Prince's Sign O' the Times (Thirty Three and a Third series)

Very sweet tribute to Prince's masterpiece. I expected more technical details but what I got was a truly soulful sense of the writer's personal connection to the album. Not disappointed. :)

Just heaven. I truly hope they venture into a few more Prince album. This one was everything you want it to be.

I admire Matos' love of this Prince album, although I question his ability to express it. In these 33.1/3 series, Matos' book cannot stand up to the superior Neil Young Harvest book, but it does surpass the Smiths-Meat Is Murder and Kinks-Village Green books. In fact, what I hate most about the Smiths-Meat book -- namely, how engrossed it is in personal recollection, talking more about the author and less about the music's place -- is something Matos does fairly well. Chapter One of this Prince book gives us the setting for Matos' discovery of the album (13 years old? -- can't we get folks to write about these albums they discovered when they were a bit more mature?) and in doing so, conjures up the late 80s quite well. The author's "place" in the album's musical history does not overshadow the album, thankfully.Given that Prince hardly speaks to the press, Matos has done a fairly good job assembling material to talk about Prince and this great album. It's not as good as the 33.1/3 Young-Harvest book, but it does a fairly good job providing the context for "Times" and helping us see the album in a new light. (Sometimes this context is all too-Matos-personal.) The voice of the book at times wavers from a personal tone, to a historical tone, to a comparative-contextual one. Is this editorial pressure, or a lack of it? Although I can forgive the wavering tone of the book, I cannot forgive Matos' imprecise wording (like the quote from my review title). I found myself lost: what does the adjective "Camille" mean?All of these stylistic inconsistencies detracted from what should be the main point of the book: to get you to listen to the record and hear it in a fresh way. Although some of Matos' explications of the songs are good (Housequake, Sign, Cross, Hot Thing/It), others are not (If..Girlfriend, Adore, Strange Relationship). At times, his criticism becomes too murky. Matos is good when he is retroactively contextualizing the songs with the 87/88 music scene (George Michael, Janet Jackson, hip-hop). His writing is less helpful when he adds his too personal metaphors as his sole aid in explaining the songs (although I loved his take on Starfish.)Overall, it's a nicely condensed retrospective look back on Prince. The author's lack of bias against Prince's 90s material is refreshing and helpful. I wish 33.1/3 had gotten him to write about "Emancipation". "Sign" is not a perfect album, but for all it's quirks, it's an interesting album. One could say the same for Matos' book.

I'm just getting into Prince and so far it's proved to be a difficult experience in many ways. I bought Sign and wanted to learn more so I did what I always do and got on the internet. Where I quickly learned it's nearly impossible to find any illuminating content on his work such as interviews, making ofs, etc., or even any prince content period, because he's crushed, nazi-like, any attempts by fans to put it up on the web, which is intended to make you pay a monthly subscription fee to his site (which I find annoying. I don't mind paying for music, but interviews??) But I gave in and figured if I want to read about Prince I'm going to have to pay for it.Unfortunately, this book was just another frustrating Prince experience. It claims to be the story of how Prince made a great album and more. IT IS NOT the story of how Prince made Sign O the Times. This is a music journalist riffing on how much he likes this album with way too much autobiography. No offense, but I didn't buy a book about Prince to read about some music journalist's childhood. To give you an idea: The book is short, 120 pages. I started to get antsy when 20 pages in (1/6 of the book) the author was still talking about his childhood. I started to get mad when 60 pages in (1/2 way) he hadn't even begun discussing Sign O' The Times propererly.There are many annoying things about this book. The fact that it isn't what it claims to be. The hopelessly unedgy muso-journalist tone that you're likely to find in publications like Rolling Stone that makes you feel that all music is somehow cheesy.If you're looking for something mildly approaching researched, this is not the book for you. The amount of inside info contained in this book approaches non-existence. This is a fan's musings. If you're like me, you supply your own images and contexts for good music. If you would be interested in somebody else's, you might like this.

Nice perspective on what I consider to be one of his best releases. It's not straight biography, just one person's impression and thoughts and reactions to the subject. Great quick read in the wake of his passing to remind one of that time.

"Sign o' the Times" is one of my favorite Prince albums, so I couldn't wait to dive in & learn more. What I got instead was an author who criticizes & belittles the album at every turn. Does he even like Prince? To make matters worse, the book opens with the author droning on endlessly about his own personal experiences in the 80s leading up to listening to "Sign." Who cares! We don't know the author, so why do we want to hear his boring story? We're here for Prince & unfortunately this guy is a cynical music critic disguised as a fan. I've read many books on the subject of Prince & this is by far the worst.

Much better than the reviews had me believe it would be; sure, some navel-gazing throughout, but Lin still does a decent job, despite on at least one occasion getting the bloody name of a song wrong - a whole star off for that embarrassment!

I wish the authors of these books would focus entirely on the album that they are covering rather than starting out of with their own personal biographies that nobody asked for. Luckily it’s only the first part of the book so it’s still worth the read if you skip around a bit.

This is the third and best of the series I've read so far. Use your illusion and Kid A were a shambles and pretentious guff,respectively.The author has a humble charm and I found the understated details of his childhood and adolescence oddly poignant.What you get is an informative,enthusiastic and varied analysis of Prince's seminal album.It's not an irritatingly portentous dissertation that will have you stroking your chin;just the words of an ordinary guy describing an album that means a lot to him...and probably you if you're reading this.

Prince gab und gibt sehr selten Interviews, so ist es auch nicht verwunderlich, dass es keine persönlichen Äusserungen zur Entstehung der Platte gibt, da auch die gesamte Produktion inklusive Studio in Prince' Händen liegt, bleibt dem Autor nur, andere öffentliche Informationen zur Musik von Prince zusammen zu tragen. Dies macht sprunghaft und ausschweifend, und damit dies Buch ziemlich entbehrlich

The greatest Prince album...

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. finally, when getting to consider the actual key tracks he seems to see it all as Prince's work whereas the evidence is increasingly that like Dylan, Zappa and James Brown while not underestimating the man's many talents he knew how to surround himself with the right personnel to create the right result.Saddest to me is that while the potential comparisons with Dylan's "Blonde on Blonde" are made (especially what happened in each career afterwards) and the sampling of James Brown music, the most obvious linkage to Prince's later personna being Marvin Gaye and his breakthrough 1970s duo of "What's Going On" and "Let's Get It On" do not get a single mention.

great album, great view of it, pretty well written