For more than thirty years Prince has cut a singular path through the heart of popular music. Right from the beginning, he insisted on producing his own albums, directing his own music videos, and continuing to live in his hometown of Minneapolis.

After making some of the most inventive albums of the 1980s — including 1999, Purple Rain, and Sign O' the Times — he turned his attention to redefining his role in the music industry, changed his name to an unpronounceable symbol, declared war on his record label, and became the first artist to release an album online, helping to lead the Internet revolution.

As those moves drew headlines, Prince continued to evolve as a songwriter and musician and continued to push musical boundaries. Now, more than three decades into a career that has become synonymous with innovation and controversy, Prince remains as vital and unpredictable as ever. In 2010, announcing that the Internet was "over," he released his latest album, 20Ten, as a free cover-mounted CD with several European publications and launched his Welcome 2 America concert tour, including a slate of twenty-one shows in Los Angeles beginning in April 2011.

Prince: Chaos, Disorder, and Revolution ($19.99, Backbeat Books) is an authoritative chronicle of one of music's true mavericks. Covering every album, every movie, and every tour, it includes profiles of key collaborators, assesses the artist's business dealings, and details his many and varied side projects — on stage, on record, on screen, and beyond.

About the author: Jason Draper is the author of Led Zeppelin: Revealed and A Brief History of Album Covers. He is reviews editor of Record Collector magazine and a regular contributor to New Musical Express, Uncut, Metal Hammer, and Dance Today.