Prince is certainly influenced by the Beatles to some degree, he has played their songs.

But to say that using a studio means he is hugely influenced by them because they were innovative in the studio is a bit of a stretch.

Shakespeare is influential to the English language as a whole, but not directly influential to everyone who speaks it because millions of people have never read Shakespeare.

Militant said:

That is a moronic point to make.

You might as well say - dubstep uses drum machines. Therefore Prince is a major influence on dubstep because he was one of the first popular artist to use drum machines.

If Dylan and McCartney hadn't have done those things, someone else would have. At the same time. In fact, there were likely people doing those things before Dylan and McCartney. They were just the most famous people at that time.

You are obviously young and not musically educated.

a.) Prince was not the first to use a drum-machine. No where near. He also didn't INVENT the drum machine, like Dylan invented the modern singer-songwriter and McCartney invented a new approach to bass. Actually, the first use of an automated rhythm track being recorded in pop music... hmmmm... oh yeah, The Beatles again in 1968. (There may be earlier instances that someone more knowledgable in music than you could quote.)

b.) "If Dylan and McCartney hadn't have done those things, someone else would have." Prove it. You take it for granted what huge innovations these were. The fact that remains that it wasn't "someone else," who made these contributions. It was The Beatles and Dylan. If it were "someone else," then that "someone else" would be the one influencing all that followed.

c.) "In fact, there were likely people doing those things before Dylan and McCartney." If you listened to or had any understanding of any music prior to 1976 or so, perhaps you could cite YOUR sources.

Imaginative said:

Militant said:

That is a moronic point to make.

You might as well say - dubstep uses drum machines. Therefore Prince is a major influence on dubstep because he was one of the first popular artist to use drum machines.

If Dylan and McCartney hadn't have done those things, someone else would have. At the same time. In fact, there were likely people doing those things before Dylan and McCartney. They were just the most famous people at that time.

You are obviously young and not musically educated.

a.) Prince was not the first to use a drum-machine. No where near. He also didn't INVENT the drum machine, like Dylan invented the modern singer-songwriter and McCartney invented a new approach to bass. Actually, the first use of an automated rhythm track being recorded in pop music... hmmmm... oh yeah, The Beatles again in 1968. (There may be earlier instances that someone more knowledgable in music than you could quote.)

b.) "If Dylan and McCartney hadn't have done those things, someone else would have." Prove it. You take it for granted what huge innovations these were. The fact that remains that it wasn't "someone else," who made these contributions. It was The Beatles and Dylan. If it were "someone else," then that "someone else" would be the one influencing all that followed.

c.) "In fact, there were likely people doing those things before Dylan and McCartney." If you listened to or had any understanding of any music prior to 1976 or so, perhaps you could cite YOUR sources.

First off I am a huge fan of Beatles & Dylan, so I recognize their contributions, but don't you think there are other examples of singer/songwriters before the 60's such as Robert Johnson (or a slew of blues artists), Chuck Berry, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Ray Charles...

Surely the first inversion chord was used in classical music hundreds of years before McCartney did it on electric bass? It's a pretty basic (no pun intended) idea.

I know styles change, but did Dylan & McCartney really invent anything, or did they just do what they did really really well? Even they were influenced by people, and there was other music in the 60's like Motown, and they were all influencing each other. It's a big melting pot. the Beatles were a huge piece of cheese in the pot, no doubt, but not the only cheese.

[Edited 6/13/11 16:22pm]

Imaginative said:

langebleu said:

I'm not suggesting he hasn't been influenced by other people's work including the Beatles and I'm well versed in knowing where people might draw their own conslusions about influences on his work. However, the poster said Prince hasn't hesitated to cite the contribitions that McCartney or Bob Dylan have made to his music. I'm asking for where prince has cited their contributions.

He also plays Beatles and Dylan in his live sets often.

No he doesn't.

Imaginative said:

Militant said:

That is a moronic point to make.

You might as well say - dubstep uses drum machines. Therefore Prince is a major influence on dubstep because he was one of the first popular artist to use drum machines.

