Sign 'o' the Times

Oh Prince fans can be awful sometimes. I see the bad reviews of this book and it just breaks my heart. This book is easily a five star read, and a heartfelt, sincere tale about how the music of Prince affected the life of a boy growing up in the 80s. The entire premise of the 33 1/3 series is to have a people who love albums write about said albums. Michaelangelo Matos, in telling his story, has made me smile and reflect upon my own formative years growing up with this music. Prince, in the 1980s, was such a trailblazer. He was on the cutting edge of forward throught, social revolution, and bounary blurring like few others. I too remember being a young kid and buying SIGN OF THE TIMES, and I remember how it changed my life. Of course I disgree with some of Matos' statements here and there...but that's the gorgeousness of this whole series...opinions differ and tha opens up dialouge and discussion. There is no right or wrong. Don't listen to the naysayers. This is a wonderful slice of life as inspired by a man many of us loved in the 1980s forward. If you are a fan of Prince and want a quick and entertaining read, don't pass this sincere book up.

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.