FEATURE:
Purple Reign
PHOTO CREDIT: Jeff Katz/The Prince Estate
Five Years Gone: Prince’s Essential Works
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THIS is ahead of time…
but, in 2016, we lost some terrific musicians. Aside from David Bowie, we lost another icon in the form of Prince. He died on 21st April and, ahead of the fifth anniversary, I wanted to put out some Prince-related features. I will let you know what this one is about but, just before, it is worth giving you some information about The Purple One:
“Prince Rogers Nelson (June 7, 1958 – April 21, 2016) was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, dancer, actor, and director. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest musicians of his generation. Considered a guitar virtuoso, he was well known for his eclectic work across multiple genres, flamboyant and androgynous persona, and wide vocal range which included a far-reaching falsetto and high-pitched screams.
Prince's innovative music integrated a wide variety of styles, including funk, R&B, Latin, country, rock, new wave, classical, soul, synth-pop, psychedelia, pop, jazz, industrial, and hip hop. He pioneered the Minneapolis sound, a funk rock subgenre that emerged in the late 1970s. He was also known for his prolific output, releasing 39 albums during his life, with a vast array of unreleased projects left in a vault at his home after his death; it is believed that the vault contains dozens of fully produced albums and over 50 music videos that have never been released, along with various other media. He released hundreds of songs both under his own name and multiple pseudonyms during his life, as well as writing songs that were made famous by other musicians, such as "Nothing Compares 2 U" and "Manic Monday". Estimates of the complete number of songs written by Prince range anywhere from 500 to well over 1,000.
Born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Prince signed a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records at the age of 19. Prince went on to achieve critical success with the innovative albums Dirty Mind (1980), Controversy (1981), and 1999 (1982). His sixth album, Purple Rain (1984), was recorded with his backup band the Revolution, and was the soundtrack to his film acting debut of the same name. Purple Rain spent six consecutive months atop the Billboard 200. Prince won the Academy Award for Best Original Song Score. After disbanding the Revolution, Prince went on to achieve continued critical success with Sign o' the Times (1987). In the midst of a contractual dispute with Warner Bros in 1993, he changed his stage name to the unpronounceable symbol Logo. Hollow circle above downward arrow crossed with a curlicued horn-shaped symbol and then a short bar (known to fans as the "Love Symbol"), and was sometimes referred to as the Artist Formerly Known as Prince or simply the Artist. He signed with Arista Records in 1998 and began referring to himself by his own name again in 2000. After returning to mainstream prominence following a performance at the Grammy Awards ceremony in 2004, he scored six US top ten albums over the following decade. Joni Mitchell said of Prince, "He's driven like an artist. His motivations are growth and experimentation as opposed to formula and hits."
In mid-life, Prince reportedly experienced considerable pain from injuries to his body (mainly hips) sustained through his dynamic stage performances (which included leaping off speaker stacks in high heels), and was sometimes seen using a cane. In April 2016, at the age of 57, Prince died of an accidental fentanyl overdose at his Paisley Park home and recording studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Prince sold over 150 million records worldwide, ranking him among the best-selling music artists of all time. His awards included the Grammy President's Merit Award, the American Music Awards for Achievement and of Merit, the Billboard Icon Award, an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, the UK Music Hall of Fame in 2006, and the Rhythm and Blues Music Hall of Fame in 2016”.
To mark five years since his death, the first feature I want to put out is quite a general one. I am recommending the ten essential Prince albums, a great compilation album, a book that is worth investigating, in addition to finishing with a playlist of all his best tracks – much like I do with A Buyer’s Guide (albeit slightly longer and more expansive). Here is a guide to the best albums of Prince: surely one of the…
FINEST musicians who ever lived.
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Dirty Mind
Release Date: 8th October, 1980
Label: Warner Bros.
