SPOOKYGAS said:

I like this entry and It's a fair point but I do think elvis is better than the bunch you put him with.

Does it really matter if he is the best?
If U love some one's music then that should be enough said about them.

.
[Edited 12/14/09 8:05am]

This is retarded, there's no denying the influence of Prince. His imprint on music is still evident today as it was 20 years ago. The number of songs ripping off the Minneapolis Sound over the past few years is proof of that.

I've heard arguments that Prince is not an innovative musician. I'm assuming that means that not many musicians play their instruments like Prince. That nonsense might have meaning if Prince was singularly identified with the guitar like Hendrix. However, Prince's genius is his versatility. Prince changed Black Music with his incorporation of electronic instrumentation and being a pioneer with his studio techniques. His production and songwriting style is all over music today -- anyone with ears can hear that.

Besides the Beattles in the 60's and Stevie Wonder in the 70's, Prince's run in the 80's is almost peerless. When you talk about growing as an artist over successive albums while putting out great songs, those are probably the Top 3 in the last 40 years.

MJ -- RIP, but c'mon.... I guarantee that people who say MJ is the greatest ever couldn't give you one musical reason why. They couldn't break down a Michael Jackson song and name one innovative element of songwriting, musicianship, or production to save their lives... Popularity in the Arab community and dancing does not make you the best. LOL

3232 said:

Genius doesn't last forever, but you can't say Prince doesn't care. Truth be told, he was so high in the 80's that it was impossible to sustain that creativity.

Another way you might want to look at it is by considering the songs written for and produced for other artists in the 80's. Imagine if he had kept all of those songs -- especially by the Time.

You gotta remember, when you're talking about Prince, he wrote and produced a lot of really good songs over the years -- and I'm sure there's quite a few more in the vault.

Prince's B-sides are better than 80% of most artist's careers.

So yeah, I'd say that Prince's work was diluted by his high output at times, but you gotta look at the whole pie and not just a slice.

Se7en said:

You should be slapped for comparing Sign "O" The Times to Bad -- what planet are you from? LOL. Sign "O" The Times is one of the most ambitious records of all-time. Think about an artist crazy enough to attempt to document the history of American music -- damn near every style on 1 record. Not only that, it was the culmination of all of Prince's various styles up to that point, in many ways it was the kiss of death as he essentially divorced himself from his own minneapolis sound that he's tried to recapture unsuccessfully in recent albums.

Sign "O" The Times was almost the greatest album ever.

The other comparisons are somewhat valid, BUT Michael Jackson was a strictly R&B (with the pop elements) Thriller is the greatest R&B album of my lifetime, but how can you compare it to a rock album like Purple Rain? The performances, vocally and instruments is what drives the PR album especially the tracks that were recorded live.

Your picking apples and oranges trying to say one album is better than the other. But consider this... listening to MJ's records, most people would say it's one artist (the same guy) because the sound is fairly consistent.

But if you look at Prince's albums (definitely take away the vocals), you could say those 4 albums were recorded by 4 different artists because of the diversity and creativity. 1999 was electronic, Purple Rain was rock.... Sign "O" The Times was damn near everything. Diamonds and Pearls was pretty much R&B.

Think about that -- really consider that. 4 of Prince's best albums are very distinct, and that's not to mention Dirty Mind. Really, how man artists could do that/have done that?

YES

yES in my honest opinion its him Michael jackson and sly stone

there is one simple fact, no-one ever has been proven to be a better artist than prince

if you look back the past few hundred years, the following people are considered some of the greatest composers....

beethoven, mozart, bach, hayden, schubert, handel, vivaldi, wagner, brahms, tchaikovsky, schuman, chopin, mendelssohn, list, dvorak, verdhi, mahler, strauss, puccini, mussorgsky, stravinsky, debussy, profokeiv, shostakovich, britten and ravel

few would dissagree these were great composers, but what sets these guys apart is they were restricted in their day by availability of instruments, influence from other artists, and audience

what sets prince apart is that he writes, records, performs, he plays most instruments, so what you hear from his music is either 100% or close to 100% prince, depending on the track you listen to. he doesn't need anyone else to write or create his music, he even has his own professional studio where he can not only create an entire album, in a day if he wished, but also make the videos and put on live performances

when it comes to writing he is up there with the best of writers, and he did all his best work himself, instead of collaborations. when it comes to records, all his best works are made with the least amount of input from others. and when it comes to live performances, he can outperform anyone put on stage with him

i've considered this topic for many years, and i'm used to having to put aside personal bias to make important decisions, and personally i love lots of bands and artists that don't have critical acclaim, so i don't care if he or anyone else is considered the best or not. frankly, i prefer prince when he's not so popular so i can get right down the front of those small gigs and see the whites of his eyes even when he's wearing sunglasses in the dark. many other viewpoints listed on a prince fansite may be biased, but i'll tell you this...

