unique said:

There is no control there so you cannot state that the drugs made them better. We'll never know what they could have done without drugs at their peak. Perhaps their output would have been greater and their creations even more impressive musically. Because something good was created whilst on drugs doesn't mean it was the drugs that caused it to be great. Nor does it mean something equal to or better couldn't have been made without them. There has been alot of crap music made by people on drugs. That gets forgoten though.
[Edited 2/22/09 13:51pm]

3121 said:

well as a comparison, how about you list some great acts as a comparison to mine, that are well documented not to have taken drugs? it seems more than a coincidence that most of the best acts are known to have taken drugs around the times of peak creativity. pretty much all the greatest acts have well known drug use, dylan, marley, beatles, elvis, miles davis, you name it. just think of some of your favourite acts as an example

unique said:

I know what you're saying but there is nothing drugs can do for an artists creativity that can't be achieved without drugs. For every 3 or 4 albums you can cite that might have had some influence from the use of drugs that you think is great I can list 30 or 40 that weren't produced under any influence of drugs. The correlation you're trying to make here just doesn't hold.

unique said:

I'd just say Mozart and end it there. Arguably the greatest and most gifted musician of all time. We could throw Beethoven in there, too.

Maybe victor wooten who is regarded as one of the greatest bass players of all time.

Prince who owned the 1980's. I have only heard him take one drop of acid. I don't know how you could argue that this was responsible for the unparalled body of work he released in the 80's.

Does Bruce take drugs? dunno about that one.

What about mike jackson? Notthat im a fan but he has given the world some of the greatest pop music ever produced - billie jean?

3121 said:

SONGS MADE WHILST ON DRUGS


Afroman

yellow submarine

lezama said:

Totally agree.

unique said:

ummmmm.. you're pre-picking well known creative musicians who were at the top of their game, yet excluding the hundreds of others of their colleagues, probably no less involved in drugs, who never made a brilliant album. You're starting from the wrong position. How many rock bands were there from the 50-80's who weren't taking something? How many jazz artists in the time of Miles were there on drugs who will never come close to being house-hold names? How many reggae artists have there been who weren't big marijuana smokers?

lezama said:

I'm gonna let lezama argue the rest of this one out. he/she has better argumental skills than i do (are you in law or something?). I bet you wrote great essays at university. I agree with all you say on this subject.

fact
habitual drugs
destroy us
from the inside out
because we abuse them
they are created to
control us
manipulate us
and destroy us
also separate us


I have learned the one and only greatest
high
in the universe is
free
natural
and
beautiful
also real


no side affects
no belittling of yourself
no selling your body
mind
nor
soul


this free
high
is natural
helps you
learn
grow
and care
from the
heart
mind
and
soul


helps you
heal
forgive
and learn to
care about yourself
and others
face reality
and wake up



which many
never know
this free high
that
helps you
create
experience
and be
YOU
is
the love of our
creator


it's natural
its free
and
it's beautiful
it's real
it's forever
all you gotta do is
want it
work for it
and you will get it
Baby it don't cost no
monies
no lies
and no dirty games
open your heart and
just be yourself
and be real

3121 said:

LOL... you have a good eye. I do have a LL.M.

All of them did alot of coke in the 80's. Prince and his band, The Time, Vanity 6....that was their drug of choice. Morris and Denise Matthews went over the edge with it.

Prince looks like a coke head then and now.

Prince doesn't look like a coke head at all. How do you know he did coke and all of them did it? Maybe they did,maybe they didn't! Were you there or their drug dealer? How can you make such statements? I have seen him at clubs and he was always NORMAL and Not Crazy or WIRED. So how do you come by your CONCLUSIONS?

Prince doesnt do drugs. It's obvious just look at him. You can tell when someone is on them. And it doesnt have to do with strange behavior or off beat music. Just compare Prince to someone heavy known drug users such as Jimi Hendrix, Rick James, Amy Winehouse. You never seen prince sluring his speech the constant hospital vists. Along with his constant dissing of drugs in his music even making fun of people who smoke just weed. As well as long list of stories from people around him that describe him as very anti-drug use.

Your fooling yourself if you think he's a drug user.

I don't use drugs, I am drugs.