If Dylan and McCartney hadn't have done those things, someone else would have. At the same time. In fact, there were likely people doing those things before Dylan and McCartney. They were just the most famous people at that time.

You are obviously young and not musically educated.

a.) Prince was not the first to use a drum-machine. No where near. He also didn't INVENT the drum machine, like Dylan invented the modern singer-songwriter and McCartney invented a new approach to bass. Actually, the first use of an automated rhythm track being recorded in pop music... hmmmm... oh yeah, The Beatles again in 1968. (There may be earlier instances that someone more knowledgable in music than you could quote.)

b.) "If Dylan and McCartney hadn't have done those things, someone else would have." Prove it. You take it for granted what huge innovations these were. The fact that remains that it wasn't "someone else," who made these contributions. It was The Beatles and Dylan. If it were "someone else," then that "someone else" would be the one influencing all that followed.

c.) "In fact, there were likely people doing those things before Dylan and McCartney." If you listened to or had any understanding of any music prior to 1976 or so, perhaps you could cite YOUR sources.

You obviously didn't notice him saying it as a joke. He was neither pointing out prince as the first, nor was he pointing him out as the inventor of the drum machine. He was making fun of a statement. However Prince was one of the first great artists to make fantastic hit records based on a mix of drum machine, synth and live instrumentation. 1999s impact on urban music was much greater than Purple Rain, even though Purple Rain sold more. On a whole Purple Rain probably inspired more artists though. It's stated many places that 1999 had a huge impact on electronic music directly and indirectly, just as Beatles had much directly, but even more indirectly influence on modern pop music. Everyone is inspired by somone that is inspired by somone that is inspired by The Beatles. That can be said about any other great musician from the past. You can't escape the past. The past has you already.

NDRU said:

njin said:

Imaginative said:

You are obviously young and not musically educated.

a.) Prince was not the first to use a drum-machine. No where near. He also didn't INVENT the drum machine, like Dylan invented the modern singer-songwriter and McCartney invented a new approach to bass. Actually, the first use of an automated rhythm track being recorded in pop music... hmmmm... oh yeah, The Beatles again in 1968. (There may be earlier instances that someone more knowledgable in music than you could quote.)

b.) "If Dylan and McCartney hadn't have done those things, someone else would have." Prove it. You take it for granted what huge innovations these were. The fact that remains that it wasn't "someone else," who made these contributions. It was The Beatles and Dylan. If it were "someone else," then that "someone else" would be the one influencing all that followed.

c.) "In fact, there were likely people doing those things before Dylan and McCartney." If you listened to or had any understanding of any music prior to 1976 or so, perhaps you could cite YOUR sources.

You obviously didn't notice him saying it as a joke. He was neither pointing out prince as the first, nor was he pointing him out as the inventor of the drum machine. He was making fun of a statement. However Prince was one of the first great artists to make fantastic hit records based on a mix of drum machine, synth and live instrumentation. 1999s impact on urban music was much greater than Purple Rain, even though Purple Rain sold more. On a whole Purple Rain probably inspired more artists though. It's stated many places that 1999 had a huge impact on electronic music directly and indirectly, just as Beatles had much directly, but even more indirectly influence on modern pop music. Everyone is inspired by somone that is inspired by somone that is inspired by The Beatles. That can be said about any other great musician from the past. You can't escape the past. The past has you already.

yeah it's one of those things where it never stops. Who was the first artist to utilize multi-track recording? Who invented multi-track recording? Who first used distorted guitar? Who first used drums? Electric bass? Is Prince just a product of those people?

In that case, Adam is the ultimate musician

langebleu said:

NDRU said:

Shakespeare is influential to the English language as a whole, but not directly influential to everyone who speaks it because millions of people have never read Shakespeare.

Shakespeare didn't alter the English language. If he did, no one would have understood his plays!

He did change the way dramatists approach storytelling forever--his influence is still felt today-- just like The Beatles changed the way songwriters approach their craft.

ignore that, wrong person edit

[Edited 6/13/11 16:44pm]

Imaginative said:

NDRU said:

But to say that using a studio means he is hugely influenced by them because they were innovative in the studio is a bit of a stretch.

