Review by Frank Plowright

Over his career Prince was an inspiration to so many people in so many ways, but one wonders how many were inspired to become musicians themselves. That’s the starting point for Theresa Booker, fascinated by her father’s guitar from a young age, and seeing Prince in 1981 is like a neon signpost. A year later she’s put her own band together.

Starchild is a fictional creation, but as written by Joseph P. Illidge and Hannibal Tabu they’re slotted neatly into the Minneapolis scene of the 1980s. Period references like Jam and Lewis, Lipps Inc. and Twin/Tone Records are dropped as Theresa puts her band together and starts the path to stardom. Alexander O’Neal is the best for referring to himself in the third person. Meredith Landon supplies the period art attractively, and a strength is gig illustrations showing both band and audience having a good time. Her designs for individual members of a cross-cultural band resonate and feed into the poses on the effective spreads.

For all that, though, MPLS Sound is such an obvious story never once departing from a predictable path. One wants to see talent, work and persistence pay off, but for dramatic purposes there needs to be some hardship, tragedy and conflict, and the little supplied is of no consequence. Theresa is also inspired by her father dying early, has issues with the band being moulded and a prank at a gig could be musically disastrous. It’s all ordinary.

The only element of originality raises its head in the reasons for Starchild splitting up, revealed in an interview section years after the event. There’s the basis of something interesting, but it never sparks into life, and the feeling left is that while this makes a good calling card for Landon, she’d have better spent her time on something else.