Back when Prince gave a fuck, you'd call him a genius on any day. Same goes for Stevie Wonder, Miles Davis, Bob Dylan, Ray Charles and all the a-list Einstein level geniuses...

Today, I don't really think genius matters, as appreciation for being a multi-instrumentalist or a symphony-writing machine slowly disappears, I think that these guys mostly fit in that category. Otherwise, your disagreeing shouldn't merely come off as just words for the sake of rhetoric, y'all should also bring up names that you believe are worth that title.

Jack White (A true garage-rock master, not only responsable for BRINGING BACK the garage rock sound into mainstram -When you see something called Garaga-rock revival, the thing The Strokes, Interpol or Black Keys assosiate themselves with, it's actually something Jack and his ex-wife Meg thought about WAY before any of those bands)

Kevin Parker (Leader of the australian Psychedelic band Tame Impala. He composes all the stuff on his band's albums --It's kinda weird that he has to be a part of a band that's only use is to play live with him, he actually does ALL the work--. He's probably a modern-day John Lennon with CRAZY songwriting ideas, just taking it into a whole new level, especially that psychedelic isn't easily well-made or produced)

Jonny Greenwood (Aside from being the main keyboardist/guitar player of Radiohead (Sure that's enough), he actually did all of the music of the movie There Will Be Blood, which was mainly classical avant-garde orchestrated music, also the PTA films The Master & Inherent Vice)

Trent Reznor (Vocalist of Nine Inch Nails, I actually got to know his art better by listening to his soundtracks for The Social Network & Gone Girl, then, I decided to sit through some of NNI's albums, it was hard for me first to distinguish his sound in particular, it's a whole band, you never know who's responsible for a solo or a bass distortion, but seeing his live videos on Youtube just proved that he's capable of pulling off dark, ambient, electronica sounds from a variety of instruments, he's also a very skilled keyboardist)

[Edited 8/20/15 0:04am]

[Edited 8/20/15 0:05am]

None of the oness you mentioned, even though I own all of their albums (except for Kevin Parker) and dig their music. I wouldn't consider them a genius, just very good at what they do.

Ron "Bumblefoot" Thal is a guitar genius. He can play ANYTHING, literally anything. And unlike most other guitar virtuosos, he is actually a brilliant songwriter and singer as well. But man, what he can't play on the guitar ain't worth playing!!