~Salvador Dali

P2daP said:

I don't think he's ever been a heavy drug user and I doubt he has ever been hooked on anything..but I would be very naive to say he's never taken any at all....

jimino1 said:

Oh i'm not saying that, i'm sure he has, i believe the e story about the black album. But i don't think he ever used drugs in a repeated fashion

3121 said:

i think you've proved my point perfectly. i list some of the greatest bands and artists of the last 40 years and you mention a couple of people who died hundreds or years ago, one who has a documented drug habit thats only over shone by his documented pedophile tenancies (not to forget who gets other people to create the vast majority of his music for him), and someone who 99.9% of joe public has never heard off

lezama said:

that's right, again proving my point. the artists mentioned became at the top of their game after getting into drugs, and there are many who didn't who just never became well known. now you can see exactly where i'm coming from. drugs were responsible for the creative process in most of the greatest music created in the last 40 years. most of the great jazz and blues players were addicts too, so it goes even further back

unique said:

1) A correlation is not a causation. It seems you're not understanding the difference between the two.
2) When you're able to account for all the rest of the hundreds of bands and musicians throughout the 60-80's that were just as much on drugs as the handful of people your mind is focused on, please come back and explain that to me... what you wrote above ignores it.
3) When you're able to account for all the people equally or even way more creative than the people you're mentioning who were not relliant upon drugs, I'll be awaiting your response...

Why wasn't Stevie Wonder relliant on drugs? Duke Ellington? Bruce Springsteen? Paul Simon? Otis Redding? Bo Diddly? Ravi Shankar? B.B. King? And screw pop music, people waaaaay more creative and talented never relied on drugs to compose things far more out there than Zeppelin or the Beetles or the Stones... Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Varese, Ligeti, Berio, Boulez... match any 20th century drug using pop artists to their (sober) creations and explain the gap in brilliance.

Thanks

Prince is a TALENT and Does NOT DO HARD DRUGS! He Never looked like a Druggie Either and I think the ones saying such are DRUGGIES themselves. Drugs is for LOSERS and PRINCE is NOT a LOSER. And COCAINE is such an OLD DRUG. I don't believe anyone is doing that anymore. The kids are doing Pot and Pills NOt COKE. That's an 80's drug for people like the STONES. Check YOURSELF ! Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx ARE DRUG TYPES NOT PRINCE. You CAN TELL THE DIFFERENCE any DAY.

pgw1973 said:

Alcohol is a drug, maybe the worst one because it is so ingrained in society.

lezama said:

stevie wonder did drugs, but he didn't like them. he is an exceptional case. duke ellington was not only addicted to drugs, but an alcoholic. bruce springstein may have written a lot of songs but i wouldn't say he was particularly creative as most of them all sound the same. sure there are musicians that are creative that don't take drugs, but the fact is that most of the biggest most popular acts of the last 40 years wrote some of the greatest music as a result of taking drugs

you seem to have some problem in accepting this. do you have personal issues towards drug use that is causing a discriminitive viewpoint? i don't take drugs myself, and i'm not pro drugs either, but i can't deny that some of the greatest music has been created as a result of drug use. you surely can't deny that either can you?

JayJai said:

Fucking hell, looks like I was right

unique said:

Please answer what a handful of selective bands and musicians in the 20th century US & UK have to do with the rest of the London, NY, Hollywood scene who were equally caught up in drugs? You've ignored the question TWICE.

You do understand that what you're saying is equal to stating that most of Hollywood has taken coke, thereby to be a successful person in Hollywood you have to take coke. One should realize that coke being extremely prevalent in Hollywood doesn't mean there's a correlation between coke and talent. The correlation is with the INDUSTRY itself, not a handful of people that happen to rise to the top of it.

No non-talented musician will ever take drugs and produce a brilliant album... it doesn't work that way. No person you've mentioned thusfar was non-creative before their drug use. Unless you can find an example of that you're wasting your time here.

And no, I don't have any issues with drugs or drug users. I just happen to know plenty of creative people and I know plenty of semi-creative druggies and there's no relation of causation between drugs and creativity. Either you're creative or not, and life-conditions in general can either hinder or provide ideal evironments for the expression of such creativity. And the fact is, I've seen drugs ruin more "creative" people than they ever helped.

unique said:

Please provide a source for him being an addict and alcoholic... I don't care if he did them or drank. Hell, even my moms probably did something in her lifetime. Doing something and doing something hardcore (as an addict) are two completely different things. With respect to his milieu I want to see proof of some extraordinary drug use to correspond to his extraordinary talent. Thanks

lezama said:

let's go back to what i said earlier...


