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41st out of 94 books
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16 voters
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Sign o' the Times (33⅓ #10)
One of the greatest double albums of the vinyl era, Sign 'O' the Times shows Prince at his peak. Here, Michaelangelo Matos tells the story of how it emerged from an extraordinary period of creativity to become one of the landmark recordings of the 1980s. He also illustrates beautifully how - if a record is great enough and lucky enough to hit you at the right time - it can...more
Paperback, 121 pages
Published
by Continuum
(first published February 2004)
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I have written a bunch about Prince's music in general and Sign o' the Times in specific, and like the author I have listened to this album with loving attention since it first came out (I was about 3 years older than the author was that year). As such, I have a lot of opinions about this record, which may have biased my reading of this book.
Full disclosure: When I became recently aware of a call for proposals to this 33 1/3 series and that the current publisher wants to take the serie...more
Full disclosure: When I became recently aware of a call for proposals to this 33 1/3 series and that the current publisher wants to take the serie...more
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Matos comes on very strong, talking about how Prince figures into his life as a welfare kid in the suburbs, and that Prince came via his mama's and aunt's record collections, but when he gets to the record itself, it's a confusing game of track comparison.
Evidently, Sign 'O The Times was meant to be a triple album fuck-you to the record company and a decaying fanbase, but was Frankenstein;d out of those sessions into one of the last great double albums. I always considered it his Wh...more
Evidently, Sign 'O The Times was meant to be a triple album fuck-you to the record company and a decaying fanbase, but was Frankenstein;d out of those sessions into one of the last great double albums. I always considered it his Wh...more
Starting off as a narrative is an interesting approach, but as the book goes on it seems that Matos is dedicated to listening to his own voice, which grows kind of annoying, not to mention that the general discussion is somewhat disinteresting. It seems the earlier books all struggled.
While the albums picked by the 33 1/3 series are largely unimpeachable, the books are far less consistent. The attempts to blow open the scope of rock criticism read like livejournal entries, while the technical accounts reduce excellent music to a laundry list of dates, session men, and technical specifications. Matos manages to split the difference by capturing, more than just the feeling of listening to the album, but of anticipiating it in the late 80s, of living in suburban Minneapolis and...more
Very poor.
Decent account of the making of the album, Prince's career to that point, and a track-by-track analysis of the album too. Very interesting to have full track listings for the 'Camille' albums as well
I felt that this was poorly written. Which became annoying. Thankfully it was short. There's some good information within though.
Much like other reviews of this book, I thought it was too personal, too little about the album. But I learned things!
Heavy on the fanboyitude & not so heavy on, oh, actual research.
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