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Rock Reads: Prince: Chaos, Disorder, and Revolution by Jason Draper
Reviewed by Kevin Wierzbicki
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Prince became a household name and a true pop star with a double whammy of releases; 1983's 1999 and the following year's blockbuster Purple Rain. With plenty of attitude and mystery to go with his obvious talent and a name like Prince, many may have assumed that the latest fad-maker came from some type of entitled background. But as Draper reveals early in this book, nothing could be further from the truth. Prince came from a broken home and struggled to find work as a young adult, once telling Rolling Stone "I didn't have any money so I'd just stand outside McDonald's and smell stuff." Prince's literal hunger and a desire to create music in his hometown of Minneapolis (so that the city would for once not be behind the rest of the country) both caught a break when the owner of a Twin Cities recording studio gave him the keys to the joint and free rein to use the facility. The rest as they say, is history, and Draper delves deeply into the detail in laying it out here; Prince's interaction with Vanity, The Time, Wendy & Lisa, the reason why the premiere of the Under the Cherry Moon film was held is desolate Sheridan, Wyoming, how songs were written and how the ones not obviously about sex were about sex too. Draper takes the reader chronologically through all the big moments in Prince's career from initial superstardom to changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol to telling his record label to stuff it, the infamous "Black" album, retirement and return to the stage, all done album-by-album and single-by-single. Since thirty years are covered here it's a wonder the book doesn't weigh 10 pounds---certainly with Prince there's never a dull moment---but Draper has done an excellent job with his self-editing and his analysis and the narrative moves along like a little red corvette. Contains sixteen pages of photos and a handy reference timeline through 2010.
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