Producer: Prince
Standout Tracks: When You Were Mine/Do It All Night/Uptown
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/prince/dirty-mind
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3Cijd5OjHeWBm97DsPHpgs?si=n-BUAvBgTAysEwXU5IQTGQ
Review:
“Right before the onslaught of AIDS, “Head” was mighty strong stuff, but even it couldn’t compare to the next track: a 93-second punkabilly ditty that abruptly cuts off right as its bridge peaks, as if caught in flagrante. “Sister” celebrates incest like the rest of the record toys with sexual identity; it’s blatantly performative, yet Prince invests so much into it that it’s impossible to definitively conclude whether he fucked his sister or is merely fucking with us. The music matches this instability; his trebly guitar chords may be fast and furious like the Ramones, but the time signature keeps flipping to trip up ears and feet.
The final kiss-off, “Partyup,” denounces President Carter’s 1980 reinstatement of draft registration. Prince’s fury is both straightforward (“How you gonna make me kill somebody I don’t even know?)” and efficiently metaphorical (“Because of their half-baked mistakes/We get ice cream, no cake”). Meanwhile, the track—in-the-pocket on the bottom but liberatingly loose on top—finds the pleasure in getting thoroughly pissed off, especially during its ’60s-worthy closing chant: “You’re gonna hafta fight your own damn war/ ’Cause we don’t wanna fight no more.”
“Partyup” earns its “revolutionary rock‘n’roll” self-proclamation even though it, like most everything else on the album, is pretty much uncut funk with louder guitars and tunes so catchy you can’t deny the pop. Yet the attitude on this homemade landmark album, which was originally intended as a demo, couldn’t be purer punk: Dirty Mind rejects labels, restrictions, and authority. That’s why, despite its many colors, the music comes across so gloriously black; why Prince’s aura is so righteously flaming; why the singing wraps its pervy purple raincoat around what’s feminine. Prince was the kind of guy who couldn’t be boxed in by anything, so Dirty Mind has him rebelling against even his relatively ordinary and modest early success.
That may have lost him a few fans. The album never went platinum in the U.S. like its predecessor or 11 of the albums that followed, and even “Uptown” narrowly missed the Hot 100. But his willful aberrance also earned him a new kind of audience, one that would also support the Clash, Grace Jones, Culture Club, Rick James, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Talking Heads, Frankie Knuckles, and all the other super freaks of ’80s rock, soul, pop, and dance music. Disco’s so-called death resurrected and radicalized Prince’s already restless definition of self. Here, he becomes everything – Pitchfork
Choice Cut: Dirty Mind
Controversy
Release Date: 14th October, 1981
Label: Warner Bros.
Producer: Prince
Standout Tracks: Sexuality/Private Joy/Let’s Work
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/prince/controversy-37c9e880-3ce8-45ee-9077-d3812d38cd57
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/68qpubhEKJPAKgWarrqfoA?si=QBWIRTGERMCpLlEDscIQJw
Review:
“After “Controversy,” the LP’s high point is an extended bump-and-grind ballad, “Do Me, Baby,” in which the singer simulates an intense sexual encounter, taking it from heavy foreplay to wild, shrieking orgasm. In the postcoital coda, Prince’s mood turns uncharacteristically dark. He shivers and pleads, “I’m so cold, just hold me.” It’s the one moment amid all of Controversy‘s exhortatory slavering in which Prince glimpses a despair that no orgasm can alleviate.
Despite all the contradictions and hyperbole in Prince’s playboy philosophy, I still find his message refreshingly relevant. As Gore Vidal wrote in The Nation recently: “Most men, given the opportunity to have sex with 500 different people, would do so gladly. But most men are not going to be given the opportunity by a society that wants them safely married, so that they will be docile workers and loyal consumers” – Rolling Stone
Choice Cut: Controversy
1999 (as Prince & The Revolution)
Release Date: 27th October, 1982
Label: Warner Bros.
