The Beautiful Ones

By: Prince

Narrated by: Esperanza Spalding, Adepero Oduye, Dan Piepenbring

Length: 3 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

The brilliant coming-of-age-and-into-superstardom story of one of the greatest artists of all time, in his own words - featuring the exquisite memoir he began writing before his tragic death.

Prince was a musical genius, one of the most beloved, accomplished, and acclaimed musicians of our time. He was a startlingly original visionary with an imagination deep enough to whip up whole worlds, from the sexy, gritty funk paradise of "Uptown" to the mythical landscape of Purple Rain to the psychedelia of "Paisley Park". But his most ambitious creative act was turning Prince Rogers Nelson, born in Minnesota, into Prince, one of the greatest pop stars of any era.

The Beautiful Ones is the story of how Prince became Prince - a first-person account of a kid absorbing the world around him and then creating a persona, an artistic vision, and a life, before the hits and fame that would come to define him. The audiobook is told in four parts. The first is the memoir Prince was writing before his tragic death, bringing us into his childhood world through his own lyrical prose. The second part takes us through Prince’s early years as a musician, before his first album was released, via an evocative scrapbook of writing. The third section shows us Prince’s evolution, going up to the cusp of his greatest achievement, which we see in the audiobook’s fourth section: his original treatment for Purple Rain - the final stage in Prince’s self-creation, where he retells the autobiography of the first three parts as a heroic journey.

The audiobook is framed by editor Dan Piepenbring’s riveting and moving introduction about his profound collaboration with Prince in his final months - a time when Prince was thinking deeply about how to reveal more of himself and his ideas to the world, while retaining the mystery and mystique he’d so carefully cultivated.

This work is not just a tribute to an icon, but an original and energizing literary work in its own right, full of Prince’s ideas and vision, his voice and image - his undying gift to the world.

Includes a bonus PDF featuring never-before-seen photos and original scrapbooks and lyric sheets.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2019 Prince (P)2019 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Prince fanatic or if your interest is simply piqued by all things music or pop culture: The book is worth picking up.... The Beautiful Ones is not a read, but an experience, an immersion inside the mind of a musical genius. You are steeped in Prince’s images, his words, his essence.... The way the book is structured simply makes one want to read it again, to leaf through the pages and be immersed in Prince’s world.... The book can be a starting point for a Prince fascination, or a continuation of long-standing admiration. Either way, it will deepen the connection of any reader with the musical icon." (USA Today)

"Everything Piepenbring shares about being a fan chosen to work with one of his idols resonates.... [He] doesn't just want to write this memoir with Prince, he wants to do it right.... This means we get a memoir that is written by Prince, literally. Handwritten pages he had shared with Piepenbring make up Part 1, taking us from his first memory - his mother’s eyes - through the early days of his career.... We also get a memoir that is carefully curated by Piepenbring, who writes that he was able to go through Paisley Park, room-by-room, sorting through Prince’s life.... The Beautiful Ones doesn't paint a perfect picture.... It’s not definitive. It can’t be. It shouldn’t be and, thankfully, it doesn’t try to be.... It’s up to us to take what’s there and make something out of it for ourselves, creating, just as Prince wanted." (NPR)

"[The Beautiful Ones] delivers much, much more than we had any reason to expect.... Prince took the project very seriously, and it shows in the work he delivered.... It shines an intimate and revealing light on the least-known period of his life - his childhood - which is embellished with family photos, notes and other ephemera. The book does not scrimp on detail: Prince’s handwritten manuscript, rendered in his famously precise cursive script...is reproduced in full.... The initial segment of that closing section is one of the most fascinating parts of the book: a reproduction of a photo album, with captions by a presumably young Prince, containing a couple dozen pictures from his trip to California to record his debut album, ranging from shots of him in the studio to candids of him and his friends.... The Beautiful Ones brings so much new information to light that it’s hard to imagine anyone being disappointed." (Variety)

Brilliantly Beautiful

I wish this story was complete. Prince died before he was able to finish his story.

Good but too short

May be better to get the hard copy. Nice to hear his voice though.

Too short

But so was his life. What he was able to write before he died was absolutely beautiful. I highly recommend if you're a prince fan. If you aren't a fan, you'll probably be disappointed.
OMG get the physical book instead or in addition.... Worth it!!

In His Own Words

I finally had a chance to listen to the Beautiful Ones. Listening to Dan made me happy and sad. Happy because it gave a glimpse of Prince's thought process for this book and in the days before his death. Sad because it also demonstrates how much he wanted to live and felt renewed by this project. The production related to his own words was a little disjointed but I was fascinated to hear is evolution. I like and recommend this book.

Prince fans will like. Others probably not.

It’s hard to evaluate a book that really was in its nascent stages. I’m glad the material was released, but it’s a long way from a completed work. I love Prince, so it was cool to hear his words and thoughts. Just so sad he passed. I still tear up whenever I hear Purple Rain.

Inside the Creative Genius Mind

This is an eye opening and inspiring book to me because the story is compelling to those of us who struggle with the purity of telling our own story and feeling value of it for others to engross themselves into it. Don't be afraid...simply create and move forward!

The 1

I was kinda thrown of by the female voice 4 the Prince part but then all of a sudden I got it. Our voices should merge 2gether.... another black out. 💜 👁 Wink Time to write my own book. Well done Thank you. ☝️🎼🎵🎶

Did a Fantastic job of Editing and quotes 💜

Dan did an incredible job with what He had to work with, May Our Lord continue to rest Prince soul, He is very well missed 🙏

A rare look behind the curtain of Prince

Love hearing Prince’s original vision of the Purple Rain movie. Worth a listen for an Prince fan.

Good read

Missing your presence here on Earth, love U until the end of time and beyond