"if you take the examples i mentioned and compare the music before and after the documented periods of drug taking, you will see that the music after drug taking was improved and far more creative. look at the change in the work by the beatles after they were introduced to drugs for example"


i'm not suggesting that the drugs made them creative, which is why non creative people can't take drugs and suddenly become creative, but what i am saying is that they became more creative and made better music after discovering drugs. i'm not denying either that drugs screwed many up and ruined lives, my main point is that drugs have helped the creative process in most of the great acts of the last 40 years, even the downside of drugs has influenced some great albums. it might ruin them in the end or make them worse, but at one point drugs helped the creative process and created some of the greatest music by the greatest bands. just look how the beatles evolved after they discovered drugs as a perfect example. the music before and after was completely different

No, a "drug" will not make you talented any more than taking piano lessons will make you Liberace...but...and here's the big but....creative inspiration comes in many many forms...

For some, inspiration comes from looking out the window on a rainy day.
For some, inspiration comes simply from life's hardships or accomplishments
For some, inspiration comes from the feelings they get when they fall in love
For some, inspiration comes from the relaxation and/or mind altering capabilities of certain drugs...

In each and every case, what it comes down to is chemicals in your brain. It matters not how the chemicals got there when the result is ultimately the same. period.

All side effects and addictions aside, just as sure as an aspirin will stop a headache, certain drugs are capable of making you feel completely different about what you consider to be reality...and if you think about it real hard, our reality, culture and perception is what seperates us from the animals...

In other words, to be human is to fantasize, to create that which is not already real. Drugs - good or bad - pharmaceutically prescribed or crack rocks off the street, directly effect human perception, which in turn directly effects our natural born creative processes.(for better or for worse) This is a medical fact. And if you're stubborn or stupid enough to believe that it's not true, take some LSD and then call me, I'm quite sure I can convince you otherwise.

Besides, unique is correct in that "drugs" ie mind altering substances have been used FOR EONS as an amendment to the creative process, in practically every culture that has ever existed... by priests, monks, medicine men, seers, prophets, artisans and musicians, from Mozart to Rush Limbaugh and everyone in between. If chemicals did nothing in this regard, they wouldn't historically have been used all this time....and perhaps not at all.

I certainly dont condone illegal drug use, that would be silly and dangerous, but I do condone and encourage the idea that you have the freedom to explore your consciousness in any way you see fit...drug or no drug.

As for the original question....I think Prince has used substances at many different times...perhaps on and off....perhaps all the time....or perhaps not at all...but whatever the case IMO his overall collection - (every single song)- reflects way too large of a range of moods, styles and genre for a sober person - that is of course unless he is constantly sober but slightly to moderately insane...

should he use drugs now? naw man...bad idea..he's paranoid enough already.
[Edited 2/24/09 1:52am]
[Edited 2/24/09 1:52am]

sermwanderer said:

Simple question...simple answers...no need for all this...

JayJai said:

No questions, arrogant answers

Goodbye

unique said:

OK, but what I'm trying to get at this big picture. With the Beatles and many bands, what you're saying is true. But part of what I'm saying is that drugs won't equate increased creativity for everyone. Hell Frank Zappa has music just as crazy as the Beatles at their most out there, and he never touched drugs (unless you wanna mention coffee). Psychic TV and Throbbing Gristle did a shiteload of drugs during their heyday and their "music" has always been crappy.

The other part of what I'm saying is that the only thing drugs can do for you is change your perceptions and your experience of different kinds of things. The fact of the matter is you can have changes of perception and radically altered experience of things without drugs. I say this as someone who's taken my share of mind-altering substances in the past, but also as someone who's meditated for 10 years free of any mind-altering substances. There's nothing an impatient person can experience with drugs in a hour that a patient and focused person can't achieve with just him/herself and their own mind. But the difference between the one who achieves something with drugs and one who achieves something without them is that the latter person can always call upon what they've achieved without relying on anything external to them, those who rely on drugs constantly have to chase those fleeting moments of being under the influence or live via reminiscing on those past experiences. Those without drugs carry their creative inspirations with them 24/7.