Maceo Parker gave his boss mad props in the Aussie interview.

Given his skill and his former boss, is Maceo right?

How would YOU feel if one of your idols called you a genius?

Prince is a flawed genius. True genius is consistent.

2freaky4church1 said:

Genius is Genius and there's 2 sides to everything. Maybe Prince isn't always in that phase or something but the element of genius is always present. Can't take the genius out of our man.

Genius? To us, sure. Certainly important in the pantheon of popular music.

Though genius or not, in a 100 years it's amazing how someone's career is truncated in an Encyclopedia. In the same way that a typical entry for Mozart is 'composer' or Jimi Hendrix is 'Rock Guitarist' Prince's will be 'Popstar'. Still one word is better than most of us get...

2freaky4church1 said:

I think history shows that generally the opposite is the case; true genius is flawed. Just look at guys like Hendrix, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, James Brown, Mozart, even Newton and Einstein. All very flawed personalities and, if you're fair and honest and look beyond the hype, all produced a fair amount of crap in amongst the brilliance. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that consistency is almost synonymous with mediocrity.

As for true genius being consistent, I don't think that's true.

Even Mozart wrote "filler" material.

Imago said:

What are you thinking about? Examples?

2freaky4church1 said:

True geniuses are usually flawed

I dunno, whenever I see interviews with Prince bandmembers I'm struck by how lifeless and programmed they sound. They always compliment him and how working with him is wonderful and all that. They act like hostages with Stockholm Syndrome.

padawan said:

Is this something positive or negative about Prince?

EmancipationLover said:

http://members.aol.com/ba...mozart.htm

here's one example of what are called "Mozart misteps"

EmancipationLover said:

Neither. Just an observation.

I remember there was a short clip of Sheila E. in a Prince video documentary (Unauthorized Biography, I think, not sure) and she explained how playing with Prince you could make it sound messy and unfinished and it's okay, while with other artists you have to make it tight and polished. Which is all good and well, she just sounded dead and emotionless while saying it.

I'm guessing Prince squeezes all the life and energy out of his bandmates during rehearsals and live performances, so they got nothing left for interviews. It's the Prince Method, I think. Pour all your joy and spontenaity and focus and effort and creativity into the WORK, not on social interaction, not on conversation.

Imago said:

Hmm, not very convincing to me (though I must admit that I don't know the pieces). To "adjust" music to make it performable (due to limitations of musicians) was pretty much a standard procedure around Mozart's time. Given that we don't know that much about the exact circumstances (time restrictions or whatever), calling it a "misstep" seems questionable to me. Also keep in mind that we're talking about a few minutes of an Aria here as part of a body of work of someone who has composed over 600 individual pieces and whose complete catalogue fills around 200 CD's or so.

2freaky4church1 said:

We agree on a lot of things...but not on this one...Genuis is never consistent...it's mostly misunderstood...

EmancipationLover said:

I'm denying Mozart is a genius and the vast majority of his work is brilliant.
But to say that genius is consistent isn't true.

No geniuses are consistent. Even Eisten made mistakes (the cosmic constant), and Hawkin. It's part of being human. These guys are fine tuned instruments that none of us here can truly touch. But none of them are infallible. Consistency would make them bland and perdictable. Part of what I like about th e flaws in geniuses is that their impulses often yield more interesting results.

2freaky4church1 said:

nope completely wrong!

RISK!

That is why Prince is a Genius, he isn't scared to try new and different things!

Risk is the most important thing. True Artist need to take a chance to fail, to always push themselves and their fans to grow (or try to grow)

That is why is the best musican of all time.

ElectricBlue said:

I'd agree to a point. Taking chances is necessary to keep the music vital and fresh. But consider WHAT is being risked. When he made "Dirty Mind" he was risking alienating the r&b audience he had cultivated. With "Around the World in a Day" he was risking the mainstream rock fans he had pulled in.

In both cases it was his hard won following that he risked.

I'm actually more impressed with his ability to pool together an audience to begin with. Without an audience there'd be nothing to risk.