33 1/3 is a new series of short books about critically acclaimed and much-loved albums of the last 40 years. Focusing on one album rather than an artist's entire output, the books dispense with the standard biographical background that fans know already, and cut to the heart of the music on each album. The authors provide fresh, original perspectives - often through their access to and relationships with the key figures involved in the recording of these albums. By turns obsessive, passionate, creative, and informed, the books in this series demonstrate many different ways of writing about music. (A task which can be, as Elvis Costello famously observed, as tricky as dancing about architecture.) What binds this series together, and what brings it to life, is that all of the authors - musicians, scholars, and writers - are deeply in love with the album they have chosen.
Prince's Sign O' the Times (33 1/3)
and over 1.5 million other books are available for Amazon Kindle . Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. Special Offer until June 30, 2013: Receive an additional £5 promotional Gift Certificate, when you trade-in at least £10 worth of books. Learn more. |
Book Description
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, and more.
Product Description
Review
"Both a student and a fan of Prince, Matos integrates the particulars of Prince's rise to fame including the release of the double LP Sign 'O' the Times with an endearing and at times hilarious telling of his own coming of age in the suburbs of Prince's Minneapolis." Mark Baumgarten, Willamette Week, 1/5/05
About the Author
Michaelangelo Matos takes a personal look at Prince's magnum opus of 1987, the greatest and most idiosyncratic double album of its era.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This book starts so well with a great explanation of the context as to why Prince and his music mean so much to the writer and then a joyful tirade against the way 1960s music dominates peoples, especially critics and reviewers, views (a fact confirmed by the preponderance of such titles in this 33 1/3 Series to date!) given this artiste and this recording is clearly rooted in the 1980s.
There then follows a concise history of Prince's life and his recording career and its development up to "Sign 'O' the Times" (including his films and how his mercurial personality was already showing through with adverse effects including alienating original band members and black fans). Thus the scene is set beautifully halfway through the book to provide a critique of the title under scrutiny but the author seems to lose it (though he does make a good effort especially at conveying what a workhorse Prince was at this time and the sheer volume of creative output he was producing), which is a pity as with retrospect this was clearly Prince's tour de force release.
The reasons for this unfortunate outcome are:
1. his infatuation with Prince's sex mystique to the detriment of seeing the recording within little of its social context and the ills of society at that time but more as one long screw;
2. he makes a bad move in starting with the triple LP that Prince originally wanted released until his record company refused rather than the final recording that surfaced and everybody knows. Given the many variations later released piecemeal you get lost in the "sea of titles" and by ending his overview with extensive links being made to hip-hop recordings, most of which one suspects will mean nothing to most readers, adds to the confusion;and,
3.
... Read more ›Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1.7 out of 5 stars
13 reviews
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great, if you accept its premise.
25 Dec 2008
By H. Domingue
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
There have been a lot of negative reviews of this book and, to be fair, they are not totally unfounded. If you bought this book and expected it to be a factual narrative with gooey bits of trivia concerning only the making of this album... well, then you'll be disappointed.
But that doesn't mean this book isn't worth your time. It's a delightful little read that not only covers the making of the album (including the various incarnations and playlists of the concepts that preceded the final release), but also tells a personal narrative that contextualizes its impact.
Yeah, there's a lot of personal narrative, but so what? This series of books takes an alternate approach to charting and cataloguing musical history. The editors encourage a varied approach to evaluating these albums. The one on Black Sabbath is an entirely fictionalized account of the action the album describes. The one on Celine Dion is a sort of social experiment in which the author (who is Canadian and hates the album) eventually comes to appreciate the work for what it is.
Though some are a little more straight-laced in their approach, most of these books are meant to be different. If you understand that notion before purchasing and reading this volume (that you'll be reading something closer to a blog or OpEd than a history book), then the book is fantastic and extremely fun.
But that doesn't mean this book isn't worth your time. It's a delightful little read that not only covers the making of the album (including the various incarnations and playlists of the concepts that preceded the final release), but also tells a personal narrative that contextualizes its impact.
Yeah, there's a lot of personal narrative, but so what? This series of books takes an alternate approach to charting and cataloguing musical history. The editors encourage a varied approach to evaluating these albums. The one on Black Sabbath is an entirely fictionalized account of the action the album describes. The one on Celine Dion is a sort of social experiment in which the author (who is Canadian and hates the album) eventually comes to appreciate the work for what it is.
Though some are a little more straight-laced in their approach, most of these books are meant to be different. If you understand that notion before purchasing and reading this volume (that you'll be reading something closer to a blog or OpEd than a history book), then the book is fantastic and extremely fun.
22 of 31 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
AWFUL
2 Aug 2004
By Eric Firebird
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
Let me say that I also read a couple of the other books in this series (the ones on the Kinks, Neil Young, and Joy Division), and being a big Prince fan I thought I would get a similarly interesting, well-written, well-researched examination of "Sign O' the Times." WRONG! This was more about the author, which is so typical for so much of what passes for "music journalism" -- the writer placing himself at the center of the story instead of his subject matter (maybe it's an ego or insecurity thing). I mean, it's great that the album affected Mr. Matos so much, but shouldn't we assume that's already the case since he's WRITING A BOOK ABOUT IT??? There's no reason that 25% of the book should be dedicated to his childhood and family and such. A brief introductory couple of pages would have sufficed for that. Anyhow, the rest of the "analysis" of the album, most of which isn't very illuminating to anyone with more than a passing knowledge of Prince, is written in the most joyless, hip-music-journo, almost condescending tone that is a real turn-off. After reading this I did a web search of this guy and found some articles he's written for some weekly newspapers, and it's more of the same. I would recommend staying away from this book and (hopefully) waiting for a better Prince book to come along.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Easy pass...
9 Jan 2011
By 3MTA3
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'm actually sorry I read this book. I don't honestly believe the author loves the source material as much as he mentions repeatedly during the autobiographical first half of this publication. His actual song-by-song dissection of the album is a big, pompus 'MEH' and super bummed me out. I do, on the other hand, feel good about having properly recycled Michaelangelo Matos' self-indulgent pamphlet along with the Sunday paper and my small collection of empty toilet paper tubes.
›
Go to Amazon.com to see all 13 reviews
1.7 out of 5 stars
Were these reviews helpful?
Let us know
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