That's NOT what I said. The Beatles were not the first to use a recording studio. Specifically, I said they were the first to use technology to alter the sound of their voices. The fact that you imply that it was "no big deal," actually speaks to how pervasive their influence was. The Beatles were the first to really approach "the studio" as more than a place to capture live performance, but to exploit studio technology to create sounds beyond and far outside of their intended use and what can be heard live. This was a revolution in Western Music that cannot be ignored. Their creative needs at the time actually drove music technology, not the other way around. It was a direct result of The Beatles using multi-track machines to overdub, double-track, etc. that gear manufacturers went beyond the 4-tracks that was standard the first time The Beatles entered a recording studio.

NDRU said:

njin said:

You obviously didn't notice him saying it as a joke. He was neither pointing out prince as the first, nor was he pointing him out as the inventor of the drum machine. He was making fun of a statement. However Prince was one of the first great artists to make fantastic hit records based on a mix of drum machine, synth and live instrumentation. 1999s impact on urban music was much greater than Purple Rain, even though Purple Rain sold more. On a whole Purple Rain probably inspired more artists though. It's stated many places that 1999 had a huge impact on electronic music directly and indirectly, just as Beatles had much directly, but even more indirectly influence on modern pop music. Everyone is inspired by somone that is inspired by somone that is inspired by The Beatles. That can be said about any other great musician from the past. You can't escape the past. The past has you already.

yeah it's one of those things where it never stops. Who was the first artist to utilize multi-track recording? Who invented multi-track recording? Who first used distorted guitar? Who first used drums? Electric bass? Is Prince just a product of those people?

In that case, Adam is the ultimate musician

Let me try to answer some of your questions...

Who was the first artist to utilize multi-track recording? If we're talking to creatively over-dub, then it's The Beatles. Before them multi-tracks were used to essentially capture live performances.

Who first used distorted guitar? Yeah, The Beatles in 1964. Sorry.

Who first used drums? Prehistoric man.

Electric bass? Monk Montgomery was the first bass player to tour with the Fender bass guitar, with Lionel Hampton's postwar big band.

Is Prince just a product of those people? In a sense, yes.

[Edited 6/13/11 16:47pm]

Imaginative said:

langebleu said:

No he doesn't.

I heard him play Dylan two out of the three times I saw him at the forum. I have several bootlegs where he covers Beatles.

I'm interested in which Dylan songs you heard him perform, and can you also tell me which bootlegs have him covering The Beatles? I don't recall any, refresh my memory.

What about Les Paul?

Timmy84 said:

What about Les Paul?

NDRU said:

Timmy84 said:

What about Les Paul?

plus Buddy Holly used it to harmonize with himself on recordings

I mean if people are gonna GO BACK, why not?

TheDigitalGardener said:

Imaginative said:

langebleu said: I heard him play Dylan two out of the three times I saw him at the forum. I have several bootlegs where he covers Beatles.

I'm interested in which Dylan songs you heard him perform, and can you also tell me which bootlegs have him covering The Beatles? I don't recall any, refresh my memory.

At the Forum, Make You Feel My Love was performed sevaral times.

He played Come Together at Coachella and Indigo (Chronicles, Volume V), among other times I can't recall.

Guess Who's Knockin'? off of NPG's "GoldNigga" lifts McCartney's melody and lyric to Let 'Em In. (Until he got afraid of being sued by Macca and had the song removed from new pressings.)

[Edited 6/13/11 16:57pm]

^Right, Ta.

TheDigitalGardener said:

^Right, Ta.

distorted guitar in 1958

Imaginative said:

langebleu said:

No he doesn't.

I heard him play Dylan two out of the three times I saw him at the forum. I have several bootlegs where he covers Beatles.

One Dylan song has been performed on and off, where lead vocals have been shared by the female singers, on the recent Welcome 2 America tour. Prior to that, Prince has performed 'All Along The Watchtower' on rare occasions during 2007. Otherwise, he hasn't really gone near Dylan's repertoire in over 30 years of live performances.

