Time Prince An Artists Life 1958 2016

In a career that spanned nearly four decades, Prince captivated generations of audiences with not only his talent for songwriting and lyricism but his outré style and electrifying performances. His albums—a category-defying blend of rock, R&B, soul, funk, jazz, hip-hop, disco and pop—have inspired countless artists and influenced the sound and trajectory of music for years to come. His hits have been the soundtrack for so many touchpoints across the lives of millions of fans, including “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” “Kiss,” “Little Red Corvette,” “Let’s Go Crazy,” “Raspberry Beret,” “1999” and the landmark song “Purple Rain,” from the soundtrack of his semi-autobiographical movie. Now, in a tribute to the late Grammy- and Oscar-winning legend, TIME presents a lavishly illustrated special edition tracing Prince’s life story and career. This commemorative edition combines classic and rarely seen photographs and text from the Time Inc. archives, as well as the story behind the movie Purple Rain; a look inside Prince’s famed home and studio, Paisley Park; his unprecedented approach to the “business of Prince”; exclusive tributes from Sheila E., Seal and Lenny Kravitz; and a rundown of 25 essential Prince songs plus a handful of lesser-known gems. Comprehensive and visually compelling, Prince: An Artist’s Life honors the life, legend and musical legacy of a creative icon and performer.

In a career that spanned nearly four decades, Prince captivated generations of audiences with not only his talent for songwriting and lyricism but his outré style and electrifying performances. His albums-a category-defying blend of rock, R&B, soul, funk, jazz, hip-hop, disco and pop-have inspired countless artists and influenced the sound and trajectory of music for years to come. His hits have been the soundtrack for so many touchpoints across the lives of millions of fans, including "I Wanna Be Your Lover," "Kiss," "Little Red Corvette," "Let's Go Crazy," "Raspberry Beret," "1999" and the landmark song "Purple Rain," from the soundtrack of his semi-autobiographical movie.Now, in a tribute to the late Grammy- and Oscar-winning legend, TIME presents a lavishly illustrated special edition tracing Prince's life story and career. This commemorative edition combines classic and rarely seen photographs and text from the Time Inc. archives, as well as the story behind the movie Purple Rain; a look inside Prince's famed home and studio, Paisley Park; his unprecedented approach to the "business of Prince"; exclusive tributes from Sheila E., Seal and Lenny Kravitz; and a rundown of 25 essential Prince songs plus a handful of lesser-known gems.Comprehensive and visually compelling, Prince: An Artist's Life honors the life, legend and musical legacy of a creative icon and performer.

A warm and surprisingly real-life biography, featuring never-before-seen photos, of one of rock’s greatest talents: Prince. Neal Karlen was the only journalist Prince granted in-depth press interviews to for over a dozen years, from before Purple Rain to when the artist changed his name to an unpronounceable glyph. Karlen interviewed Prince for three Rolling Stone cover stories, wrote “3 Chains o’ Gold,” Prince’s “rock video opera,” as well as the star’s last testament, which may be buried with Prince’s will underneath Prince’s vast and private compound, Paisley Park. According to Prince's former fiancée Susannah Melvoin, Karlen was “the only reporter who made Prince sound like what he really sounded like.” Karlen quit writing about Prince a quarter-century before the mega-star died, but he never quit Prince, and the two remained friends for the last thirty-one years of the superstar’s life. Well before they met as writer and subject, Prince and Karlen knew each other as two of the gang of kids who biked around Minneapolis’s mostly-segregated Northside. (They played basketball at the Dairy Queen next door to Karlen’s grandparents, two blocks from the budding musician.) He asserts that Prince can’t be understood without first understanding ‘70s Minneapolis, and that even Prince’s best friends knew only 15 percent of him: that was all he was willing and able to give, no matter how much he cared for them. Going back to Prince Rogers Nelson's roots, especially his contradictory, often tortured, and sometimes violent relationship with his father, This Thing Called Life profoundly changes what we know about Prince, and explains him as no biography has: a superstar who calls in the middle of the night to talk, who loved The Wire and could quote from every episode of The Office, who frequented libraries and jammed spontaneously for local crowds (and fed everyone pancakes afterward), who was lonely but craved being alone. Readers will drive around Minneapolis with Prince in a convertible, talk about movies and music and life, and watch as he tries not to curse, instead dishing a healthy dose of “mamma jammas.”

