I'm yet to find a book on Prince that feels like it was written by someone who appreciates his work. Matt Thorne, Ronin Ro and Per Nielsen's books all are constantly critical of him to the point where I found myself wondering, why would you even bother writing a book about someone you have this much hostility towards? Ronin Ro's one is particularly bad. Parade through Lovesexy is portrayed as one disappointing flop after another. Really???

MrSquiggle said:

I found myself wondering, why would you even bother writing a book about someone you have this much hostility towards?

.

You do realise you're writing (a negative forum post) about people you apparently feel hostile towards, right?

.

Look, criticism doesn't mean hostility. You do acknowledge that Prince has done shitty things, right?

.

And just don't read Ronin Ro's book, it's a piece of crap anyway.

BartVanHemelen said:

MrSquiggle said:

I found myself wondering, why would you even bother writing a book about someone you have this much hostility towards?

.

You do realise you're writing (a negative forum post) about people you apparently feel hostile towards, right?

.

Look, criticism doesn't mean hostility. You do acknowledge that Prince has done shitty things, right?

.

And just don't read Ronin Ro's book, it's a piece of crap anyway.

A forum post isn't a book and it's something I've never seen raised. Of course he's done plenty of shitty things but like... Lovesexy!? Per Nielsen, too, is so respected and he goes on about what a bad album Controversy is. It just seems bizarre to me that these guys feel so intent on even getting subjective opinions in there to that extent, and the common thread is that everything after Purple Rain is a letdown.

What no one has really ever managed to capture is the diverseness of Prince's fanbase. We've seen it with Emancipation threads over the years, there's almost no agreement on what songs should make that album. Some people only want to hear the 80's new wave punky influenced stuff, some love the 90's R'n'B more than anything, some only want to hear what was made a pop hit, some only want to hear what is pushing boundaries that they're personally interested in being pushed etc.

For what it's worth I think Per Nielsen was quite fair, even if I didn't always personally agree with him on everything.

Isn't Touré's book supposed to be a bit of an unabashed love-letter? I haven't got round to it yet.

[Edited 7/4/16 4:49am]

I don't agree Ronin Ros' book is that bad, the most negative to me is Alex Hahns, he pretty much divides it in half between (Rise 1978 - 1987) and Fall (1988 - 2002) and virtually every album from Lovesexy onwards is in his eyes crap, also there are several less than complimentary interviews with people who have axes to grind.

.

Thorne is not that negative, he is musicologist and his book is more dry and turgid in parts rather than negative. Positive books include "DMSR The first decade" by Per Nilsen and Alan Lights - Lets Go crazy is very upbeat too. The 80s classics Pop Life by Dave Hill and Imp of the Perverse are upbeat too.

.

Toure and (Brian Morton) Thief in the temple are oblique, but not negative. It's a matter of opinion, but Prince's standoffish behaviour has contributed to it a bit, I mean he did not really like prying authors and interviewers did he. Unlike MJ and many others, how many books about Prince actually had Prince input via interviews or anything else? - None unless they were quoting interviews, usually with people like DEz and Wendy who were booted out of Prince's groups along with disgruntled ex proteges like Carmen Electra, Mayte, Jesse Johnson and Anna Garcia, so of course you are getting axes to grind, plus you can't talk to Prince to refute the rumours.

.

With this scenario where the antagonists dominate the words an content and the protagonist is absent and probably not evening supporting the project, how are you supposed to get anything objective. I mean anyone can write a book with a bit of research and some interviews, but very Prince books have been done by fans and fewer yet by fans with rose tinted glasses. After all this is a man who was super talented and made some incredible music, but was mostly a complete asshole to his fans, suing them, banning his videos on YouTube and preaching JW dogma to them, he is hardly Mr Public relations. The fact his own book was cut off by death does not help unless Prince can become a Ghost writer , but I can hardly get angry at someone for dying on us, but then again it would have been interesting to see what Prince had to say himself beyond overpriced vanity volumes like 21 nights.