Similarly, whilst you might have recordings of him peforming 'The Long and Winding Road' (very rarely) or 'Come Together', from the 2006/7 residencies, he doesn't really touch the Beatles catalogue (give or take the odd performance of Harrison's 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps', for example).

He simply doesn't cover Dylan or Beatles material often.

multitracking in '56

NDRU: Good examples, both.

I was actually thinking intentional use of guitar feedback, re: distorted guitar. I stand corrected.

No, The Beatles were not the first to double-track a vocal. Actually, neither was Holly. But no artist before them approached multi-tracking the way they did prior to 1965 or so.

langebleu said:

Imaginative said:

langebleu said: I heard him play Dylan two out of the three times I saw him at the forum. I have several bootlegs where he covers Beatles.

One Dylan song has been performed on and off, where lead vocals have been shared by the female singers, on the recent Welcome 2 America tour. Prior to that, Prince has performed 'All Along The Watchtower' on rare occasions during 2007. Otherwise, he hasn't really gone near Dylan's repertoire in over 30 years of live performances.

Similarly, whilst you might have recordings of him peforming 'The Long and Winding Road' (very rarely) or 'Come Together', from the 2006/7 residencies, he doesn't really touch the Beatles catalogue (give or take the odd performance of Harrison's 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps', for example).

He simply doesn't cover Dylan or Beatles material often.

That's still ALOT more often than Dylan or McCartney bust out a Prince tune!! I actually think the fact that he's playing a NEWER Dylan song, says a lot about his feelings re: Dylan.

[Edited 6/13/11 17:13pm]

Imaginative said:

NDRU: Good examples, both.

I was actually thinking intentional use of guitar feedback, re: distorted guitar. I stand corrected.

No, The Beatles were not the first to double-track a vocal. Actually, neither was Holly. But no artist before them approached multi-tracking the way they did prior to 1965 or so.

just to get back to the actual thread's title...prince IS a multi instrumentalist...its no myth...he is one of many in the rock and pop world but there are very few on his level as an all round musician...

.

mccartney was given as an example of another big name multi- instrumentalist...now i am as big a beatles fan as you can get...i admire lennon and mccartney's songwriting genius...but to compare paul mccartney as a musician on prince's level is nonsense...listen to the albums that mccartney made on his own and compare them to any of prince's albums that he made almost entirely on his own...

.

mccartney's solo albums SOUND like one guy making a solo recording....prince's solo recordings SOUND like a whole band is playing on them...to me..there is no comparison...and i say this as a huge admirer of mccartneys...

.

now the question of how good a musician prince is surely lies with people who play music at a professional level and with the engineers and other people who work within the music industry..

.

there is no-one in music today who has more respect as a musician and an artist ..from his fellow musicians...than prince...

.

he was recently voted the 7th greatest artist of all time BY his fellow musicians....

.

the engineers who have worked with him on his albums...almost to a man (and woman)...say he is the most naturally gifted player they have ever worked with...

.

these are the people who i take my judgement off when working out how good a musician prince is..

.

i regard him as the best all rounder in music....nobody can hit as many bases as prince does when it comes to writing, producing, arranging, singing, playing, live performance, musical genres...the wee guy is unbelievable...

.

.

[Edited 6/13/11 17:28pm]

[Edited 6/13/11 17:29pm]

[Edited 6/13/11 17:30pm]

Sometimes, I think Prince plays bass better than guitar.

Ok, the ´40 instruments´thing was marketing, but he masters guitar, bass, piano, drums. Master means playing them very well. Different from some other multi instrumentalists, Prince improvises and has a voice on each one (I mean, he is not a ´guitarplayer playing bass´, but he plays bass like a bass player. His phrasing on piano is very different from his guitar phrasing).

But I agree he isnt a master virtuoso on each one. There are guys who are specialists, who play more fluently than he does. And he acknowledges that (he said something like ´John (Blackwell) plays some things I cant´, but it´s still amazing that he gets props as a musician from masters like Marcus Miller, Clapton and Steve Vai, to name a few.