Prince Rogers Nelson wrote his first song at age seven, and soon taught himself to play the piano, drums, and guitar. In the early 1980s, Prince wondered how to make his music—a mix of pop, funk, soul, and R&B—more appealing to an audience that loved more mainstream rock shows. He ended up making Purple Rain, the hit movie and soundtrack that turned him into a megastar. Experimenting with style, genre, and society's expectations of him as an African-American performer, Prince defied labels. Follow Prince's journey to superstardom, and learn how this wildly talented, prolific, and often-controversial performer touched the hearts of fans around the world.

The editors of PEOPLE Magazine present Prince for PEOPLE Prince.

Fallen giants, taken too soon. Unexpected deaths are not entirely unexpected-they surround us every day. What shocks us is "the who," the how, and the why of them, especially when it comes to celebrities. Whether they fought for our rights or spoke to us through song, moved us on screen, stage, or provided leadership for our country, they gave us a window into their hearts and minds, and their loss unites friends and strangers in an outpouring of sadness. Deaths That Shocked the World, the new Special Edition from TIME-LIFE, tells the stories of how we lost some of our most beloved icons to accidents, drugs, murder, and political assassination. And regardless of how they died, it is agreed that they all went too soon. Princess Diana and James Dean, John Lennon and Prince, Kurt Cobain and Robin Williams, Martin Luther King and both John F. Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr., are among the many featured in this Special Edition that profiles the impact their lives and deaths had on our world.

At the one-year anniversary of his death, legendary musician Prince's first wife shares a uniquely intimate, candid, and revelatory look inside the personal and professional life of one of the world's most beloved icons. In The Most Beautiful, a title inspired by the hit song Prince wrote about their legendary love story, Mayte Garcia for the first time shares the deeply personal story of their relationship and offers a singular perspective on the music icon and their world together: from their unconventional meeting backstage at a concert (and the long-distance romance that followed), to their fairy-tale wedding (and their groundbreaking artistic partnership), to the devastating losses that ultimately dissolved their romantic relationship for good. Throughout it all, they shared a bond more intimate than any other in Prince's life. No one else can tell this story or can provide a deeper, more nuanced portrait of Prince -- both the famously private man and the pioneering, beloved artist -- than Mayte, his partner during some of the most pivotal personal and professional years of his career. The Most Beautiful is a book that will be returned to for decades, as Prince's music lives on with generations to come.

In Take a Sad Song: The Emotional Currency of "Hey Jude," James Campion dives deeply into the song's origins, recording, visual presentation, impact, and eventual influence, while also discovering what makes "Hey Jude" a classic musical expression of personal comfort and societal unity conceived by a master songwriter, Paul McCartney. Within its melodic brilliance and lyrical touchstones of empathy and nostalgia resides McCartney's personal and professional relationship with his childhood friend and songwriting partner, John Lennon, and their simultaneous pursuit of the women who would complete them. There are also clues to the growing turmoil within the Beatles and their splintering generation scarred by war, assassination, and virulent protest. Campion's journey into the song includes the insights of academic experts and professors in the field of musicology, sociology, philosophy, psychology, and history. Campion also reveals commentary from noted Beatles authors, biographers, music historians, and journalists and, finally, a peek into the craft of songwriting from a host of talented composers across several generations. Take a Sad Song is a tribute to how a song can define, inspire, and affect us in ways we do not always fully comprehend, as well as a celebration of a truly amazing track in the Beatles canon that reveals one band's genius and underscores its lasting voice in our cultural and musical landscape.

An expansive and insightful exploration of one of the most iconic and electrifying artists ever, this book reveals the stunning, multi-generational influence and appeal of Prince and his revered music—from celebrated journalist, author, and host of the popular podcast The Touré Show. Infused with Touré’s unique pop-culture fluency, I Would Die 4 U is as passionate and radical as its subject matter. Building on his lifelong admiration for Prince’s oeuvre and interviews with those closest to the late artist, including band members, his tour manager, and music and Bible scholars, Touré deconstructs the life and work of the enigmatic icon who has been both a reflective mirror of and inspirational force for America. By defying traditional categories of race, gender, and sexuality, but also presenting a very conventional conception of religion and God, Prince was a man of profound contradictions. He spoke in the language of 60s pop and soul to a generation fearing Cold War apocalypse and the crack and AIDS epidemic, while simultaneously being both an MTV megastar and a religious evangelist. He creatively blended his songs with images of sex and profanity to invite us into a musical conversation about the healing power of God and religion. By demystifying Prince as a man, an artist, and a cultural force, I Would Die 4 U shows us how he impacted and defined a generation.