After three years of development, I am absolutely delighted to announce the publication of Prince and Popular Music. The book emerged from the world’s first conference on the life and legacy of Prince which myself and Professor Mike Alleyne organised at the University of Salford.
In this text, we provide an academic examination of Prince, encompassing the many layers of his cultural and creative impact. We assess Prince’s life and legacy holistically, exploring his multiple identities and the ways in which they were manifested through his recorded catalogue and audiovisual personae. In the seventeen essays organised thematically, we include a diverse range of contributions – taking ethnographic, musicological, sociological, gender studies and cultural studies approaches to analysing Prince’s career.
Table of contents:
Part One Sound and Vision
- Baby, I’m a Star: Prince’s Purple Rain
Jason Wood, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK - Under the Cherry Moon: Prince as His Most Authentic Self
De Angela L. Duff, New York University, USA - Before the Rain, 1980-1984: How Prince Got ‘The Look’
Casci Ritchie, Independent Scholar, UK - Prettyman in the Mirror: Dandyism in Prince’s Minneapolis
Karen Turman, Harvard University, USA - The Sound of Purple: Prince and the Development of Minneapolis Sound
Maciej Smólka, Jagiellonian University, Poland
Part Two Purple Performance and Presence - Glam Slammed: Visual Identity in Prince’s Lovesexy
Mike Alleyne, Middle Tennessee State University, USA, and Kirsty Fairclough, University of Salford, UK - For You: The Neglected Guitar Style of Prince
Michael Ugrich, University of South Dakota, USA - To Make Purple, You Need Blue: Prince as Embodiment of the Postmodern Blues Aesthetic
Tom Attah, Leeds Arts University, UK - ‘Tears Go Here’: Commemorating the Minneapolis Prince and the International Prince
Suzanne Wint, Independent Scholar, USA
Part Three Gender - Re-Imagining Masculinity: Prince’s Impact on Millennial Attitudes Regarding Gender Expression
Natalie Clifford, Independent Scholar, USA - ‘We Can’t Hate You, Because We Love You’: A Look at Prince, Queerness, Misogyny and Feminism
Leah Stone McDaniel, Independent Scholar, USA, and Shannan Wilson, Virginia Union University, USA - “Flying Aboard the Seduction 747”: Prince, Humour and Horizontal Erotics
Annie Potts, University of Canterbury, New Zealand - When Were You Mine?: Prince’s Legacy in the Context of Transgender History
Joy Ellison, Ohio State University, USA
Part Four Politics and Race - Prince: Introduction of a New Breed Leader
Kamilah Cummings, DePaul University, USA - ‘Microchip in Your Neck’: Prince’s ‘War’
Zack Stiegler, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA - Prince: Conscious and Strategic Representations of Race
Twila L. Perry, Rutgers University School of Law, USA - It’s All About What’s in Your Mind: The Origins of Prince’s Political Consciousness
Crystal N. Wise, University of Michigan, USA
Thank you to all of our wonderful contributors for your work in keeping Prince’s legacy alive and introducing him to a new generation.
We are grateful to have have had some wonderful reviews for the book so far.
“Prince and Popular Music interrogates how each changed the other, offering a spectrum of approaches to an iconographic and enigmatic presence who graced any number of vibrant culture scenes with 40 years of innovation and invention. The contributors to this book got the music, and they got the look.” – Benjamin Halligan, Director of the Doctoral College, University of Wolverhampton, UK
“In a detailed examination of one of the most important and eclectic popular artists of all time, Alleyne and Fairclough curate a wide range of perspectives which detail music, aesthetics, representation and politics. This impressively comprehensive study is essential to any study of Prince but is also an important contribution to musicology, celebrity studies, American studies, issues of identity, gender, race and more. The significance of Prince is reflected in the significance of this book.” – Robert Edgar, Associate Professor of Creative Writing, York St John University, UK, and co-editor of Music, Memory and Memoir (Bloomsbury, 2019)
“This collection from the first-ever Prince symposium offers a compelling look into a wealth of interdisciplinary research inspired by and devoted to a pop artist of rare depth and complexity. The diversity of scholarship herein is a fitting tribute to Prince’s opulent creativity and unbound persona.” – Albin Zak, Professor of Music, University at Albany, USA
More information can be found here: https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/prince-and-popular-music-9781501354656/
Dr Kirsty Fairclough 