And Prince is a great arranger/producer. I was listening to For You the other day and it´s impressive that a 19 year old does everything with so much maturity.

[Edited 6/13/11 18:02pm]

TrevorAyer said:

drums .. prince needs a click track .. he does not keep perfect time without it ..

- Well, but I am not sure about how many drummers keep perfect time. I am always watching great drummers playing with earphones on DVD recordings. And I am talking about TOP session players.

njin said:

Imaginative said:

You are obviously young and not musically educated.

a.) Prince was not the first to use a drum-machine. No where near. He also didn't INVENT the drum machine, like Dylan invented the modern singer-songwriter and McCartney invented a new approach to bass. Actually, the first use of an automated rhythm track being recorded in pop music... hmmmm... oh yeah, The Beatles again in 1968. (There may be earlier instances that someone more knowledgable in music than you could quote.)

b.) "If Dylan and McCartney hadn't have done those things, someone else would have." Prove it. You take it for granted what huge innovations these were. The fact that remains that it wasn't "someone else," who made these contributions. It was The Beatles and Dylan. If it were "someone else," then that "someone else" would be the one influencing all that followed.

c.) "In fact, there were likely people doing those things before Dylan and McCartney." If you listened to or had any understanding of any music prior to 1976 or so, perhaps you could cite YOUR sources.

You obviously didn't notice him saying it as a joke. He was neither pointing out prince as the first, nor was he pointing him out as the inventor of the drum machine. He was making fun of a statement. However Prince was one of the first great artists to make fantastic hit records based on a mix of drum machine, synth and live instrumentation. 1999s impact on urban music was much greater than Purple Rain, even though Purple Rain sold more. On a whole Purple Rain probably inspired more artists though. It's stated many places that 1999 had a huge impact on electronic music directly and indirectly, just as Beatles had much directly, but even more indirectly influence on modern pop music. Everyone is inspired by somone that is inspired by somone that is inspired by The Beatles. That can be said about any other great musician from the past. You can't escape the past. The past has you already.

Exactly. Thanks. I'm making a point of not replying to condescending folks. I think everyone else on the site can speak on exactly how "musically educated" I am, and I am sure it is probably a lot more than this "Imaginative" person would like to believe, but I won't waste my time since he didn't even understand what I said and replied to something I didn't even say.... I didn't say Prince was the first person to use a drum machine LOL.

Anyway, it's been stated on many occasions that The Beatles were not an influence on Prince AT ALL until 1985. To try and claim that they were, simply because they started or popularized some things that then became commonplace, is moronic and stupid. Prince pioneered being an artist who played and produced everything himself - he was the youngest person EVER to have complete production control over his own music in 1978 when he signed to WB.

Does that therefore mean he's automatically an influence on every single new artist today that produces their own music simply because it's commonplace now? Of course it doesn't, which is why that post about Dylan writing autobiographical songs or McCartney's bass style is completely fucking irrelevant.

This is the funniest part though.

"If Dylan and McCartney hadn't have done those things, someone else would have." - Prove it.

You'd have to be a moron to believe that nobody else would have written autobiographical songs in a comtemporary fashion or play bass the way McCartney did if they didn't. And how is anyone supposed to "prove" a hypothetical scenario? LOL

For the record, James Jamerson is FAR MORE influential a bass player than Macca and every single musician I know would say the same.

TrevorAyer said:

the fact that prince butchered whole lotta love is a good test of his true guitar skills .. he has a few tricks but cannot handle a song as huge as that even tho the riff is very simple .. he sounds worse than most kids in the guitar shop on that one .. jimi page is the kind of player that guitar students learn each and every solo note for note .. same with hendrix, david gilmour, santana etc... prince does not write or perform guitar on that level at all .. wish he would, think he could if he put his mind to it .. but he just doesn't.

- I agree that sometimes I miss Prince putting his mind to it, but when he wants to, he is a very good funk/rock player (not jazz). He earned respect from lots of people after his ´While my guitar gently weeps´ rendition. And Brian May liked his rendition of ´Whole lotta love´ at the O2.