Prince: A Thief in the Temple

by Brian Morton

Prince Rogers Nelson released his first album in 1978. In the years that followed until his death in April 2016, he became a superstar, a recluse, an inspiration, an enigma, a slave and a symbol. He was a master of reinvention, but the one constant in his astonishing career was his genius: as a singer, a songwriter, a performer and a musician. He sold more than 100 million albums, won seven Grammys, a Golden Globe and an Oscar. His ability to fuse styles and genres made him one of the most unique, influential and beloved artists in music history. In Prince: A Thief in the Temple, acclaimed journalist and broadcaster Brian Morton reveals the highs and lows of a remarkable musical life.

Genres: Music, Biography, Nonfiction

210 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Brian Morton (born 1954) is a Scottish writer, journalist and broadcaster, mainly specialising in jazz and modern literature. Morton was educated at Edinburgh University and taught in the late 1970s at the University of East Anglia and the University of Tromsø in Norway.

Reviews

[Liam · Rating 2 out of 5]

Brian Morton is obviously well-read and knowledgeable about music, as one might expect of a "former academic", which is how he is described on the dust-jacket flap. The book is just about what would be expected too- a fairly interesting overview of Prince's career, but without any difficult and/or obscure references to the history of music, recording technology etc. that might be off-putting to a "general audience". I understand that this is not an academic book per se, and that it is in fact meant for that audience, but for my taste it was a bit too light-weight. The fact that Mr. Morton is not himself a musician is, to my eyes anyway, glaringly apparent in the way he writes about Prince's music. This is not a bad book, especially compared to some of the others I've seen on the same subject, but I would really much prefer to read a book that would cover the music with the respect & scholarship it deserves...

[Scott Woods · Rating 1 out of 5]

Prince's career has had so many ups, downs, left turns and triumphs that no one book could contain the story of his career. Authors (be they biographers, musicologists or in this case, suggestive theorists trying to prove a point by balancing both biography and musical output) have largely had to content themselves with capturing the eras through which he passes, or only key developments of his career. Prince traditionally produces so quickly and through so many avenues that most books about him or his music are dated almost upon publication. There are a few classic books (classic in the sense that they're great and in the sense that they are, yes, dated, but were great for their time) that really give what people who might be interested enough in the artist to read a few hundred pages devoted to his life and work: studio insight, musical inspirations, band drama, hard-to-acquire interview revelations, etc. This book, however, doesn't come close.

In all fairness to Morton, this book does not strive for comprehensiveness. The author is well aware that even a meager internet search would glean just about everything presented in this book; to a stalwart fan even less. Despite being a former academic, Morton's goal here is only to draw enough conclusive evidence to make a point, not to illuminate corners of Prince's world that audiences may not have seen or heard about before. So it is a slim book - a treatise, really, and under 200 pages very large-formatted - and it is extremely light on details...so light as to be offensively cursory.

But what is the point of the book, the premise? Be clear that it is not what its dust jacket suggests:

"[The work] alleging that all along Prince has been aiming for a biracial music...[Morton] dissects the man behind the artist and shows emphatically why [Prince] still matters in the twenty-first century."

I'm not saying he wasn't shooting for this; I'm saying the book doesn't accomplish this.

Looking for the answer in the preface seemed more prudent. Here is as close as we get to a point for this ill-conceived tome;

"The myth of America is all about successive rebirth, and seeming to grow younger rather than older...
Prince has followed [Miles Davis and Bob Dylan] in treating his own astonishing body of songs...as if they were counters on an improvisational game-field, part of an open flow of `work' rather than canonical `works'. he hard thing for any student of Prince, but an endless source of delight and discovery for his admirers, is that the real work does not come through to us as settled `product' but as a tricksterish chase after bootlegs, reworked ideas, willful suppression and mere rumor. It has kept him, depending on how you look at it, either ahead of everyone else, or in sole charge of his own enigmatic game."

So the author thinks not only that Prince is a big calculator of a huge endgame of mind tricks, but that his book will be the one to show you just how cunning Prince's plan really is. What the author does not allow for is the most likely scenario of all: that Prince had a stunningly great start, peeked out a little, freaked out a little, despaired a little, hit a musical bottom aided in no small part by the fact that he surrounds himself with people 24 hours a day that wouldn't tell him he had a bad idea if their lives depended on it, and only within the last few years released some music people beyond only a slavish fan base could appreciate. I think that a far more reasonable theory than suggesting that Prince is a puckish genius pulling our collective legs with tripe like "Chaos and Disorder" or "Rave Un2 the Joy Fantastic".