just prove me wrong. if you can find a greater artist than prince, then i'm ready to become a fan. but i know you can't

in the entire history of music, even mozart, beethoven, etc would surely agree that they couldn't hold a candle to prince. whilst some of the names above are considered the greatest composers, prince is a great composer, writer and performer. that's what sets him apart from the rest. it's laughable to suggest lipsynchers and people who couldn't perform properly live on stage are great artists. if you think that, then you have a tremendous life in front of you in discovering the truly great music that's around, real music by real musicians

prince might act like a complete dick at times, but you got to give it to the guy for being the greatest musical artist of all time. perhaps it's difficult to understand or accept whilst he is still alive, as those other composers all died many years ago, but you have to be helen keller not to see what you have before you

I don't think we can compare an individual to a band so any mention of the beatles, stones, just doesnt compare. Yes, P has had bands, but his rotation of band members just cannot be compared to your other major bands who may have changed members only once, twice, three times. I think it is also evident, that there is not the usual band collaboration w/ his various bandmates, as those who have been involved have said he tells them what he wants to hear, how he wants things played or to sound, and only occaisionally asks them to come up w/ something. He pretty much has songs/sounds formed and is looking for someone to come in and play it the way he wants it. He may use an idea here and there, but he has the song already built.

As far as individual musician/singers- I think there is no doubt he has got to be put up there in the top 1 or 2. I say this because I think so many of the other greats could not play all genres of music like P can- and that alone sets him apart. I think Ray Charles was great, and I am sure P admires his stuff, but could Ray do the types of stlyes, P can do? Think about other great singer/songwriters who play their own songs- Marvin Gaye- pretty much one style, Bob Marley- clearly, one style, Smokey Robinson wrote and sang (and gave away to other musicians) many a great song, but again, pretty much, that old soul style, Sam & Dave- soul, only... I cannot think of anyone who can do all genres w/ the skill P can.

I think of some of the great songwriters throughout the past few decades: Randy Newman, Kander & Ebb- both of whom I love, but again, their soound is very distinct and they do not venture from pure rock, to jazz, to soul, to pop, nor can they hit you w/ gospel, reggea, etc.

I just can't think of anyone who can compare to what P can do- that is why I admire his talent so much!

I think he is the best of all times. I dont see myself as an asskisser. I dont think he is the best guitar player, singer, dancer, or writer. But when you see the whole picture, all his talent, i do think he is the best all around artist. he and stevie wonder. maybe david bowie. but bowie is not as good as a instrumentalist as them.

Why do people always feel the need to compare prince and MJ? Its like some prince fans are bitter MJ's death was so huge! Anyway....


In MY opinion prince is the best of all time

unique said:

I HAVE to respond to this. None of this is true, no where in this wall of text can I agree with you. Let me see if I can break this down in parts

Firstly, prince isn't a great composer. Yeah he's a great producer/arranger but a great composer he is not, even for a pop musician, he is not in the real of the upper echelon of great pop music composers like Wonder, Beatles, Pink Floyd, Joni MItchell, etc. his chord structure is rarely unconventional, and he rarely goes into multiple chord changes in one song. Pop music as a whole would have a hard time being seriously critiqued and compared to classical composers, mostly due to the format that pop songs are presented, it simply is not going to fly for a pop song to incredibly long. 7 minutes alone is pushing it, 13 minutes? your song better be a damn good one like Sly Stone's sex machine, or else your considered pretentious. Classical composers are free of such limitations, a classical piece can go 20,30,40 minutes long, which gives them more time to go through the ruminations, play 12 chords and have many many chord changes. The only pop composers I'd dare compare to them are Beatles of the 60's, Mitchell & Wonder of the 70's & maybe brian wilson of the 60's. Keep in mind these are only a decades worth of each artists. Guys like Mozart, Wagner and tchaikovsky were having decades of consistently complex, intricate pieces, and built a very deep and extensive body of work.

Secondly, although Prince almost always had entire credit for his album to himself, it's not entirely a good thing. To my ears, it felt like because of this his albums felt more enclosed, and didn't have the expansive width that other musicians bring when working on albums. It was the Prince show, which meant every other song was going to have a typical prince riff, a typical prince phrasing, a typical prince fill, a typical prince vocal, IMO this had it's benefits and its detriments. For one having a choir of Prince, might be admirable, but it's also limiting,; having multiple different backing vocals can help a song have a broader texture, instead of always having the same feeling of the one artist.

