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trevoryan's review against another edition
3.0
This the third title I've read in this series. Not my favorite, but still an interesting read. This album has some of my favorite Prince songs ever (Sign O' The Times, It, Starfish and Coffee, If I Was Your Girlfriend, I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man), and it was great to learn more about them.
I do think the author should have focused just on this album. That's the whole idea of the 33 1/3 series. One book about one album. He spends far too much of the book giving us a mini-bio of Prince. We can get that in a proper Prince bio. This book is called "Sign O' The Times". He should've stuck to just writing about the album.
I do think the author should have focused just on this album. That's the whole idea of the 33 1/3 series. One book about one album. He spends far too much of the book giving us a mini-bio of Prince. We can get that in a proper Prince bio. This book is called "Sign O' The Times". He should've stuck to just writing about the album.
gengelcox's review
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
This is the first of the 33 1/3 series where I knew the album fairly well before listening to it for the book. While a latecomer to Prince—I don’t think I bought one of his albums until the Purple Rain movie—I did listen to most of his catalog and owned a number of the albums including 1999, Around the World in a Day, and this one, Sign ‘O’ the Times. However, for me, Prince was more of a singles artist and I rarely sat down to listen to a whole album, finding them mostly uneven. Individual songs, though, were so good that even today I find myself quoting some of them like “1999,” “Let’s Go Crazy,” and the title track of this album.
Michaelangelo does a nice job of bringing Prince, who achieved a form of sainthood in Minneapolis, down to Earth by showing what it meant to have a hometown boy make it good through his own experience growing up on welfare and knowing friends of friends of Prince’s. He also covers the album very well, showing where it emerged from, how every Prince song is ultimately about sex, but also how his upbringing, his musical knowledge and skills, and his religion infuses every song as well.
While reading this, I was also watching Mark Ronson’s AppleTV series about drum programming. Prince was a master of making great beats, but I strongly believe part of that was because he could do so on a drum kit as well as through a computer. Just listen to songs like “Sign ‘O’ the Times” and “When Doves Cry” and focus on the drums. Although Prince was a genius guitar player, he wasn’t a half-bad drummer, either.
heykstan's review against another edition
2.0
Usually these books are either 1) about how the album was made and the context it was made in or 2) a personal narrative about the author's relationship to the album. This one tried to do both but didn't do enough of either.
bosstoes2's review against another edition
5.0
The references come at you at 100 mph but its sooo much fun!
scottneumann's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
4.5
missnicelady's review
2.0
Meh. I didn't hate it as much as some of the reviewers here did, but I also didn't get that much out of it.
Also, I was made irrationally angry by an editing error early on in this book ("Raspberry Parade," Bloomsbury? REALLY??? This book came out in 2004 -- you've had plenty of time to fix that in subsequent printings. For crying out loud.)
Also, I was made irrationally angry by an editing error early on in this book ("Raspberry Parade," Bloomsbury? REALLY??? This book came out in 2004 -- you've had plenty of time to fix that in subsequent printings. For crying out loud.)
jennybento's review
2.0
Much like other reviews of this book, I thought it was too personal, too little about the album. But I learned things!
invertible_hulk's review
3.0
Less a study of one of the best albums in Prince's prolific career, and more a brief history of the man himself -- or at least, up until the release of Sign.
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