Producer: Prince
Standout Tracks: Little Red Corvette/Delirious/International Lover
Buy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/1999-Deluxe-Prince/dp/B07XPL65PQ
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/3U1ht9EdWEI9nMvaqdQI67?si=lJbkhS0aQLyKV88gBakxtQ
Review:
“With Dirty Mind, Prince had established a wild fusion of funk, rock, new wave, and soul that signaled he was an original, maverick talent, but it failed to win him a large audience. After delivering the sound-alike album, Controversy, Prince revamped his sound and delivered the double album 1999. Where his earlier albums had been a fusion of organic and electronic sounds, 1999 was constructed almost entirely on synthesizers by Prince himself. Naturally, the effect was slightly more mechanical and robotic than his previous work and strongly recalled the electro-funk experiments of several underground funk and hip-hop artists at the time. Prince had also constructed an album dominated by computer funk, but he didn't simply rely on the extended instrumental grooves to carry the album -- he didn't have to when his songwriting was improving by leaps and bounds. The first side of the record contained all of the hit singles, and, unsurprisingly, they were the ones that contained the least amount of electronics. "1999" parties to the apocalypse with a P-Funk groove much tighter than anything George Clinton ever did, "Little Red Corvette" is pure pop, and "Delirious" takes rockabilly riffs into the computer age. After that opening salvo, all the rules go out the window -- "Let's Pretend We're Married" is a salacious extended lust letter, "Free" is an elegiac anthem, "All the Critics Love U in New York" is a vicious attack at hipsters, and "Lady Cab Driver," with its notorious bridge, is the culmination of all of his sexual fantasies. Sure, Prince stretches out a bit too much over the course of 1999, but the result is a stunning display of raw talent, not wallowing indulgence” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: 1999
Purple Rain (as Prince & The Revolution)
Release Date: 25th June, 1984
Label: Warner Bros.
Producers: Prince and the Revolution
Standout Tracks: Let’s Go Crazy/I Would Die 4 U/Purple Rain
Buy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Purple-Rain-Prince-Revolution/dp/B000002L68
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7nXJ5k4XgRj5OLg9m8V3zc?si=QAd6sx9pSwGZe17yBYSzBQ
Review:
“Which brings us to the album’s title track, the epic and uncharacteristic arena jam “Purple Rain.” Prince here is part preacher, part guitar god. So deeply embedded in arena rock is this song that Prince reportedly called Jonathan Cain and Neal Schon of Journey to ask their blessing (and to ensure they wouldn’t sue over the song’s proximity to “Faithfully”). “Purple Rain” is a baptism, a washing clean of sins and a chance at redemption, even if the words don’t make any sense, (and to most people they don’t) the vastness of the arrangement, the grandiosity of the soloing, the pleading of the vocals reaches you, makes you cry, makes you feel free.
With Purple Rain, Prince bursts forth from the ghetto created by mainstream radio and launches himself directly onto the Mt. Rushmore of American music. He plays rock better than rock musicians, composes better than jazz guys, and performs better than everyone, all without ever abandoning his roots as a funk man, a party leader, a true MC. The album and film brought him a fame greater and more frightening than even he imagined and he would eventually retreat into the reclusive and obtuse inscrutability for which he ultimately became known. But for the 24 weeks Purple Rain spent atop the charts in 1984, the black kid from the midwest had managed to become the most accurate expression we had of young America’s overabundance of angst, love, horniness, recklessness, idealism, and hope. For those 24 weeks at least, Prince was one of us” – Pitchfork
Choice Cut: When Doves Cry
Parade (Music from the Motion Picture. Under the Cherry Moon) (as Prince & The Revolution)
Release Date: 31st March, 1986
Labels: Paisley Park/Warner Bros.
Producer: Prince
Standout Tracks: Girls & Boys/Mountains/Sometimes It Snows in April
Buy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Parade-Music-Motion-Picture-Cherry/dp/B000002L9B
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/54DjkEN3wdCQgfCTZ9WjdB?si=4mMVsnQPQ3-1bBmZxbbM1g
Review:
“Undaunted by the criticism Around the World in a Day received, Prince continued to pursue his psychedelic inclinations on Parade, which also functioned as the soundtrack to his second film, Under the Cherry Moon. Originally conceived as a double album, Parade has the sprawling feel of a double record, even if it clocks in around 45 minutes. Prince & the Revolution shift musical moods and textures from song to song -- witness how the fluttering psychedelia of "Christopher Tracy's Parade" gives way to the spare, jazzy funk of "New Position," which morphs into the druggy "I Wonder U" -- and they're determined not to play it safe, even on the hard funk of "Girls and Boys" and "Mountains," as well as the stunning "Kiss," which hits hard with just a dry guitar, keyboard, drum machine, and layered vocals. All of the group's musical adventures, even the cabaret-pop of "Venus de Milo" and "Do U Lie?" do nothing to undercut the melodicism of the record, and the amount of ground they cover in 12 songs is truly remarkable. Even with all of its attributes, Parade is a little off-balance, stopping too quickly to give the haunting closer, "Sometimes It Snows in April," the resonance it needs. For some tastes, it may also be a bit too lyrically cryptic, but Prince's weird religious and sexual metaphors develop into a motif that actually gives the album weight. If it had been expanded to a double album, Parade would have equaled the subsequent Sign 'o' the Times, but as it stands, it's an astonishingly rewarding near-miss” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Kiss
Sign o' the Times
Release Date: 30th March, 1987
Labels: Paisley Park/Warner Bros.
