Prince: A Decade Of DanceMusicSexRomance

by Bert Cielen

If you were a teenager in the 1980s, you were probably glad that someone like Prince was around to spice up the musical landscape. Not only did he make some of the best pop music of his generation, for most of the decade he remained a true enigma, shrouded in mystery. At a time when MTV had turned pop music into a mass consumable, Prince kept to himself, rarely gave interviews, and let his music speak for him. The few times that he 'opened up', he seemed shy and reluctant to talk. One of the most famous examples of this reticence was his appearance on "American Bandstand". Prince answered in monosyllables, and when Dick Clark, the host of the show, asked him how long he'd been making music, Prince simply raised four fingers.

However, as Per Nilsen discloses in his recent biography, "DanceMusicSexRomance -- Prince: The First Decade", the Bandstand TV performance wasn't the result of a deeply rooted shyness, but actually something Prince had planned all along. This is just one of many revelations in the most well-researched book about Prince ever written. As the title says, it only covers Prince's career up until late 1987, but that period alone supplies more than enough material to produce a great biography -- one that will not only appeal to Prince fans, but to music fans in general.

While his name may not sound familiar, Per Nilsen is no nobody. He's written a 'concert documentary' on David Bowie, and a book on Iggy Pop, "The Wild One". But most Prince fans know him as 'the guy who wrote the Prince Bible' -- "Prince: A Documentary". "A Documentary" wasn't your typical rock star biography, barely mentioning Prince's background, his working methods, his motivations. Although it continues to be a fascinating look at Prince's career, its dry listing of dates, facts and figures doesn't make for easy reading. In many ways, it's like reading an encyclopedia. Still, despite all its shortcomings, most of the Prince biographies that appeared following its publication were thinly disguised rewrites of it.

"DanceMusicSexRomance" is something different, however. It's, as Per himself describes it, 'a serious study, or something, since it combines a biography-style approach with an in-depth examination of his lyrics and music.' A tremendous amount of research was done for the book, spanning six years and including over 300 hours of interviews with people that were around during this period in Prince's career. One of them, sound engineer Susan Rogers, sat through 15 hours of questions about her studio work with Prince.

Per's new book uncovers many previously unknown details about Prince's working habits, and makes you wonder how he and his entourage can keep their sanity intact while working impossible hours. The book contains numerous tales of birthdays and holidays spent performing, rehearsing or recording, sometimes all at once. Prince often demands the impossible from those working with him, and the accounts of the break-ups in both his professional and personal life are often damning. Per also uncovers the truth about many rumours and provides some surprises about Prince's music. The first few pages of Chapter Ten are breathtaking, as Per describes how Prince enters the Sunset Sound recording studios in Los Angeles ten days after finishing the Purple Rain tour, and records the first four songs of "Parade" in one go. The reality behind the decision to shelve the legendary "Black Album" in late 1987, a mere week before it was supposed to hit the stores, is exposed as being far more prosaic than Prince's explanations.

Thankfully, unlike many other traditional biographies, "DanceMusicSexRomance" concentrates on Prince's music and not his personal life, even though that part inevitably interacts with his music. It is well known that several songs on "Sign O' The Times", like "Forever In My Life" and "If I Was Your Girlfriend", are about his relationship with Susannah Melvoin (twin sister of Wendy Melvoin of Wendy & Lisa fame), but I was surprised to learn that "The Beautiful Ones" (on "Purple Rain") is also about her. Apparently, a lot of his other songs have a basis in real life, and aren't just the result of a very sharp imagination. It's also this aspect of the book that's most unflattering for Prince: he's seemingly incapable of maintaining just one relationship at a time (it is true that Prince has regularly shared both his studio as well as his bed with the female 'artists' he's worked with), he 'borrows' ideas from people and fails to credit them for it, he's unfaithful yet demands absolute loyalty from those around him. Among the more disturbing revelations, Prince's concept of 'friendship' is one that leaves a lasting impression. 'He doesn't trust you unless you're on his payroll,' says one of those interviewed for the book.

You don't have to be a Prince fan to enjoy "DanceMusicSexRomance", and as far as music biographies go, this one belongs at the top, alongside books like Michael Azerrad's "Come As You Are: The Story Of Nirvana". Granted, the book isn't without its faults: it would greatly benefit from an alphabetical index of names, song titles and places, and the photo section is somewhat disappointing. A second volume, dealing with Prince's post-1987 career, is planned, but only if the first book is successful: 'I can't spend another four, five, six years and invest a lot of money, which I've done, if the book only sells a few hundred copies,' says Per. 'Hopefully, it'll do better than that.' It certainly deserves to, and actually, Prince deserves to; it would be a shame if that period of Prince's career were only covered by cut'n'paste jobs such as Liz Jones' "Slave To The Rhythm". Perhaps Alan Leeds, who has worked closely with Prince and won a Grammy Award for his liner notes to the James Brown box set "Star Trax", says it best in his foreword to "DanceMusicSexRomance": 'If every artist as worthwhile as Prince has a historian as fastidious as Per, the future of this genre of musicology is safe and sound.'

"DanceMusicSexRomance -- Prince: The First Decade" by Per Nilsen is published by FireFly/SAF Publishing/Helter Skelter (London, UK, 1999, ISBN: 0 946719 23 3), and is available through many online book retailers.

Per Nilsen is the author of "Prince: A Documentary", and is an editor with the unofficial, independent Prince fan publication "Uptown" (http://www.uptown.se/). Uptown will publish an update of "A Documentary" in February 2000, details of which are available at http://www.uptown.se/daysofwild/. Per's comments used in this review are from an interview with him in Uptown #35.

Prince releases a new album, "Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic", through Arista/BMG on 15 November (Australia).