Prince - A Thief in the Temple
by Brian Morton
Canongate, HK$181
It may come as a surprise that the musician generally known as Prince turns 50 next year, as do Michael Jackson and Madonna. Timely then for British jazz expert Brian Morton's Prince - A Thief in the Temple, a serious examination of the musical contribution of Prince Rogers Nelson. Morton's thesis is that Prince is as great as Miles Davis. He has certainly been influential. In the book's detailed discography, the 1984 album Purple Rain is credited with sales of 20 million copies, helped perhaps by its being the inspiration for the Parental Advisory stickers on offensive content. His performance during this year's Superbowl half-time clearly showed that there's a lot more music to come, but whether (as reviewer Aiden Smith suggested in Scotland's Sunday Herald) Prince turns out to be 'the most important figure in popular music of the last generation' remains to be seen. Morton admits at the outset the Prince story is littered with 'rumour, counter-rumour, carefully confected legend, fallings out, gagging clauses and plain nonsense'. He works hard to unravel the media disguises, along the way proving that the only thing certain is Prince's ability to take any style of music and make it his own.