.

Also many books about him are just rubbish. Brian Morton and Toure are not worth even entertaining, same with the jokey Steven Ivory one from 1985 and there are others. Anyone can write a celebrity biography and many will grind axes (Look at all the crap written about Michael Jackson, new doggerel books like one by so called pseudo girlfriend Shana Matangal and the one Shmuley Boteach are tacky cash ins on a dead celebrity).

.

So guys stick to Nilsen and Thorne I think, although Alan Lights book was pretty good, and prepare for some more instant rubbish to emerge in the next year, about his death.

For one thing negativity sell. People love negativity. They only remember the bad things people do. Prince did not address a lot of the negative statements about him or his music thoughout the years. So that alone makes things one sided. Where is Prince perspective? No one is perfect or immune to criticism but in some cases people have bad agendas and/or bias. His music is so diverse that it draws and breeds negativity and positivity because everybody in not going to love everything. At the end of the day you can't make everyone happy. This is what hurt alot artists. They just try to make everyone happy and in end making no one happy.

Adorecream said:

I don't agree Ronin Ros' book is that bad, the most negative to me is Alex Hahns, he pretty much divides it in half between (Rise 1978 - 1987) and Fall (1988 - 2002) and virtually every album from Lovesexy onwards is in his eyes crap, also there are several less than complimentary interviews with people who have axes to grind.

.

Thorne is not that negative, he is musicologist and his book is more dry and turgid in parts rather than negative. Positive books include "DMSR The first decade" by Per Nilsen and Alan Lights - Lets Go crazy is very upbeat too. The 80s classics Pop Life by Dave Hill and Imp of the Perverse are upbeat too.

.

Toure and (Brian Morton) Thief in the temple are oblique, but not negative. It's a matter of opinion, but Prince's standoffish behaviour has contributed to it a bit, I mean he did not really like prying authors and interviewers did he. Unlike MJ and many others, how many books about Prince actually had Prince input via interviews or anything else? - None unless they were quoting interviews, usually with people like DEz and Wendy who were booted out of Prince's groups along with disgruntled ex proteges like Carmen Electra, Mayte, Jesse Johnson and Anna Garcia, so of course you are getting axes to grind, plus you can't talk to Prince to refute the rumours.

.

With this scenario where the antagonists dominate the words an content and the protagonist is absent and probably not evening supporting the project, how are you supposed to get anything objective. I mean anyone can write a book with a bit of research and some interviews, but very Prince books have been done by fans and fewer yet by fans with rose tinted glasses. After all this is a man who was super talented and made some incredible music, but was mostly a complete asshole to his fans, suing them, banning his videos on YouTube and preaching JW dogma to them, he is hardly Mr Public relations. The fact his own book was cut off by death does not help unless Prince can become a Ghost writer , but I can hardly get angry at someone for dying on us, but then again it would have been interesting to see what Prince had to say himself beyond overpriced vanity volumes like 21 nights.

.

Also many books about him are just rubbish. Brian Morton and Toure are not worth even entertaining, same with the jokey Steven Ivory one from 1985 and there are others. Anyone can write a celebrity biography and many will grind axes (Look at all the crap written about Michael Jackson, new doggerel books like one by so called pseudo girlfriend Shana Matangal and the one Shmuley Boteach are tacky cash ins on a dead celebrity).

.

So guys stick to Nilsen and Thorne I think, although Alan Lights book was pretty good, and prepare for some more instant rubbish to emerge in the next year, about his death.

Hi Adorecream

.

Thanks for your post I'd agree with you. It's not even that the books are negative or positive, it's whether they are actually accurate.

.

This kept coming up in the "Was he depressed about Vanity?" thread - as in, why Vanity hadn't been documented properly? We came to the same conclusions - it would appear alot of these books aren't gleaning the information from the source (ie. Prince). In Vanity's case, it didn't help that that she appears to have been hidden for whatever reason and she also wouldn't talk.

.

It's one thing to have to book that's discussing factual/technical things for example, studio techniques and equipment etc that he employed for particular albums or tracks with the actual studio engineer he used.

.

It's also another to have a book like The Heroin Diaries (Nikki Sixx'x autobiography) which is a diarised account of 1987 - the year Nikki was engaged to Vanity that ends with his near death from a heroin overdose. It documents a variety things including the love triangle between Prince, Vanity & Nikki. Vanity is an acknowledged source.

.

But those books are quite different to a book that's speculative and is drawing all sorts of assumptions about things that are personal to Prince that he probably hasn't talked about - like who songs are about/attributed to and his personal life/relationships/muses/inspirations/motivations/drivers etc. If he's not talking, how did they get to those conclusions? Why would you have any faith in them? Is there some concrete evidence they have that's irrefutable? It is Prince's story after all. This is why Prince's book is so important and hopefully, the Estate prints it anyway even if it's incomplete.

.

[Edited 7/5/16 14:33pm]

The books are generally written by people who are not in love with Prince, are not obsessed with Prince being 'the perfect being', nor are they svengali'd into believing he can do no wrong, so OF COURSE there is criticism in these books.

That's not negative, sweetie, that's real life. Nobody's perfect, including Prince. I love him dearly (as much as you can love someone you don't actually know, anyway), and there are things he's done that are a giant NOPE for me. Prince could be a bastard, and I am sorry if authors writing about that bothers you, but again, no humab being is perfect, even Prince.

Besides, you can't write a very long book on praising Prince.

(Well, okay, maybe some of the lovesick among us could, but... really? Who'd read it?)

I haven't read every Prince book. I own one so far. I was reading it on my way to New Orleans one year & I believe the author of the book is Alan Light? I like his take on Prince but what I can say I dislike about the book is how 'fanatic' he seems. Its okay though, we ALL appreciate Prince's work.

If you are looking for a positive Prince book then I recommend purchasing that one. I believe the people that wrote these books about Prince were past workers who were just scorned because they felt like they tried to work with Prince the best possible way they could. I believe now that he has transformed into another dimension, there will be people coming out with these books. A lot of the stories on there can be blown out of proportion. I always like to remind myself that there are two sides to every story. I always wonder what his point of view was on certain topics. I understand that Prince isn't perfect but I do understand the art of exaggeration too.

[Edited 7/4/16 6:30am]

[Edited 7/4/16 6:30am]

[Edited 7/4/16 6:31am]

[Edited 7/4/16 6:32am]

MrSquiggle said:

I'm yet to find a book on Prince that feels like it was written by someone who appreciates his work. Matt Thorne, Ronin Ro and Per Nielsen's books all are constantly critical of him to the point where I found myself wondering, why would you even bother writing a book about someone you have this much hostility towards? Ronin Ro's one is particularly bad. Parade through Lovesexy is portrayed as one disappointing flop after another. Really???

Matt Thorne is obviously a huge Prince fan. I don't know how you found him to be so negative. Sure, he has some criticism, that's just being objective. If you think his book is being hostile towards Prince, then you might want to wait for KCOOL to write a book. Might be more up your alley. Just sayin'...

Oh, no doubt there was probably a little exaggeration, but I doubt these people are just being negative for the sake of being negative. Hell, people who LIKED the little bugger said he wa difficult.

Extra. A lot.

Honestly, it's better for him to be presented as a human being than as some kind of angel of perfection or some crap like that -- cause I don't believe that for a second. And I would laugh at you uproariously for even suggesting it. Honestly, I laugh at a lot of the threads here becaue lordy, there's some trouble going on with reality.

MrSquiggle said:

I'm yet to find a book on Prince that feels like it was written by someone who appreciates his work. Matt Thorne, Ronin Ro and Per Nielsen's books all are constantly critical of him to the point where I found myself wondering, why would you even bother writing a book about someone you have this much hostility towards? Ronin Ro's one is particularly bad. Parade through Lovesexy is portrayed as one disappointing flop after another. Really???

Ohhh, you're one of those fans, huh? The kind who wear purple-tinted glasses 24/7, and think Prince did no wrong. Got it.

Yeah, Per's book is great. Ro's is garbage. So is Liz Jones'. Hahn's was honest, although some of the stuff he used from certain band members was originally supposed to be off the record.

See, a great fan of any great artists can sit comfortably on the praise bus, and on the critique bus. Why? Because no artist is flawless. None. Not Jimi, not Clapton, not Lennon or McCartney, not Sly, and not Prince. All these idols are still human beings. They're flawed as fuck, which probably lends to their genius - their need to perfect their craft. (It's a whole psychological discussion that's too long to have here.)

If a fan can't see those flaws equally, then I question their level of fandom to begin with. I irks the shit out of me to hear fans say "OMG THIS ALBUM IS THE GREATEST" for everything he puts out. Because you know why? Not every album was better than the last. Some are trash, some are fucking brilliant, some are mediocre.

Those folks who wrote about Prince are fans, and they are the right kind of fan. They kind that gets the stories behind the stories. They talk to everyone around Prince, and found the missing pieces, and put together a bigger picture for everyone to see.

By the way, Parade through Lovesexy was a failure on many fronts. He is noted as laying on the floor of his house and yelling "I hate this film!" just before UTCM came out. He knew it was not well done, and the box office reflected that. (He should have gotten Albert Magnoli to ghost direct it the way he did for the SOTT movie.) "Kiss" is the only thing that kept any interest around the album. Remember he wrote The Black Album as an answer to those who said he'd lost his funk with ATWIAD and Parade.
He didn't tour SOTT in the U.S., which stunted the momentum of the project. Lovesexy Tour had huge financial losses. He didn't tour The Nude Tour in the US, nor Diamonds & Pearls. It wasn't until Act I that he came back to the U.S. to tour; that was 1993. So for 5 years, he didn't tour the U.S. That's a failure on his part. Those albums didn't do as well in the U.S. because Prince didn't promote them here. Parade was probably one of the first times Prince really felt the hit of missing the boat with something. His ego got him, thinking he could direct a movie.

And trust this, there are plenty of stories one could write about and put Prince in a very, very bad light, and make it hostile, if they wanted. There are just as many to make him look like an angel. Neither would be fair on their own.

Prince himself was deeply dissapointed, even distraught over the sales of LoveSexy in the USA. The tour started out with an enormous and eleborate stage, but dwindled to something approaching the Nude Tour production in the end. Whatever it's artistic achievements, LoveSexy was the beginning of fluctuating sales and reviews for Prince.

His hairdos also got increasingly bad.

imago said:

Prince himself was deeply dissapointed, even distraught over the sales of LoveSexy in the USA. The tour started out with an enormous and eleborate stage, but dwindled to something approaching the Nude Tour production in the end. Whatever it's artistic achievements, LoveSexy was the beginning of fluctuating sales and reviews for Prince.

His hairdos also got increasingly bad.

The lady villagers are coming for you with pitchforks, torches, and a wooden stake for coming after their Prince and his Graffiti Bridge hair do. Sh*t just got real.

kewlschool said:

imago said:

Prince himself was deeply dissapointed, even distraught over the sales of LoveSexy in the USA. The tour started out with an enormous and eleborate stage, but dwindled to something approaching the Nude Tour production in the end. Whatever it's artistic achievements, LoveSexy was the beginning of fluctuating sales and reviews for Prince.

His hairdos also got increasingly bad.

The lady villagers are coming for you with pitchforks, torches, and a wooden stake for coming after their Prince and his Graffiti Bridge hair do. Sh*t just got real.

OK, the Graffiti Bridge hair looked pretty good in a Jacklyn Smith launches her new line at K-mart kind of way. But, still..

imago said:

kewlschool said:

The lady villagers are coming for you with pitchforks, torches, and a wooden stake for coming after their Prince and his Graffiti Bridge hair do. Sh*t just got real.

OK, the Graffiti Bridge hair looked pretty good in a Jacklyn Smith launches her new line at K-mart kind of way. But, still..

It's the Rachel before their was a Rachel hair do.

TrivialPursuit said:

sonshine said:

TrivialPursuit said:

Ohhh, you're one of those fans, huh? The kind who wear purple-tinted glasses 24/7, and think Prince did no wrong. Got it.

Yeah, Per's book is great. Ro's is garbage. So is Liz Jones'. Hahn's was honest, although some of the stuff he used from certain band members was originally supposed to be off the record.

See, a great fan of any great artists can sit comfortably on the praise bus, and on the critique bus. Why? Because no artist is flawless. None. Not Jimi, not Clapton, not Lennon or McCartney, not Sly, and not Prince. All these idols are still human beings. They're flawed as fuck, which probably lends to their genius - their need to perfect their craft. (It's a whole psychological discussion that's too long to have here.)

If a fan can't see those flaws equally, then I question their level of fandom to begin with. I irks the shit out of me to hear fans say "OMG THIS ALBUM IS THE GREATEST" for everything he puts out. Because you know why? Not every album was better than the last. Some are trash, some are fucking brilliant, some are mediocre.

Those folks who wrote about Prince are fans, and they are the right kind of fan. They kind that gets the stories behind the stories. They talk to everyone around Prince, and found the missing pieces, and put together a bigger picture for everyone to see.

By the way, Parade through Lovesexy was a failure on many fronts. He is noted as laying on the floor of his house and yelling "I hate this film!" just before UTCM came out. He knew it was not well done, and the box office reflected that. (He should have gotten Albert Magnoli to ghost direct it the way he did for the SOTT movie.) "Kiss" is the only thing that kept any interest around the album. Remember he wrote The Black Album as an answer to those who said he'd lost his funk with ATWIAD and Parade.
He didn't tour SOTT in the U.S., which stunted the momentum of the project. Lovesexy Tour had huge financial losses. He didn't tour The Nude Tour in the US, nor Diamonds & Pearls. It wasn't until Act I that he came back to the U.S. to tour; that was 1993. So for 5 years, he didn't tour the U.S. That's a failure on his part. Those albums didn't do as well in the U.S. because Prince didn't promote them here. Parade was probably one of the first times Prince really felt the hit of missing the boat with something. His ego got him, thinking he could direct a movie.

And trust this, there are plenty of stories one could write about and put Prince in a very, very bad light, and make it hostile, if they wanted. There are just as many to make him look like an angel. Neither would be fair on their own.

And I'm tired of the fans who think the only real fans own every piece of music the man ever released and heap praise on the stuff that's unlistenable. (I know that's subjective.) But I refuse to spend money on a record I can't listen to. And I refuse to feel bad about not being a completist in regards to his work. Prince himself hated people kissing his ass and telling him how great his every note was. He wasn't stupid. I loved him for his efforts, his energy, his philanthropy, and for the years of entertainment. But he didn't make it easy for his fans or for himself as you so accurately reminded us. I just re-watched graffiti bridge last night for the first time since it was originally released and all I could think was WTF was he thinking?!?! Plus I hated his look in that movie, hair and all.

Man, come on, that movie wa great -- all my jokes come from this movie, because holy hell he basically wrote them for me.

Admittedly, though I did actually like the hair.

sonshine said:

And I'm tired of the fans who think the only real fans own every piece of music the man ever released and heap praise on the stuff that's unlistenable. (I know that's subjective.) But I refuse to spend money on a record I can't listen to. And I refuse to feel bad about not being a completist in regards to his work. Prince himself hated people kissing his ass and telling him how great his every note was. He wasn't stupid. I loved him for his efforts, his energy, his philanthropy, and for the years of entertainment. But he didn't make it easy for his fans or for himself as you so accurately reminded us. I just re-watched graffiti bridge last night for the first time since it was originally released and all I could think was WTF was he thinking?!?! Plus I hated his look in that movie, hair and all.

I have to say I do own 99% of his albums, because I am a completist to a point. I don't own One Nite Alone, One Nite Alone Live, or N.E.W.S. I think that's the only parts missing.

I agree with the GB look. It was just sloppy. Hair aside, the one-shouldered jump suit with a big shirt hanging out of one side - gawd awful.



Then the highwaisted pants (that he sorta kept through the 90s to some extent) just made him look shorter. He had no dimension or waist.




His was literally wearing old man/nerd pants.

I appreciate the authors telling their side of the story. I hope we are getting accurate or somewhat accurate information in these books, but I understand this world we live in and know that some info may be bs.

Ok, to some on this thread I may be crazy to you. I am not a fanatic Prince fan with rose colored glasses on. There has been several things Prince has done over the years that made me go, WTF? But I, like many many Prince fans, LOVE ATWIAD, Parade, SOTT, and Lovesexy.

Yeah, all these albums were a huge departure from anything he did from 1980 to 1984. But you have to give it to Prince, he did what the fuck he wanted to do and you either loved it, kinda liked it or hated it. For the shear fact you are even still talking about this man and his music on a forum like this, years after this period of music and after this death, is telling this man obviously got to you.

I just wanted to say just because fans like this time period and albums does not make us jaded or fake or naive or whatever. Maybe we love this period because of our musical tastes and background. I always listened to all musical genres from a very early age. I listened to some weird ass shit early on in life. So maybe my tastes along with some others are different and we can handle ATWIAD - Lovesexy time period.

IDK, this next statement applies to us all, opinions are like assholes, everybody's got one!

Peace -

kewlschool said:

imago said:

OK, the Graffiti Bridge hair looked pretty good in a Jacklyn Smith launches her new line at K-mart kind of way. But, still..

It's the Rachel before their was a Rachel hair do.

I wonder how much of this was weave.

Adorecream said:

I don't agree Ronin Ros' book is that bad, the most negative to me is Alex Hahns, he pretty much divides it in half between (Rise 1978 - 1987) and Fall (1988 - 2002) and virtually every album from Lovesexy onwards is in his eyes crap, also there are several less than complimentary interviews with people who have axes to grind.

.

Thorne is not that negative, he is musicologist and his book is more dry and turgid in parts rather than negative. Positive books include "DMSR The first decade" by Per Nilsen and Alan Lights - Lets Go crazy is very upbeat too. The 80s classics Pop Life by Dave Hill and Imp of the Perverse are upbeat too.

.

Toure and (Brian Morton) Thief in the temple are oblique, but not negative. It's a matter of opinion, but Prince's standoffish behaviour has contributed to it a bit, I mean he did not really like prying authors and interviewers did he. Unlike MJ and many others, how many books about Prince actually had Prince input via interviews or anything else? - None unless they were quoting interviews, usually with people like DEz and Wendy who were booted out of Prince's groups along with disgruntled ex proteges like Carmen Electra, Mayte, Jesse Johnson and Anna Garcia, so of course you are getting axes to grind, plus you can't talk to Prince to refute the rumours.

.

With this scenario where the antagonists dominate the words an content and the protagonist is absent and probably not evening supporting the project, how are you supposed to get anything objective. I mean anyone can write a book with a bit of research and some interviews, but very Prince books have been done by fans and fewer yet by fans with rose tinted glasses. After all this is a man who was super talented and made some incredible music, but was mostly a complete asshole to his fans, suing them, banning his videos on YouTube and preaching JW dogma to them, he is hardly Mr Public relations. The fact his own book was cut off by death does not help unless Prince can become a Ghost writer , but I can hardly get angry at someone for dying on us, but then again it would have been interesting to see what Prince had to say himself beyond overpriced vanity volumes like 21 nights.

.