Producer: Prince
Standout Tracks: Sign o' the Times/Housequake/If I Was Your Girlfriend
Buy: https://www.roughtrade.com/gb/prince/sign-o-the-times-remastered
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/1XsXHctYSQNyAd9BANCk2B?si=Dso5v8ucRwuDBgD4SLnNFQ
Review:
“Sign O' The Times is the double album that confirmed Prince's greatness and signalled his slow decline (though no one knew it at the time). It coincided with yet another step back from the outside world and his retreat to the Paisley Park complex being constructed in Minneapolis. Prospero was on his island. It's ironic that Sign O' The Times was a calling card during his battle for creative independence, because if it had not been for the meddling of the dreaded Warner Brothers – against which he would wage a long, seemingly futile, conflict – the album may never had made it out at all. Of all the losses during the festival of death our fragile psychologies constructed in 2016, Prince is the one that still upsets me. I have a terrible habit of listening to music and saying, "It's all very well, but it's not Prince, is it?" I know it's a self-defeating tic, but there you go. He was, no doubt, a distillation of James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, George Clinton and Rick James, yet these influences do not diminish him - he remains ineluctably Prince. Conversely, no Sign O' The Times means no Outkast, no Pharrell, no Kanye, no Drake and no Frank Ocean” – GQ
Choice Cut: U Got the Look
Lovesexy
Release Date: 10th May, 1988
Labels: Paisley Park/Warner Bros.
Producer: Prince
Standout Tracks: Lovesexy/Glam Slam/I Wish U Heaven
Buy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lovesexy-Prince/dp/B000002LE6
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/49YqSdLkadJY5RADpR3LsZ?si=t9nKf3dGTL-tgOjZQzQLHA
Review:
“Don’t get the idea that the Minneapolis provocateur has abandonded his galvanizing ways. The nude shot on the cover may be his way of dramatizing the intimate revelation of the album’s key themes--but it’s also a way to guarantee extra attention. The danger in the cover is that it becomes a cause celebre and detracts from the album’s seriousness of purpose.
Much of the music is built around a radical gospel vision reminiscent of Marvin Gaye’s sex ‘n’ salvation testimonials. If some of the songs would be welcome at a church social, there’s enough R-rated imagery in others to keep the LP out of most rectory libraries.
Among the latter: the slow dancing “When 2 R in Love,” the only hold-over from Prince’s funny and funky “Black” album, the widely publicized collection whose release was postponed in favor of this one.
Through most of “Lovesexy,” the beat continues relentlessly--sometimes (as in “Dance On”) in a mocking way that laments society’s reluctance to deal with troubling issues.
In the somewhat documentary style of “Sign ‘O’ the Times,” the track looks at a society under seige: heartbreak in foreign battles (“Grenade launcher roars in a television sky / Tell me how many young brothers must die”) and on American streets (“Little talk Johnny blew the big score / The gang nailed his feet to a wooden floor”).
In the midst of this frantic pace, the tender “I Wish U Heaven” seems all the more endearing. With much of the showstopping intimacy and grace of the Police’s “Every Breath You Take,” the track stands as a moment of refuge and quiet among the tales of heaven and hell.
