Legendarily reticent, perverse and misleading, Prince is one of the few remaining 80s superstars who still, perhaps, remains unexplained. Now a firm fixture in the pop canon, where such classics as 'Purple Rain', 'Sign o' the Times' and 'Parade' regularly feature in Best Ever Album polls, Prince is still, as he ever was, an enigma. His live performances are legendary (21 Nights at the O2 in 2007) and while recent releases have been modestly successful at best, his influence on urban music,...

'Entertaining and insightful . . . Thorne's prose is a pleasure to read' ★★★★ MOJO'A juicy account of great rivalries' OBSERVER'Eccentric, passionate . . . and always engrossing' THE TIMESWhen an artist becomes truly famous, there is almost no one on earth who can understand how their world has changed forever. Perhaps only a young pretender who wants to rule the charts together, or a rival ...

Listen to the end for an audiobook exclusive: Brett Anderson in conversation with Matt Thorne, author of Prince.Brett Anderson came from a world impossibly distant from rock star success, and in Coal Black Mornings he traces the journey that took him from a childhood as 'a snotty, sniffy, slightly maudlin sort of boy raised on Salad Cream and milky tea and cheap meat' to becoming founder and lead singer of Suede.Anderson grew up in Hayward...

'A compelling personal account of the dramas of a singular British band' Neil TennantThe trajectory of Suede - hailed in infancy as both 'The Best New Band in Britain' and 'effete southern wankers' - is recalled with moving candour by its frontman Brett Anderson, whose vivid memoir swings seamlessly between the tender, witty, turbulent, euphoric and bittersweet.Suede began by treading the familiar jobbing route of London's emerging new 1990s indie bands - g...

An extraordinary novel about the ubiquitous mysteries of family, memory and music.London, 2010: Icelandic volcanoes have the city in gridlock, banks topple like dominoes and Brandon Kussgarten has been shot dead by gunmen in Donald Duck masks. His death draws his twin brother — shy, bookish Adam — into Brandon's underworld of deceit and desire.A miniature kingdom sprouts in a Notting Hill tower-block, LA mansions burn in week-long parties, and in a Baroque hotel suite a rec...

Prince Rogers Nelson released his first album in 1978. In the almost 40 years that followed he became a superstar, a recluse, an inspiration, an enigma, a slave and a symbol. He was a master of reinvention, but the one constant in his astonishing career was his genius: as a singer, a songwriter, a performer and musician. He sold more than 100 million albums, won Grammys and an Oscar. His ability to fuse styles and genres made him one of the most unique, influential and beloved artists in m...

Alan Light, former writer for Rolling Stone, editor-in-chief of Vibe and Spin magazines, and author of The Holy or the Broken, “gets inside Prince’s mind palace in Let’s Go Crazy—a history of the making of his historic, semi-autobiographical musical masterwork, Purple Rain” (Vanity Fair).Purple Rain is a song, an album, and a film—widely considered to be among the most important albums in music...

A New York Times bestseller, Music Is History combines multi-Grammy Award winner Questlove’s deep musical expertise with his curiosity about history, examining America over the past fifty years.Focusing on the years 1971 to the present, Questlove finds the hidden connections in the American tapestry, whether investigating how the blaxploitation era reshaped Black identity or considering the way disco took an assembly line approach...

***Winner of the Oregon Book Award for General Nonfiction and Los Angeles Times bestseller"It makes good music sound better."-Janet Maslin in The New York Times***"A fascinating look into the West Coast recording studio scene of the '60s and the inside story of the music you heard on the radio. If you always assumed the musicians you listened to were the same people you saw onstage, you are in for a big surprise!"-Dusty Street, host of Classic Vinyl on Sirius XM Sa...

Acclaimed music writer Robert Hilburn’s “epic” and “definitive” (Rolling Stone) biography of music icon Paul Simon, written with Simon’s full participation—but without his editorial control—that “reminds us how titanic this musician is” (The Washington Post).For more than fifty years, Paul Simon has spoken to us in songs about alienation, doubt, resilience, and empathy in ways that have established him as one of the most beloved artists in America...

From a legendary music journalist with four decades of unprecedented access, an insider's behind-the-scenes look at the major personalities of rock and roll.Lisa Robinson has interviewed the biggest names in music--including Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, John Lennon, Patti Smith, U2, Eminem, Lady Gaga, Jay Z and Kanye West. She visited the teenage Michael Jackson many times at his Encino home. She spent hours talking to John Lennon at his Dakota apartment--and ...

"Hoskyns brings a genuine love as well as an outsider's keen eye to the rise and fall of the California scene. . . . This is a riveting story, sensitively told."—Anthony DeCurtis, Contributing Editor, Rolling StoneFrom enduring musical achievements to drug-fueled chaos and bed-hopping antics, the L.A. pop music scene in the sixties and seventies was like no other, and journalist Barney Hoskyns re-creates all the excitement and mayhem. Hotel Cali...