of the other Prince books that have been released in the last two years. I kind of lost track.

Fwiw I did find it a very enjoyable read. For the price of two coffees, I can't really fault it. Alan seemingly got a lot of time with the director and his management team to help add colour to the story Alan writes.

From what I have read so far, it seems to be a very well written book, and I usually like most of Alan Light´s articles anyway. The fact that it is well written reminds me a bit of Dave Hill´s Prince-A Pop Life book, which is one of my favorite Prince biographies. Then again, I trust Bart´s judgment and know that this book is not going to give me any new insight.

However, your post made me re-think whether I should buy a print version of this just to be a completist. It´s a bit pricey as an import though.

Have to see if there are any other interesting new Prince books first.

But thanks for your comment....will reconsider my initial reaction.

BartVanHemelen said:

paulludvig said:

No, why would he want that?

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Because he's a grown-up? He'll happily bitch about other artists and the state of music in general, often wildly misinformed and patronisingly (check the slut-shaming interviews by 3EG to promote AOA/PE).

Yeah that. I'm glad you brought those interviews up. That really pissed me off, and it was so hypocritical... and having his female band members say it for him made it even worse. A real low point.

BartVanHemelen said: