Prince: The Man and His Music

by Matt Thorne

The newest, most updated book on Prince available today—now updated with information about the afterlife of his work following his untimely death. Famously reticent and perennially controversial, Prince was one of the few music superstars who remained, largely, an enigma—even up to his premature death on April 21, 2016. A fixture of the pop canon, Prince is widely held to be the greatest musician of his generation and will undoubtedly remain an inspiring and singular influence throughout our culture. This revised and updated second edition of this meticulously researched biography is the most comprehensive work on Prince yet published. Unlike other Prince books, this one eschews speculation into the artist's highly guarded private life and instead focuses deep and sustained attention exactly where it should on his work. Acclaimed British novelist and critic Matt Thorne draws on years of research and dozens of interviews with Prince's intimate associates (many of whom have never spoken on record before) to examine every phase of the musician's 35-year career, including nearly every song—released and unreleased—that Prince has recorded. Originally released in the UK in 2012, this revised and updated second US edition of Prince includes updated content regarding work released and made available after the artist’s death.. This astonishingly rich, almost encyclopedic biography is a must-have for any serious fan of Prince.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, History, Autobiography

656 pages, Paperback

First published October 4, 2012

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 Stars

Favorite Prince songs(Right Now)

1. Adore
2.I Wanna Be Your Lover
3.I Would Die For You
4.When Doves Cry
5.Sometimes It Snows In April

I've read 2 books about Prince and I've come to a conclusion...

Prince was a very weird dude!

Matt Thorne's Prince is not really a biography, its more of a music-ography(That's not a word but I'm making it one). Matt Thorne attempts and sometimes succeeds at trying to figure out what made Prince Nelson tick musically. I don't fault the author for not being able to accomplish this feat because I don't think anyone in Prince's life really knew him. Prince was an intensely private and aloof person. The people who worked with even felt distant. His ex wife Mayte felt she never knew him.

Prince is one of my favorite artists and as much as I love his music, I don't feel like I need to know who he really was. The music & the mystery are enough for me. But I will be check out the deep cuts that are mentioned in this book.

Recommended for true music lovers.

[Edmole · Rating 4 out of 5]

First of all, this book is worth owning just for that beautiful cover.

This book - like the David Bowie Book I read before it, was billed (by a quote from Alexis Hot Chip on the back) as a Revolution In The Head for Prince. I was excited by this, but also a bit sceptical. Prince has released so many records, has so much unreleased music, and has also spent twenty years making records you're not sure you want to hear, let alone hear a detailed track by track breakdown of.

Like a lot of Prince fans, I stopped bothering to buy his records after he changed his name to Symbol and got into his five year barney with Warner Brothers over ownership of his music (a year after he'd signed a massive deal giving them ownership of his music.)

It wasn't that I was bothered about him turning up at ceremonies with slave written on his face. It wasn't the rich arab decor in the soft porn videos. It wasn't the bouffant sex-twin dancers. It wasn't the crappy rappers in matching rich arab bouffant porn outfits. With canes. It was the songs. They just weren't what I associated with Prince. Gett Off and My Name Is Prince were big UK hits, and still popular with wacky nuttaz laffin at all the silly fonky proclamations. But they were built on a foundation of heavy playing, clunky RnB and popular styles of the time (New Jack Swing, early 90s Hip Hop) that Prince had no feel for. Having been treated to a decade of sublime pop-dance-rnb which Prince was the best at, to be playing this clumsy, aggressive stuff with a band of jerks and a drummer with a chicken box on his head. It just never felt right.So rather than try and dig out nuggets from this era (post Lovesexy, for me. Batman is a shitty record.) I just let Prince be.

So I read this book voraciously through the first half, with Prince graduating from young genius catching a break, to young genius writing immaculate black pop, to forming a genius band and incorporating white pop, perversity (in all its meanings), endless alter egos and creating a delicate, powerful form of music all his own, then ditching it on each album to make something new and brilliant each time. Then there is a hinge in the book, halfway through after Prince ditches the Revolution, his incredible band, who had become part of his process, and in Wendy and Lisa, had even become contributors. He retreats off to be truly Solo, and starts writing teeming hundreds of songs which are compressed from the triple Crystal Ball to the double Sign of the Times, has some sort of spiritual awakening/bad trip, writes the still outstanding Lovesexy, but then loses his way.

Matt Thorne is a huge Prince fan, and the second half of the book becomes more personal, with him as a fan documenting the post 'slave' progress, setbacks, fallouts, failures and successes as Prince tries to reinvent himself along with prevailing trends, a falling off of mainstream interest and the power and problems of selling through the internet. Thorne's being a fan is important, as he has the faith and desire to dig through the ordinary material, the endless teases, the discarded, superior material, the shows, bootlegs and bullshit to find the genius that was still there. Bootleg compilations of Prince's unreleased material is called The Work. On the face of it, it's talking about Prince's work - every day he is writing, recording and performing, with engineers on call at his studio 24 hours, 365 days. But The Work for me also refers to what Prince has ended up demanding of his fans. He doesn't want to write 15 brilliant songs, get a single together to lead the album off then get them out there. He trials and teases, obscures and avoids and his fans seem to end up frustrated as much as they're satisfied. The internet does Prince no favours, I think. For someone who has always hated critics, and cannot accept people who can't sing, play and dance sitting in judgement on someone who can do all three like an angel, the sea of unfiltered bullshit you can hear about yourself on the internet is not going to impress.

So Thorne works and digs (and digs) and finds his way through what Prince is now. I found it hard going, as I had so little affection for the songs he was talking about, but I was very grateful to him for doing the work for me - for making sense of what Prince was doing, and also for confirming my prejudices post Lovesexy. There is genius there, but I know from reading this book that I don't want to do the work to find it. If Prince wants to be perverse, I love him for it, and it's who he is, but I'm not walking into that scented room in a blindfold just to get pissed on. If he wants to be upfront, like he was with Black Sweat, and lead me by the hand and give me a good funking seeing to, then I'll play along.

The book effectively ends where a lot of people refound their love for Prince - at the 21 nights residency at the O2. Thorne documents the excitement and reward of the nights from a fan's perspctive - whereas I was in total ecstacy to hear the hits and snatches of his greatest moments on the piano, to Thorne these are corny tricks he's seen and heard a hundred times. He is fascinated with what Prince does with new material, and moreso the aftershows where Prince teases again - will he turn up? Will it be a five minute solo with Mica Paris, or 6 hours of spellbinding ur-funk? These are the teases he plays with his fans and maybe himself, and that works for them. The sick, co-dependent bastards. Me, I'm happy to have brilliant memories of an incredible relationship, and let some other girl deal with him as he goes further into cranky, funky middle age.

[Tronikyouth · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first half of this book is great, we learn a lot about Princes early years, his first endeavours into recording and releasing music
The second half of the book, the period when prince falls out with his label and the public fall out of love with Prince's output is where Matt Thorne lets himself down as it turns into a very personal appraisal of Princes career leaving little room for the viewer to make their own opinion,..the phrase "one of his best songs in years" is used so many times is becomes redundant ...his live show reviews especially the 21 nights at the 02 seem to turn into some personal fanboy blog/tumblr review
a book of this magnitude is let down by this departure from the from the first half into a personal appraisal
worth a punt but be warned it gets hard going half way

[Wim Oosterlinck]

Ik heb de biografie van Prince door de Britse journalist Matt Thorne gelezen, een boek uit 2008. Het is een uitgebreide en gedetailleerde trip door de carrière van de popster. Een boek dat Prince laat zien als een workaholic en een supercreatieveling, die naast werk voor eigen albums ook nog een ontzaglijke hoeveelheid muziek voor anderen maakte. Maar helaas is het boek niet goed geschreven.

Matt Thorne heeft de curieuze keuze gemaakt om het werk van Prince te analyseren vanuit zijn songteksten, vanuit de onderwerpen en de thema’s die Prince in zijn teksten laat voorbijkomen. Merkwaardig, omdat Prince eerder zal onthouden worden voor het muzikale, zijn hits, zijn gitaarspel en all-round-talent als muzikant, zijn live-optredens, zijn 'superstergehalte', enfin eigenlijk alles behalve zijn songteksten.

Bovendien maakt Matt Thorne geen verhalen. Hij bespreekt nummers en albums, vergelijkt, beoordeelt, maakt oneindige analyses maar slaagt er met de onuitputtelijke hoeveelheid Prince-materiaal nauwelijks in een verhaal te vertellen dat boeit.

Door zijn nadruk op de songteksten negeert hij vaak essentiële stukken van Princes biografie: zo skipt hij de bouw van het studiocomplex Paisley Park volledig. Plots staat het gebouw er. Het succes van de film Purple Rain beschrijft hij nauwelijks, terwijl dat toch erg bepalend was voor zijn carrière. We komen bijna niets te weten over de relaties van Prince, over zijn familie, over zijn leven naast de muziek (als dat er al was).

Het boek geeft gelukkig wél zin om het oude werk van Prince opnieuw op te pikken en te herbeluisteren, of vaak: onbekende nummers te gaan opzoeken. Het boek is een gespecialiseerd relaas van één van de grootste popsterren aller tijden, maar zelfs als fan moet je je hier moeizaam door worstelen. Wie schrijft de ultieme biografie van Prince?

https://wimoosterlinck.wordpress.com/...

[V · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not so much a biography of the man Prince, as a biography of the artist and his work. A comprehensive guide to every song released, performed and even those which remain rumoured. If you want to cut through the gossip and enjoy a real critical account of Prince's discography, this is the book for you.

It is all the more poignant to read the epilogue to the latest edition and realize how much more Prince had in store for his fans which will never now be explored. Working full steam to the very last, he was a once in a generation genius whose presence will be greatly missed.

[Toby Litt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book does Prince, musically, almost completely. There's loads of interesting stuff about how Prince works, and who he works with. There isn't a huge amount of personal life information. Most of that would just be rumour, anyway.

The best bits are the most opinionated. And it doesn't hold back in criticizing Prince's worst bits.

Prince is worth taking seriously, and this book does just that. But it's also funny.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

More of a fan book mixing his obvious enthusiasm with his disappointments
with his hero who is too musically prolific and independent for anyone to keep pace with in the end says more about the authors personal frustrations with prince than offering anything greatly new to the mysterious subject

[Mariano Hortal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este libro no caerá su reseña en el blog. No todos pueden caer, el tiempo es limitado.
Pero no quiero dejar de hacerle una pequeña review por estos lares.

Matt Thorne realiza en esta biográfía una disección digna del más fino bisturí de la vida de uno de los mayores iconos de los ochenta, esa década en la que sus coetáneos Madonna y Michael Jackson se convirtieron en ídolos de masas mientras el genio de Minneapolis estaba un poco más a la sombra aunque gozó igualmente de buena fama y sobre todo crítica.

El retrato de cada una de las etapas refleja con claridad todo lo contradictorio que tiene el personaje y nos presenta todas sus dimensiones, desde la figura personal, de compositor para sus obras y de compositor para los otros.

La profusión de notas y datos es de una exhaustividad que asusta, solo hay que ver el relato de las 21 noches de conciertos que realizó en Londres para comprobar hasta dónde quiere llevarnos Thorne.

Lo que consigue, mediante análisis musical y de sus textos y relaciones es pintarnos una figura problemática al mismo tiempo que genial. Un compositor que adoptó el trabajo como bandera y que guarda tal cantidad de música que no sé si veremos algún día salir debido a su desconexión total de los medios globales. Curioso, es el único cantante que de verdad podemos decir que ha salido de la órbita de la globalización.

Para amantes de la música en general, y, sobre todo, para los que hemos querido y seguimos queriendo a este pequeño genio.

Es un momento ideal para emprender una escucha cronológica de sus discos.. que son unos pocos.

[John Herrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a good book! For anyone who enjoys the music of Prince, Matt Thorne's book Prince: The Man and his Music is a fascinating look at the genius behind it and the marketing angles the artist incorporated along the way. Thorne digs into every album, down to the track level, and places the projects into the context of his life and career phases, along with a ton of detail about many rare and unreleased tracks. He also offers a night-by-night diary of the 21 Nights performances in London, along with their aftershows. And he delves into the dedication and personal attention Prince invested in developing his protegees, with special detail on The Time.

Thorne covers Prince's career through 2010. The U.S. edition contains an Afterword with brief coverage of his recent albums Art Official Age (his best album in years), PlectrumElectrum, and HITNRUN Phase One. No mention of HITNRUN Phase Two.

Although Thorne offers a brief biography of Prince's adolescent years, this book is more like a biography of each album and its tracks. For those familiar with the artist's music, this book is highly recommended. A surprisingly speedy read. You'll discover new details to look for in his tracks that you took for granted or overlooked until now!

[Peter O'Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

This review opens with a spoiler of sorts but it is one a potential buyer would want to know about - that is that it was written before Prince's untimely demise in 2016. Still, it is an exhaustive account of his entire career (almost) and fills in a lot of the gaps. My own relationship with the artist is probably not unlike many. I was devoted to the man and his music in the mid to late eighties and then we somehow just... grew apart. While he disappeared, almost literally in name as he adopted an unpronounceable symbol as his moniker, my own tastes skewed off into a haze of indie guitar fuzz. Reading this account then, is like catching up with an old flame after a couple of decades and finding out what they have been up to while you were apart. In the case of Prince, the glory years really were a time of wonder as far as his catalogue is concerned but, given that Matt Thorne is clearly a fan, the book made me curious enough to at least want to dip my toe into the water and sample some of his later releases just to see if any of the magic resurfaced. 'Prince' is well written and although finishing short of the obvious conclusion, is still very worthwhile.

[Andrew Price · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book but only for pretty hard core prince fans.

[Paul Gleason · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thorne's written a great book on Prince that focuses on why we love him so much: his music. This book isn't gossipy or trashy. The prose and approach are academic; therefore, the writing is dry at times. But Thorpe does an excellent job of delving deeply into Prince's music and how it was made. And, because this is some of the best popular music of recent times, Thorpe's analysis is invaluable. The sections on Prince's best albums - Purple Rain and Sign 'O' the Times - are invaluable. Thorpe left me with a desire to listen to Prince's body of work again (but I've been listening to his stuff since 1999 in 1982) and think about it in terms of Thorpe's analyses. The only reason that I'm docking the book one star is because the prose style could have been spruced up a bit to match the subject matter.

[Kojo Baffoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

While this is a dense book to read, especially with the level of depth Thorne goes to, what I enjoyed about it is that it is about Prince's music. Plus, even Thorne writes as a hardcore fan of Prince's music, he tempers that with an honesty that is refreshing. Not all of Prince's music has been good and some of the things he did clearly qualify as missteps. Thorne delves into all of this and more. I thought myself a true Prince fan but felt inadequate not having heard or experienced a large portion of the music he created over his lifetime. If you want a read that is about the music, this is it.

[Tristan de Haas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Het begint als een hele gedetailleerde biografie, maar richting het einde verliest het nuance en wordt het overspoeld door meningen van de auteur. Je ziet de hoeveelheid voetnoten en bronnen drastisch afnemen na ⅔ van het boek. Ook jammer dat er bijzonder weinig aandacht is besteed aan het privéleven van Prince...

[Pejsmejkr · Rating 5 out of 5]

Knjiga odlično prati razvoj Princea i njegovog djela.

[Arthur Cravan · Rating 4 out of 5]

When Doves Cry
Jam of the Year
My Name Is Prince
Raspberry Beret

These are the only songs I knew by Prince before I started reading this book. In fact, in the case of Raspberry Beret, I didn't even really know it that well or that it was Prince until listening through one of his greatest hits CD while reading the book. I bought Emancipation when I was like 15 or 16. I don't know why. I think it was really cheap, & had 3 CDs. But what am I going to do with it? I didn't listen to it. Just Jam of the Year, & much later, his cover of La La La Means I Love U.

I mention this because, even now, I don't know many of Prince's songs, really. I'm getting into Sign O the Times a lot, though it took awhile to get over the outdated sounds. Little Red Corvette is cool, Purple Rain itself is cool. Also, I watched the Purple Rain movie & kinda loved it. Anyway, I didn't know any Prince songs & still don't know any Prince songs (though I will fix this in the coming months), but I love Prince. He's great. He's like Bowie, but in some ways, more powerful. Dude is a true artist. & I'm glad that even though I find it very hard to appreciate all his fake/flat-guitar, drum-machined, synthy sounding songs, that I can tell he's a true artistic genius.

This book was written by a man who also knows Prince is a genius. In fact, I think Matt Thorne would do things unspeakable even in a Prince lyric to get an inch closer to the legend. & a legend Prince is - I think early on in the book, Thorne mentions a book covering, let's say, the golden years of Prince. Or maybe I just picked it up in a review on GR. Either way, I'll read that when I find a copy. & I hope it's more... biographical. This book is funny - it's more 'Still On The Road' than 'Behind The Shades', if you catch my drift. What struck me as funny wasn't even that a lot of the book is analysis of song & show - it's the choices. I think this book is written for people who are already at least, but preferably far more than, a Prince initiate. He spends half of it talking about songs Prince recorded but never released, or how the version of Purple Rain we hear is lacking the thrill of an earlier demo's drums, etc... & it just got to the point where it was hilarious.

Really, I love his passion. It makes me want to start at these latter-day albums which, as far as I can tell from other GR reviews, he likes a lot more than us Princeless muggles. See if there's any merit to his words. Plus, maybe it will make all his plastic-sounding hits sound better to my ears. I assume it can only get better the farther you go back. That's a sad thing, when that happens to artists. & I'm not belittling Prince (or even his music - I haven't heard it) in any way. But the general consensus is is that dude fell way off. I just wonder how it happens. Laziness? Ego? Intellectual or, (& this is the baffling part to me,) artistic stagnation?

No, this book is great. It really excites me - it's annoying, though, that a lot of (if not most of) the songs he mentions are unreleased, etc. as it would have been great to kinda Spotify each song as he talks about it. But, & I'm going in circles here, it just seems to lack biography. For instance, Prince's once-wife, Mayte. She is talked about in terms of album covers she influenced & what she brought to Prince's live shows on stage. Really, I didn't learn too much more about her or their connection. The start of the book tries to be biographical, but I guess with someone like Prince, you don't find out too much about that stuff - especially not straight from the horse's mouth. But as it goes on, it really does devolve (or transform, if the former word comes off as too harsh) into a personal critical analysis. One of the last chapters is literally dude recounting Prince's 21 Nights occupancy of the O2, & how dude could only make 19 of the nights because he had a book reading to go to.

Did you know Matt Thorne, at the time of writing, had been to well over 1,000 book launches? He says over, so let's just say it's at least 3 years of going to a book launch every day. Now that's some shit right there.

Look, I was rarely bored by the book. It was kinda like that biography on Salinger I recently read. They're both big, & neither demand too much, & really, you feel like you could go on forever reading the thing.

So here's my plan: become much better acquainted with Prince's well-regarded releases by the end of the year, & then allow a year or two of simmering, in which I'll inevitably get turned onto some bootlegs, etc... then re-read the book with a better ground to stand on, or at least a big bootleg library I can flick through as reference. But for anyone who wants their dose of Prince trivia: have at it.

[Bert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Matt Thorne's Prince bio is a very personal account. Which is inevitable in a music book: what one person sees as a masterpiece, another dismisses as trite. And for a while the book does manage to find a balance between facts and opinion, even though the tale he tells is vastly uneven, often going deep into flimsy material while almost skipping over Prince's career highlights.

It's understandable that he rushes through the 1980s, since that period is covered in numerous other books (most importantly Per Nilsen's unsurpassed "Dance Music Sex Romance -- Prince: The First Decade"). But after completing the book I felt that he had an ulterior motive: propping up Prince's vastly inferior output from the second half of the 1990s and onwards. It doesn't help that numerous pages deal with an in-depth account of every concert and aftershow of Prince's "21 Nights" run in London.

Thorne has interviewed many of the "usual suspects", the dozen or so former band members and other associates who have told their side of the story plenty of times in the past two decades or so. It is disappointing that after all this time so many of the other friends/employees still remain unwilling to open up.

The only real surprising eye witness is Hans-Martin Buff, an engineer who worked with Prince during the 1990s. He provides insight into a period that so far has remained somewhat under-reported, but Thorne is too eager to extrapolate Buff's testimony to the whole of Prince's career, when it should be clear that Prince's working habits have shifted somewhat.

There are some jarring theories in the book. Thorne seems eager to dismiss the tracklists of unreleased projects as merely snapshots, when his is already clear to any Prince-fan who cares to use his head: if there are half a dozen known tracklists for a single project, it stands to reason that perhaps we should not regard these as set in stone.

The book also wildly hops throughout time, and fails to tell a linear and consistent story. One moment you're reading about a late-1990s Prince album, and the next Thorne is discussing Carmen Electra's album from years earlier. I can understand the urge to group side projects into separate chapters, but in the end it just doesn't work.

In the end, Thorne is too much of a fan. It is telling that he dismisses Kevin Smith's legendary tale of his weeklong documentary filming at Paisley Park, while this account is absolutely consistent with numerous other stories about Prince (which also remain unmentioned in the book). It is far from a must-read, and the best thing that can happen to it is if someone enters Buff's information into the Princevault website and this book is mentioned in a footnote as the source.

[Jackie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally I'm getting around to writing this... I picked this up at a book store, skimmed through it, liked some of what I read and promptly asked for it for Christmas.
Since I was revisiting Prince's discography chronologically in 2017 (marking 10 years of my being a newly minted fan... and it was my plan even before his untimely death in 2016), I planned to read this book to coincide with each period. For a volume this huge, that was definitely a good way to go about it and for the most part, it served the purpose I'd wanted it to.

However... it was a challenging read because I did not like the author's subjectivity. I learned about Prince by speaking with other fans online and listening to podcasts (it's the best way- I'd totally recommend it if you're brand new to his music beyond the greatest hits), so I know we all have our own opinions. But the way he expressed his opinions were very grating. There were several points where I asked myself how he could call himself a fan if all he did was see the negatives. At one point, he said he'd listen to a certain song to remind himself that (my phrasing, not his) "Prince isn't all that great" or during the 21 nights chapter how he was waiting for the moment to come where he'd fall out of love with his music. Clearly, the guy is passionate about Prince's music or he wouldn't have written all the pages and interviewed all these people (everyone but the man himself other than quoting what he'd told other journalists), but it didn't come off well to me.

When he talked about LoveSexy and Emancipation, those were the few moments I recall where he praised the projects and had good things to say. And I thought his interviews with Hans Martin-Buff, the guy who engineered Prince's work in the 2nd half of the 90's were good... it gave a perspective I didn't know before.
But every time he'd opine that Prince wrote some song out of anger or had an elitist attitude motivating him to write certain songs ("Pop Life" for example), I was not happy with him. Not simply because it conflicted with my own opinions, but because he stated opinions as if they were facts (a couple other people who'd written reviews on his book had said this as well).

Was I glad I read it? Yes. There were a lot of things I learned about the music I didn't know before and I'm always for learning new things about Prince's music. But as comprehensive as it is, the way it is written as an opinion piece is a little polarizing. There's also some focus on unreleased music, which is cool, but for the fans who aren't knowledgeable about bootlegs, it might not be something they will get into.

[Maciek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid, in-depth book by a true Princehead. However, his dislike of Prince's later catalog and snobbish attitude in the second part of the book is off-putting. A large portion is just a plain and shallow analysis of every track of every album Prince recorded. Still, a nice source of information for every fan of the Purple One.

[Rodney · Rating 4 out of 5]

I only read up until about 1992 or so. This is a great, enthusiastic look at the music. A chief criticism people have is that it does not mention his personal life very much, but I was okay with that because, after all, Prince Nelson the human being seems largely unknowable.

It was a bit fast-paced, and Thorne has a habit of breaking down in exhaustive detail bootleg recordings I wouldn't even know where to begin to look for, much less have already heard.

Wendy and Lisa were so fun to hear from; I really felt like a lot of magic went away (both from the book and from the music) when they were fired.

Recommended.

[Michelle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was not what I expected. I was hoping for an insight into the life and works of one of my favourite performers, Prince. What it ended up being was an incredibly thorough (although selective) analysis of Prince’s songs and concerts. I say ‘selective’ as Thorne often spent pages on an obscure song I have no memory of and completely skipped over or dismissed out of hand many of my favourites. Thorne came across to me as an incredibly ungrateful, spoilt child who has been privileged to experience firsthand the works of Prince and still he is not satisfied. He endlessly complains about Prince’s hits and laments anything remotely commercial or popular. Thorne is a Prince snob. I am most disappointed with the lack of ‘life and times’ in this biography given the obvious amount of access to and knowledge Thorne has of Prince. He hinted at girlfriends and lifestyle, but the bulk of information and focus of most of the interviews was pertaining to individual songs. If anything, this book left me with a bad taste in my mouth and a need to listen to all my favourite Prince albums again to cleanse my palate.

[Gregory Klages · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is a waste of time for all but a Prince completist... and I suspect most of them will have found far better sources for much of the same information.

As other reviewers have suggested, the first 30% to 50% of the book is interesting. There's some intriguing information from interviews with Wendy & Lisa, for instance. There's a somewhat odd visit to Prince's childhood home. By the time I got about 75% of the way through, however, I found it hard to stop skipping paragraphs.

As Thorne moved into the post-'Purple Rain' era, any attempt at narrative flow was overwhelmed by the profuse arcane details. This problem was compounded by the increasing interruption of the author's own responses to Prince's music. Additionally, as Thorne is discussing a lot of music that has not been publicly released, his evaluation of its artistic qualities (or absence of them) loses much for readers who can't listen to the works themselves to make sense of what he writes.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have some issues with this book. One is the straightforward, 'there's a better Prince book waiting to be written' and another is more mixed; it's clear that Matt can write and that he loves Prince, but which Prince? He seems to have scads of disdain for just about everything the man did after Lovesexy and is annoyingly tossed off in his analysis of like 70% of his post '89 output. It ain't objective - which opens a few doors to potential criticism in a biography. It comes down to whether your subjectivity as a reader chimes with the writer's. Aside from that, there's a feeling of impatience that permeates the latter half of the book, almost like Matt is telling the man off for not following up on what he sees as early promise. Having said that, there's a lot of gold here than won't be found anywhere else - until that ur-book on Prince finally emerges.

[Jamilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

For serious Prince fans only, I took my time reading so I could research all of the referenced news articles, interviews Prince tracks (released and unreleased), side projects, concerts and associated artists. There was a plethora of information and I am still letting it all soak in. The author was knowledgeable and balanced in presenting his opinion vs the facts. I've read a few complaints about his detailed descriptions of the 21 Nights in London concert series but thoroughly enjoyed that portion. This book isn't about Prince's personal life but rather the many sides to his artistry as a musician, author and filmmaker and the author took great care to interview Prince's closest associates. Definitely a tedious book but well worth the knowledge of Prince's career I gained.

Strongly recommended for the "serious fan"

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating, extremely well-researched, and insightful, though sometimes the author gets carried away with which songs he likes, and which songs he hates, not letting the reader decide on their own. Excellent resource for any true Prince fan, and a window inside how he works. Presents the enormous amount of music he has produced, with detailed info on all of his side-projects, protégés, pseudonyms, unreleased material and unique live performances.

[Dave Johnstone · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don’t know who this Matt guy thinks he is but he’s wasted a whole lot of time and energy writing this piece of shit. All surface level and subjective, notating the different albums and their singles without going in depth on the songwriting process or stylistic changes and the symbolism of each genre that Prince progressed to, no detail about his recording process or the equipment he was using... Totally shite. Do not read.

[André · Rating 4 out of 5]

Citaat : Het werd me nadat ik aan dit boek was begonnen al snel duidelijk dat Prince zich tijdens zijn hele carrière heeft omringd met toegewijde, intelligente en charmante mensen. Het vermogen om de juiste mensen te vinden is duidelijk een van zijn talloze talenten.
Review : Prince kreeg de muziek met de paplepel ingegoten. Nadat zijn ouders gescheiden waren, groeide hij op bij zijn vader, een jazz pianist. Tijdens de optredens van zijn vader, John ‘Prince Rogers’ Nelson, stond hij backstage en wilde hij maar een ding: in zijn voetsporen treden. Prince schreef zijn eerste liedje toen hij zeven was (‘Funk Machine), ondertekende op zijn negentiende een platencontract bij Warner Bross en veranderde op zijn vijfendertigste zijn naam in een symbool, om van dat platencontract af te komen.



In 2001 recruteerde zijn vriend Larry Graham, roemrucht bassist van Sly and the Family Stone, hem voor de Getuigen van Jehova. Sindsdien wordt er op het toneel niet meer gevloekt en kan het je als inwoner van Chanhassen, Minnesota zomaar overkomen dat Prince voor je deur staat, met een Watchtower in de hand, want hij doet lustig mee aan de verspreiding van het Woord. Ondanks zijn 1 meter 55 is hij een niet onverdienstelijk basketbalspeler. En hij is een overtuigd veganist.



Zangfenomeen Prince is ongrijpbaar. Of tenminste, hij doet er alles aan om dat te zijn. Wellicht daarom weten de diverse biografieën die op de markt zijn ‘de mens’ achter de artiest nooit goed te vangen. Je zou ook kunnen concluderen dat Prince’ leven gewoon volledig in dienst staat van de muziek die hij maakt. Zijn immense catalogus geeft daar in ieder geval wel een vermoeden van. Vandaar wellicht dat biograaf Matt Thorne juist die immense catalogus aan uitgebracht en onuitgebracht materiaal als basis voor zijn in het Nederlands vertaalde boek heeft genomen. Thorne neemt de muziek als uitgangspunt en aan de hand van gesprekken met medewerkers (on-der meer Wendy & Lisa, arrangeur Clare Fishers zoon Brent, H.M. Buff, Steve Parke e.a.) wordt Prince’ gehele oeuvre track voor track behandeld, inclusief veel onuitgebracht materiaal. Voor de liefhebbers is dat smullen. Voor een leek kan het soms wat te ver gaan.



Deze biografie vraagt, om hem het best op waarde te kunnen schatten, een meer dan gemiddelde interesse in en kennis van Prince’ muziek. Diens privéleven speelt amper een rol in dit boek. Zo wordt maar mondjesmaat ingezoomd op zijn huwelijken, wordt het verlies van zijn kind in 1996 in een bijzin afgedaan en wordt de dood van zijn vader in 2001 niet eens genoemd. Doordat de focus puur op de muziek ligt, weet je ook als lezer volledig waar je aan toe bent. Daarom is het echter wel jammer dat de Engelstalige hoofdstukken over de vele nevenprojecten waar Prince bij be-trokken is geweest niet zijn vertaald. Niet in het minst omdat daar een voor de Nederlandse doel-groep ook nog een kleine link in zit (Lois Lane), maar vooral ook omdat – meer dan in de rest van het boek – juist in deze hoofdstukken de immense impact van Prince op de volledige popcultuur duidelijk wordt.



Het uitgebreide notenapparaat in het originele boek is ook weggesnoeid in de Nederlandse versie. De Nederlandse vertaling is voor de rest prima, het boek blijft in de wirwar van liedjestitels die op hoge snelheid voorbij schieten makkelijk en lekker leesbaar. Thorne schrijft met grote kennis van zaken en met groot enthousiasme. Het boek is, vooral vanwege dit laatste, daarom niet alleen interessant voor de doorgewinterde Prince-fan.

[Caterina Pierre · Rating 3 out of 5]

I began reading this 602-page book to gain insight into Prince’s life and artistic decisions, particularly related to his home and studio at Paisley Park. Unfortunately, Paisley isn’t really discussed in any significant way, and in fact the book is really comprised of interviews with former working partners (many fired or jilted, any many of whom were not on the best terms with Prince before his death), fan-boy musings, and about 300 pages of solid complaining about albums and tracks that Thorne didn’t like and concerts and after-shows that he felt fell flat. Particularly bad were large sections of the book that were just reviews of albums, but like badly written reviews where someone just checks off each track on a record and gives their opinion of it with no analysis, and a chapter where the author reviews 19 of the 21 nights that Prince famously performed in London at the 02. Thorne called every show that he liked of that performance run “the best night of the run,” and everyone he didn’t like “the worst night,” rendering his comments completely useless. The author was privileged to see Prince live so many times; his failure to acknowledge that privilege is irritating. Like many Prince fans, he’s biased towards Prince’s first decade of recordings (1978-1988), but he rags so hard on everything made after 1988 that it’s difficult to read. At the end, he admits that the book was not endorsed or read by Prince. No kidding. I’m surprised Prince didn’t buy up the back copies and have them incinerated. Worst of all, my copy was published in 2016 (the original printing was 2012), and while there is a last chapter dealing with some of the last recordings, Thorne made no attempt to revisit the ideas in the book in light of Prince’s death. Clearly it was republished to capitalize on Prince’s death, which would be fine if it had contributed to an understanding of the artist in light of his passing. It doesn’t. I gave it three stars because Thorne clearly did a lot of research, over what he claims was a seven-year period. But the book needed editorial help, some sort of direction, less complaining, and a final addendum in light of the death of Prince.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

At some point, somewhere around the fifteenth page of set-lists from the O2 residency, you realise Matt Thorne isn’t writing a biography about Prince so much as trying to live and breathe deep inside the Purple One's unwieldy discography.

Originally published in 2012 and then expanded in a 2024 edition that adds almost a hundred pages on the final years and posthumous releases, Prince is as close as anyone has come to a total map of the terrain. It’s compelling and – to put it mildly – exhaustive: more than 550 pages in the original run, 650-ish now, built from seven years of research, trawls through bootlegs and fan lore, and interviews with ex-Revolution members such as Wendy & Lisa and other long-time collaborators.

Crucially, Thorne’s subject is less “Prince Rogers Nelson, the man” than Prince’s work. Make no mistake about it, this is a biography of the music. Thorne sets himself the slightly insane task of dealing with every song – released, unreleased, given away, hidden in the Vault – across 35+ years. Albums, B-sides, side projects, protégé records, live one-offs: all are scrutinised for clues to the evolving project. If you’ve ever found yourself wondering whether anyone has really listened closely to, say, The Rainbow Children or the third Madhouse record, here is your answer.

The method is broadly chronological but happily digressive. Chapters are organised around phases – the creation of the Minneapolis sound, the Purple Rain breakthrough, the Sign “O” the Times sprawl, the Glam Slam / NPG era, the Jehovah’s Witness years – but within those, Thorne zigzags between studio stories, song-by-song breakdowns and close readings of key live shows. His fandom is obvious: he went to 19 of the 21 O2 shows in 2007 and almost all the aftershows, and devotes nearly 30 pages to reviewing them, down to the last curveball cover and sax solo.

That kind of completist zeal is both the book’s superpower and its potential pitfall. The Guardian memorably called it a “geeks’ guide” whose footnote-packed thoroughness can be “exhausting,” and there are moments where you may feel you’ve inadvertently enrolled on a semester-long module in Paisley Park Studies. The later years in particular – internet experiments, Hit n Run releases, one-off tours – get almost as much forensic attention as the imperial 80s, which some readers will love and others may find a touch unbalanced.

But if you’re even mildly Prince-obsessed, the sheer density of it becomes weirdly addictive. Thorne isn’t just cataloguing; he’s arguing. He’s refreshingly willing to call out weak tracks or half-baked concepts, and to push back against fan orthodoxy when a maligned record (Batman, Come, Chaos and Disorder) deserves rescuing from the bin. Conversely, he’s clear-eyed about the decline in quality control once Prince broke with Warner and began flooding the market with albums, websites, club-only CDs and download-only curios. The completism gives him the right to say, credibly, “No, you really don’t need all of this.”

Where the book is strongest is in tracing patterns across the catalogue: lyrical fixations (apocalypse, religious conversion, sex as sacrament), musical tics, recurring character types, the way the same melodic fragment resurfaces years later in a different context. He’s very good on the tension between Prince’s need for absolute control – over publishing, image, band, technology – and his equally strong need for collaborative spark. The revolving door of protégés and band members becomes a running theme: muses, lovers, foils, sometimes all three at once, each briefly given centre stage then folded back into the purple mythos.

The interviews with insiders are judiciously used. Wendy & Lisa, members of the Revolution, studio players and business associates all contribute fragments that help explain how the records got made: who really wrote what, how certain arrangements came together, how the Vault filled up with 60-piece orchestral sessions no one ever heard. Thorne is candid about the limits of access – Prince himself did not participate, and some witnesses remain cagey – but he still manages to shed light on working practices that have often been obscured by myth.

What you don’t get, much, is psychological excavation. In the end, as one reviewer wrote, “the endlessly talented and frustrating man himself remains as unknowable as ever.” Thorne sketches the key biographical beats – troubled childhood, early hustling, fraught romantic life, religious turn, business battles – but rarely lingers on them. If your ideal Prince book is the full warts-and-all personal life, this isn’t it. He’s more comfortable asking what a track means in the context of the catalogue than what a decision meant in the context of Prince’s inner world.

So, what have you come here for? There’s an argument that Prince, who fiercely guarded his privacy and constantly tried to redirect attention back to the work, is best approached through his songs. Indeed, Thorne seems to take that as a working principle. So you come away with a vivid sense of an artistic trajectory – the unbelievable run from Dirty Mind through Lovesexy; the long, messy war with the industry; the late-period experiments with distribution and faith – even if the core personality at the centre of it all remains partly in shadow.

The newly expanded 2024 edition subtly shifts the balance. Those extra pages on 2012–2016 and the posthumous releases take in Art Official Age, the Hit n Run albums, the Piano & a Microphone shows and the chaotic way the estate has handled the Vault. It makes the book feel more like a complete arc rather than a study that stops just as its subject enters his final, stripped-back phase.

Is it definitive? In terms of the music, probably yes – or as close as anyone is likely to get without a key to the Vault and several extra lifetimes. It can be a grind in places, as even sympathetic reviewers admit, but it’s also one of those rare critical studies that can send you scrambling back to the records with fresh ears. A throwaway B-side, a half-remembered live jam, an unloved late-period album: in Thorne’s telling, all of them have a place in the larger design.

In the end, this isn’t the book that explains Prince once and for all. It’s the book that takes his recorded output seriously enough to meet it on its own, obsessive terms. For a figure who spent a career insisting that everything you really needed to know was “in the music,” that feels like a strangely appropriate kind of respect – and a very compelling way to get lost in the purple maze all over again. And really, that is what it is, a maze, filled with this extraordinary volume of music, well before he could use AI to make this quicker for him, as many will doubtless try to do before too long.

[Mr Aleph Alpha · Rating 3 out of 5]

Warning: This book is for the serious Prince aficionado!
Casual listeners of his music will probably lose interest as the book is neither focusing on exploring Prince's inner worlds or a juicy collection of stories or gossips from his career.
It is pretty much a history of his musical creations.
It covers all his officially released material as well as unreleased songs that can only be found on bootlegs, unless of course you have a key to the vault of Paisley Park!
The author covers Prince's career from his early teens until 2013 (for the updated edition).
It goes into details about the recording process behind most songs of every album, the collaborators, various phases of Prince's musical career. Information on specific performances, tours, aborted projects, various promotional endeavours, contractual disputes, etc.
There is little here to hold your attention if you're not genuinely interested in Prince's career.
I am a serious Prince fan since the late 1980s and, in all honesty, I would have put the book down before the end if I hadn't been committed to finding out more about him throughout these 500 pages.
Definitely not a light read.
Very little information on the man himself (as a person).
Much of the book emphasises on exploring Prince's recording history. It provides little in terms of understanding Prince's inner worlds or exposing his secretive private life.
For fans.