Per Nilsen – Prince: The First Decade (DanceMusicSexRomance)

This book wasn’t exactly engrossing, despite being exhaustively written. Seriously, the minutiae is here. Prince fans would rejoice in having so much so easily to hand.

But for me? It was a bit of a war of attrition, turning pages felt like wearing the damn thing down bit by bit.

Don’t get me wrong. I like Prince, and I can appreciate what he did. But this was waaaaay more than I needed to know about interpersonal relationships and drama in the bands he created, and all the little bits about what songs got played live where, and blah blah blah.

Let me try to sum it up for you:

Prince was a genius.
He worked crazy long hours.
He worked to the exclusion of many other things.
Prince was a genius.
He was sometimes misunderstood in his time.
He often took credit for other peoples’ contributions.
Prince was a genius.
He was restlessly creative.
He shunned media and social contact.
Prince was a genius.
He had trouble with relationship commitment.
He alienated and overworked many people.
Prince was a genius.
The more he created, the further he went inward.
He was (mostly) a control freak.
Prince was a genius.
He responded to mounting pressure by recording more music than ever.
He disbanded his best line-up for the wrong reasons.
Prince was a genius.

There. Now you don’t have to read it.