If Prince has always been a bit too radical for Grammy voters, “Lovesexy"--his most focused and consistently appealing album since “Purple Rain"--may finally be the work that brings him the record industry’s top award” – Los Angeles Times
Choice Cut: Alphabet St.
Diamonds and Pearls (Featuring The New Power Generation)
Release Date: 1st October, 1991
Labels: Paisley Park/Warner Bros.
Producer: Prince
Standout Tracks: Thunder/Cream/Money Don't Matter 2 Night
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=97248&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/6dRctIZQKuZCSSoR6QBBv9?si=vIfnUiBvQcmi8ZwRkT5fHg
Review:
“There is, of course, the title song—the twinkling locket-pop ballad that both Cam’ron and Lil Wayne eventually rapped over. One of those songs they’ll play at weddings until we stop using diamond engagement rings and the ocean runs out of pearls. It’s Prince at his best, blending dizzying romance with an undercurrent of danger. He opens up: “This will be the day/That you will hear me say/That I will never run away.” It’s a utopian promise he knows he can’t keep, an incantation he hopes will become true if he utters it out loud. “Love must be the master plan,” he says, echoing a clichéd sentiment that so many before him have uttered. But Prince had the gift of making you believe whatever he said.
As with all the greatest pop stars, Prince was a master at simplifying life’s most complicated emotions into catchphrases. He encompassed lust, jealousy, fear, spirituality, avarice, the impulse to run away, and the need to strip everything to its core—sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively. The man who believed in everlasting love died alone and childless, adored by almost the entire world. A song like “Diamonds and Pearls” illustrates why. For all the flamboyance and idiosyncrasy, Prince just wanted the same things as everyone else” – Pitchfork
Choice Cut: Diamonds and Pearls
[Love Symbol] (Featuring The New Power Generation)
Release Date: 13th October, 1992
Labels: Paisley Park/Warner Bros.
Producers: Prince and the New Power Generation
Standout Tracks: Sexy M.F./The Morning Papers/7
Buy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Love-Symbol-Prince-Power-Generation/dp/B000006L4R
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/03JxJZCOK54jmkrhlDczlA?si=b9CnFUTKQmuY8pFnfMNrZg
Review:
“The New Power Generation is the most talented and versatile band Prince has ever fronted, and they fulfill their potential on The Love Symbol Album. Although the NPG factored heavily on Diamonds and Pearls, it still sounded like a solo Prince album. Symbol sounds like a band performing together, working off of each other's strengths and weaknesses. Opening with the dance smash "My Name Is Prince" and the deep funk of "Sexy M.F.," The Love Symbol Album has Prince's best dance tracks since The Black Album. But Prince wasn't content; he decided to run the gamut of modern pop/R&B/dance, and the music is uniformly accomplished and excellent. Unfortunately, he also decided to make a "rock soap opera," so the music is saddled with ridiculous lyrics and annoying sound bridges by Kirstie Alley. However, The Love Symbol Album has some of the finest, most inventive music of Prince's career” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: My Name Is Prince
The Gold Experience (as The Artist (Formerly Known as Prince)
Release Date: 26th September, 1995
Labels: Warner Bros./NPG
Producer: Prince
Standout Tracks: Now/Eye Hate You/Gold
Buy: https://www.discogs.com/sell/list?master_id=113851&ev=mb
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/7JdnQ7zCfqETcLgS94d3ks?si=_09rQYjQQrmsfhykUfodRA
Review:
“In case you’re wondering, all his classic contradictions are still firmly in place. On the poppy political broadside “We March,” he cautions men not to call women bitches, then a few tracks later breaks his own commandment in the anti-love ditty “Billy Jack Bitch.” On “I Hate U,” the soulful first single, he sings, “I hate you…. ’cause I love you, girl,” which sums up the Princely persona in a nutshell. He loves his women and his colleagues, but he can’t allow them a dominant role in his life or his work. He loves the perks of stardom but has gone out of his way to reduce his own public profile to that of a virtual unknown. Add to all this a long-standing fascination with paradox, irony and subtle parody, and you get The Gold Experience in all its contrarian glory.