Morton seeks to prove all of this with a cursory take on his early years, a jaw-droppingly short take on his high-powered 80s success, and a practically non-existent take on the genuine turnaround of Prince's career post 2003. Even if I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, he doesn't give me enough room on the ledge to stand on next to him. And the constant desire by most Prince biographers to draw race into the equation hurts their cases more than it has ever helped.

In the end you could skip this book entirely and you would not have gleaned one thing about Prince you couldn't have gotten off of a fan site or in five minutes with a genuine, bootleg-collecting fan.

[Steven Richard · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a Prince fan it is hard to take this book seriously, there are several glaring errors (ones that a simple fact check would pick up) that undermine the entire book.

[Michael Martin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am a fan of Prince, and own most of his recordings. This is a dreadful, joyless read. I got through it, but not before making note of the author’s name and entering it at the top of my “never read another book by” list. It sheds no light at all on the subject, instead choosing to laboriously give us the author’s assessments, album by album, of Prince’s career. Avoid at all costs.

[Timothy]

not biogr

[Noel · Rating 4 out of 5]

focuses mainly on his records but does delve into his personal life briefly i enjoyed it and i do enjoy prince

[Phdrseuss · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was ok. Didn't take long to read. Nothing to brag about.

[Jade · Rating 1 out of 5]

What an atrocious book. This book is a great example of why you should not write a biography if you cannot get good and reliable sources. I know of Prince's great privacy and as a devoted acolyte (there is no other word to show how big a fan I am properly.), I am aware of his unusual ways and artistic temper. Not only is the book filled with constant speculation in lieu of facts, it's so badly written as to be difficult to read. I should have guessed that the author had a vendetta when he mentioned in his foreword that he had met Prince and paraphrasing here..."Prince had not said one thing that made sense other than acknowledging that he also liked Miles Davis". He was obviously a spurned writer.
He is also obsessed with Miles Davis and would have been better served writing a book about Mr. Davis. Maybe he has--I don't know--I do know I would never read another of his books in my life. He is so slanted it's insane. It's one thing to lay out facts or even to let an opinion or two in but this man is literally nutty in his comments--he downplays Prince's obvious genius (even non-fans generally acknowledge the man can do pretty much anything musically) by picking apart even his greatest triumphs (dismissing Purple Rain, an acknowledged classic) as just ok and dismissing the Academy Award nominated film even more. (Meanwhile, praising one of Prince's most minor proteges, Jill Jones as some kind of genius). He deigns to assume he understands Prince's feelings towards women (which even a devoted listener would have trouble figuring out) and his family and makes wild assumptions about Prince's life based on lyrics (a pretty stupid thing to do considering Prince's fondness for dichotomy). And the constant references to Miles Davis are seriously maddening. It would be different if this was a bio comparing the two but he needs to understand that not all things come from Miles Davis and that not everything in the blessed world can be traced back to him. A horrible book and a horrible writing style. I would highly recommend he leave biography and quite possibly writing in general alone for the sake of the poor, unsuspecting reader.

[Nešo Shonery · Rating 3 out of 5]

Princ je bio jedna zanimljiva ličnost, i rekao bih da je definitvno bio podcenjen kao muzičar. Cela knjiga se više bavila muzičkim aspektom njegovih albuma, nego njegovim životom. Poprilično zanimljivo.

[Rachel · Rating 2 out of 5]

unfortunately poorly written.

or rather, written as though there were some other text to be read alongside - as far as bios go not so hot. he mentions songs but doesn't say the names, breezes through things, doesn't link thoughts together intra-chapter...

i will say it is interesting to read as you watch the videos, though - he has good information about who is doing what (and sometimes to whom!)

[Anela]

Abandoning after 4 chapters. It seems poorly written and as though the author can't decide who the audience is (fans? People in the music business?). It appears that Prince didn't participate with this book, so I wasn't expecting the most awesome biography ever, but I was expecting something better than this.

[Matthew Bourns · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is more of a review of his discography and how it ties into his personal life whilst he was recording the albums. It is a quick read and does provide some more insight into this talented artist, but does not really provide anything that hasn't been said before.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

A great jumping off point for someone who knew very little about Prince and his music.

[Henrik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review coming. Busy these days, so no time to write reviews, sigh.