Also many books about him are just rubbish. Brian Morton and Toure are not worth even entertaining, same with the jokey Steven Ivory one from 1985 and there are others. Anyone can write a celebrity biography and many will grind axes (Look at all the crap written about Michael Jackson, new doggerel books like one by so called pseudo girlfriend Shana Matangal and the one Shmuley Boteach are tacky cash ins on a dead celebrity).

.

So guys stick to Nilsen and Thorne I think, although Alan Lights book was pretty good, and prepare for some more instant rubbish to emerge in the next year, about his death.

Thank you for this smart, reasoned and well-written post. It's a welcome antidote to much of what I read on here.

TrivialPursuit said:

sonshine said:

"HELP MY PANTS ARE EATING ME ALIIIIIVVVEEEE!"

kewlschool said:

Adorecream said:

I don't agree Ronin Ros' book is that bad, the most negative to me is Alex Hahns, he pretty much divides it in half between (Rise 1978 - 1987) and Fall (1988 - 2002) and virtually every album from Lovesexy onwards is in his eyes crap, also there are several less than complimentary interviews with people who have axes to grind.

.

Thorne is not that negative, he is musicologist and his book is more dry and turgid in parts rather than negative. Positive books include "DMSR The first decade" by Per Nilsen and Alan Lights - Lets Go crazy is very upbeat too. The 80s classics Pop Life by Dave Hill and Imp of the Perverse are upbeat too.

.

Toure and (Brian Morton) Thief in the temple are oblique, but not negative. It's a matter of opinion, but Prince's standoffish behaviour has contributed to it a bit, I mean he did not really like prying authors and interviewers did he. Unlike MJ and many others, how many books about Prince actually had Prince input via interviews or anything else? - None unless they were quoting interviews, usually with people like DEz and Wendy who were booted out of Prince's groups along with disgruntled ex proteges like Carmen Electra, Mayte, Jesse Johnson and Anna Garcia, so of course you are getting axes to grind, plus you can't talk to Prince to refute the rumours.

.

With this scenario where the antagonists dominate the words an content and the protagonist is absent and probably not evening supporting the project, how are you supposed to get anything objective. I mean anyone can write a book with a bit of research and some interviews, but very Prince books have been done by fans and fewer yet by fans with rose tinted glasses. After all this is a man who was super talented and made some incredible music, but was mostly a complete asshole to his fans, suing them, banning his videos on YouTube and preaching JW dogma to them, he is hardly Mr Public relations. The fact his own book was cut off by death does not help unless Prince can become a Ghost writer , but I can hardly get angry at someone for dying on us, but then again it would have been interesting to see what Prince had to say himself beyond overpriced vanity volumes like 21 nights.

.

Also many books about him are just rubbish. Brian Morton and Toure are not worth even entertaining, same with the jokey Steven Ivory one from 1985 and there are others. Anyone can write a celebrity biography and many will grind axes (Look at all the crap written about Michael Jackson, new doggerel books like one by so called pseudo girlfriend Shana Matangal and the one Shmuley Boteach are tacky cash ins on a dead celebrity).

.

So guys stick to Nilsen and Thorne I think, although Alan Lights book was pretty good, and prepare for some more instant rubbish to emerge in the next year, about his death.

can't believe you'd diss Ivory's book. It was the first book that I was aware of about Prince and the first one I was able to get my hands on. Of course it was written for it's market, which was us, teenagers but it was pretty honest in how prince treated people. It was the first time I learned that you can't worship talented people without objectivity. Prince did some bad things but he was my hero just the same. anyway, the nilsen book, i haven't read in 20 years or so, but I thought it was excellent then. Dave Hill's book deserves a reprint, it was more of the same about how Prince dogged people, but to date, that was probably the best Prince book. Hahn's book I never liked because that was the only one I felt crossed the line of professionalism and objectivity. He definitely had an axe to grind. He had the nerve to come on here after P's triumphant Musicology comeback and even after his death, trying to pawn his sorry wares, telling people his poor book was out of print.

The pics of the old man pants . . .PRICELESS!!

Mad me laugh way too much . . . .and the Rachel hair too . . .