I don't see many artists who remind me of Prince when it comes to stylistic diversity, a 'colorblind' approach to music and the use of creativity in general.

But in the last 20 years i have 'met' two artists who i consider to approach their music in the same way Prince does.

The first one being Björk: to me she sounds like an artist who just doesn't give a damn about how she is 'labeled': while listening to her material, it sounds like she is 'just' choosing the styles which seem to fit the things she is trying to express. She also does seem to have a deep 'quality' when it comes to recognising that combining different musical styles can create magic. The way she is mixing electronic beats, with orchestral arrangements, choir arrangements, harp and musical samples on her album Vespertine might look 'weird' on paper, but somehow she succeeds in making it work.

The second one being Karl Wallinger, former keyboard player from the Waterboys, and since 1985 operating under the monicker 'World Party'. On his albums he just uses every possible style to express himselve: Beatles-like psychedelic pop, sober Dylan-like folkballads, rich Beach Boys harmonies, Sly Stone-like vocals, Cocky Mick Jagger-like vocals, and even house / dance-beats.
Alltough very underrated in my opinion, i dont know any other artist (apart from Prince) who is capable of such a stylistic diversity as Wallinger. I always see him as the 'british Prince'.
Alltough he reached his peak in 1989 with his album 'Goodbye Jumbo', an almost perfect album, that could rival Sign of the Times, also his subsequent albums offer a lot of musical diversity and creative music that show how genious this man really is.

It was going so well until you wrote 'genious'

.

spellingpolice?

English / american is not my first language, so give me a break... right?

Riverpoet31 said:

Well said. Take no notice. I'd like to see some of these people around here compose a paragraph of writing as good as yours in another language.

She started off with fake punk skater music.

Then she progressed to fake punk pop music.

And now she's pretty much perfecting fake pop general music.

Sarcastic but true... lol

Riverpoet31 said:

Maybe Avril will do an Alanis and move on to something not perfect, but at least genuinely hers.

Riverpoet31,

I agree with both. Karl Wallinger, been a fan of his since the Waterboys and absolutely love his World Party stuff. Saw him live here in Sydney once in a small venue and he was great. He definitely deserved more success but he doesn't play the game. Goodbye Jumbo was excellent and I thought Bang was just as good if not better.

There is nobody out here that reminds me of Prince, he is definetly one of a kind.

wlcm2thdwn said:

Agreed

i know someone, but i can't say
he should have an album out on drive-thru by the end of the year

Well, not one artist but a group... The members of The Family stand... They wrote great Pop songs for Paula Abdul's 2nd album and on their own albums they cover a lot of ground. Gospel, funk, soul, rap, you name it. Besides, their lyrics are really good and show a lot of social awareness. Anyone with a slight interest in Prince's music should realy try to listen to their records.

Tori Amos is another candidate.....

nurse said:

That makes 3 of us!