Like Michael Jackson, our erstwhile Prince has plenty to scream about, but he’s nowhere near as dour about it as Elvis Presley’s son-in-law. Instead he tries to have as much fun as possible while following his own schizoid genius as it dances along the precarious divide between the sacred and the profane.
As usual, the attempts at rap come off as part satire and part celebration of the form. The gutter feminism of “Pussy Control” is earnestly phrased in the goofy syntax of the butt-loving Sir Mix-a-Lot, while the rabblerousing lyrics of “Now” are delivered in the twangy drawl of Arrested Development’s Speech. But the most powerful revelation among this grab bag of edgy rhythms and melodies comes during the deceptively gentle “Shy.” Its rhythm track recalls the imaginative noodling of “Kiss” leavened with the melodic idiosyncrasies of a Joni Mitchell ballad but leaves a more indelible impression than either. The male protagonist of “Shy” lands alone in Los Angeles and starts wandering the town in search of, well, poetry in motion” – Rolling Stone
Choice Cut: The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
The Prince Compilation
The Very Best of Prince
Release Date: 31st July, 2001
Label: Warner Bros.
Producers: Prince/The Revolution/The New Power Generation
Standout Tracks: 1999/When Doves Cry/Raspberry Beret
Buy: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Very-Best-Prince/dp/B00005M989
Stream: https://open.spotify.com/album/5oQClEU6YXiVoaz4ZTmOOO?si=0lYfmSatS96B6bJqH_I5yQ
Review:
“Even geniuses (maybe especially geniuses) are taken for granted, not seen as geniuses, or only appreciated in small doses. Which is a grandiose way of saying that, no matter how partisans may complain, there are many listeners out there that don't want to delve into the deliriously rich catalog of Prince and would rather spend time with a single disc of all the hits -- especially since the first singles compilation was botched, spread too thin over two discs and sequenced as if it were on shuffle play. That doesn't mean that 2001's The Very Best of Prince is perfect, even if it is a better hits overview than its predecessor. First of all, Prince had so many hits, and so many of them were so good, that 17 tracks couldn't possibly summarize everything great. After all, this doesn't have Top Ten hits like "Delirious," "Pop Life," "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man," or "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" (or the number one "Batdance," for that matter, continuing Batman being unofficially written out of his discography), nor does it have such great second-tier hits as "Take Me With U" and "Mountains," or B-sides like "Irresistible Bitch" and "Erotic City," let alone album tracks. What is here are the big songs -- "1999," "Little Red Corvette," "When Doves Cry," "Kiss," and so on -- all presented in their single edits. And, frankly, that's enough to make this a dynamite collection, perfect for those that just want one Prince disc, and a good, solid listen of some of his best. Besides, this trumps both Hits discs by including "Money Don't Matter 2 Night," his best single never to reach the Top 10” – AllMusic
Choice Cut: Purple Rain
The Prince Book
The Beautiful Ones
Author: Prince
Publication Date: 29th October, 2019
Publisher: Cornerstone
Synopsis:
“Lovingly curated from Prince’s personal archives, The Beautiful Ones gathers writings, photographs and lyric sheets together in a sumptuous volume that highlights the Purple One’s restless creativity. The perfect companion to an exceptional career and a book that no self-respecting Prince fan can do without.
The Beautiful Ones is the deeply personal account of how Prince Rogers Nelson became the Prince we know: the real-time story of a kid absorbing the world around him and creating a persona, an artistic vision, and a life, before the hits and the fame that would come to define him.
The book will span from Prince’s childhood to his early years as a musician to the cusp of international stardom, using Prince’s own writings, a scrapbook of his personal photos, and the original handwritten lyric sheets for many of his most iconic songs, which he kept at Paisley Park. The book depicts Prince’s evolution through deeply revealing, never-before-shared images and memories and culminates with his original handwritten treatment for his masterwork, Purple Rain.
The memoir will be framed by Piepenbring’s riveting, moving introduction about his short but profound collaboration with Prince in his final days - a time when Prince was thinking deeply about how to reveal more of himself and his ideas to the world, while retaining the mystery and mystique he’d so carefully cultivated - and by annotations that provide context to the book’s images” – Waterstones
Buy: https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-beautiful-ones/prince/9781780899176