Matt Thorne – författare

'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 who wants to bring them down from their throne, knows how they feel and how to get into their heads. Someone who wants to invite them onto their TV show, act with them in a movie, make some money by filming a commercial together, duet on a song, or have a secret affair. Or any combination of the above.Famous examines seven moments in music when stars from pop, rock and hip-hop have come together and how the resulting reverberations impacted everything from the culture at large to the decisions of world leaders. The book sheds thrilling new light on the fascinating stories of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, Paul McCartney and Diana Ross, Lou Reed and Paul Simon, Chuck Berry and Keith Richards, David Bowie and Tina Turner, Madonna and Tupac Shakur and Ye and Taylor Swift.

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, and R'n'B in particular, has never been more evident. The Minneapolis Sound can now be heard everywhere. Matt Thorne's Prince, through years of research and interviews with ex-Revolution members such as Wendy and Lisa, is an account of a pop maverick whose experiments with rock, funk, techno and jazz revolutionised pop. With reference to every song, released and unreleased, over 35 years of recording, Prince will stand for years to come as the go-to book on the Great Man.

Prince unravels the mysteries behind the life of a true musical genius. Through years of research and interviews with ex-Revolution members such as Wendy and Lisa, this is an account of a pop maverick whose experiments with rock, funk, techno and jazz revolutionised pop. With reference to 35 years of released and unreleased recordings, Prince remains the go-to book on the great man.

'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 who wants to bring them down from their throne, knows how they feel and how to get into their heads. Someone who wants to invite them onto their TV show, act with them in a movie, make some money by filming a commercial together, duet on a song, or have a secret affair. Or any combination of the above.Famous examines seven moments in music when stars from pop, rock and hip-hop have come together and how the resulting reverberations impacted everything from the culture at large to the decisions of world leaders. The book sheds thrilling new light on the fascinating stories of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, Paul McCartney and Diana Ross, Lou Reed and Paul Simon, Chuck Berry and Keith Richards, David Bowie and Tina Turner, Madonna and Tupac Shakur and Ye and Taylor Swift.

The newest, most updated book on Prince available today—now updated with information about the afterlife of his work following his untimely death.Famously reticent and perennially controversial, Prince was one of the few music superstars who remained, largely, an enigma—even up to his premature death on April 21, 2016. A fixture of the pop canon, Prince is widely held to be the greatest musician of his generation and will undoubtedly remain an inspiring and singular influence throughout our culture.This revised and updated second edition of this meticulously researched biography is the most comprehensive work on Prince yet published. Unlike other Prince books, this one eschews speculation into the artist's highly guarded private life and instead focuses deep and sustained attention exactly where it should be: on his work. Acclaimed British novelist and critic Matt Thorne draws on years of research and dozens of interviews with Prince's intimate associates (many of whom have never spoken on record before) to examine every phase of the musician's 35-year career, including nearly every song—released and unreleased—that Prince has recorded. Originally released in the UK in 2012, this revised and updated second US edition of Prince includes updated content regarding work released and made available after the artist’s death..This astonishingly rich, almost encyclopedic biography is a must-have for any serious fan of Prince.

‘All Hail, the New Puritans’ is the collection of new stories from the most exciting young novelists today. Inspired by the Dogme 95 group of film makers, the New Puritans are attempting to rediscover fiction as a discipline rather than a category.1. Primarily storytellers, we are dedicated to the narrative form.2. We are prose writers and recognise that prose is the dominant form of expression.For this reason we shun poetry and poetic licence in all its forms.3. While acknowledging the value of genre fiction, whether classical or modern, we will always move towards new openings, rupturing existing genre expectations.4. We believe in textual simplicity and vow to avoid all devices of voice: rhetoric, authorial asides.5. In the name of clarity, we recognise the importance of temporal linearity and eschew flashbacks, dual temporal narratives and foreshadowing.6. We believe in grammatical purity and avoid any elaborate punctuation.7. We recognise that published works are also historical documents. As fragments of our time, all our texts are dated and set in the present day. All products, places, artists and objects named are real.8. As faithful representation of the present, our texts will avoid all improbable or unknowable speculations on the past or the future.9. We are moralists, so all text feature a recognisable ethical reality.10. Nevertheless, our aim is integrity of expression, above and beyond any commitment to form.