Thirdly, Prince is a multi-instrumentalist, not a virtuoso so as a multi-instrumentalist he has to be compared to others. And before he's granted the title of greatest he still has to get past that giant of a multi-instrumentalist. Stevie Wonder. Prince might play more instruments(which is also arguable, Stevie's been known to also play percussion, horns, guitar, oboe etc), but he doesn't play all of them proficiently, IMO the ones that he's exceptional is solely the keyboard and guitar, but Stevie plays drums, keyboard and Harmonica very well. It's arguable if Prince is better than Stevie.

Sandino said:

the problem with your post is that you haven't given a single example of anyone who could potentially be "best of all time" rather than prince

thus my statement stands

Sandino said:

unique said:

Stevie Wonder. Your statement no longer stands.

Sandino said:

Not even close (and I love me some SW)

Revolution said:

prove it.

I posted this in another thread, but it seems fitting that I post it here as well:


The subjectiveness of art makes this thread, and all the other 'best of all time' threads, a complete waste of time.

So my guess for the motivation of these threads? EGO! Some people clearly want to be seen to be the fan of the 'BEST....'.

"Look at me! Not only do I listen to great music, I listen to the BEST music. Written by the most talented person EVER. I can prove it by this elaborate criteria I've made up. It does away with all this subjective arty bullshit. Seriously, how good am I?! How amazing is my taste!?"


So perhaps every post that goes to PROVE that Prince/MJ/Whoever is undoubtedly the most talented person to ever take a shit, is nothing more than a personal vindication how flawless their taste in music is.

All hail those with the god given ability to quantify art.

...They are the BEST!!!

TyphoonTip said:

Wow, you're post was a major FAIL...congrats.

This thread isn't about ME...it's about paying RESPECT to the talent. The kind of talent that is once in a lifetime.

Sandino said:

you didn't specifically state you thought stevie wonder was the best of all time, you just drew comparisons

now stevie wonder is a particularly talented man, but he only really had 10 years of great music in the 70s, all his music followed the same keyboard soul sound, when he did try something new like the plant music album, which really was the only different thing he did, it was just a load of shite unless you were fucked out of your head on drugs

so there was no real varience in his style, thus he faded into chart obscurity in the 80s, 90s and 2000s, and didn't even create some interesting music to gain critical acclaim

the main reason why it's not stevie wonder is he committed the greatest crime in human history by unleashing the holocaust of a single called "i just called to say i love you", the audible equivilent of a nuclear bomb. the most popular song in guantanamobay for torturing innocent muslims and people with beards. stevie could create the greatest music known to many for the next 20 years before he dies and he still won't be forgiven for that abomination, so for that reason alone he is not the best of all time. he was one of the best in the 70s, but not the best of all time

yes, he had a bad songwriting competition with paul maccartney and beat the frog chorus with that ditty, but then puting both heads together to create ebony and ivory next, that was just taking the piss, we didn't need more examples of how awful music can be, not in the 80s when the charts were full of shit, and he didn't have to continue the game by making two god dammned awful duets with michael jackass

not ever prince record was full of the best music on every track, but he rarely released anything as bad as those tracks mentioned, and if he did, normal people never got to hear them as he didn't release that stuff as singles

I'll leave it at this: History will view Prince extremely favorably.

TyphoonTip said:

i've long thought about that idea when it comes to people mentioning folks like michael jackass as the best, as he would be nothing if he didn't have that tag, he would just be another pop start churning out more shit records after his popular ones 25 years ago

i don't give two shits who is the best, as it's not going to affect my life in any way, so i can look on things objectively. there are a ton of great acts i like who are never going to get big in a month of sundays, but i don't care, i just listen to the music and maybe go to the gigs. personally i prefer bans when they aren't so big because i can go to a concert and actually see them onstage without having 15,000 people in front of me or not get a ticket because it's sold out. i like standing front row at prince aftershows all the time, i liked being front row at all the ONA shows with no barriers and everything was chilled out. if there was a greater artist than prince, i would probably listen to them and follow thier music too. i probably do already to anyone that anyone can come up with as a potential candidate for best ever

i've studied music for a long time, i have formal qualifications in studying music history and as an artform, rather than the playing of music, and i have worked in record stores when people still bought records, and dj'ed in clubs when people still used records and then cds, so i also have a working knowledge of all sorts of music, good and bad, new and old. i geniunely think if people put aside the ego or personal bias, and those with a real understanding of the history of music critiqued this question, they would come up with prince as number one artist of all time. whilst i am a big fan of prince, out of most jobs i have done in the past few years, i have had to make unbiased decisions of life affecting matters on a regular basis, i'm aware that few people do this and few people can easily do this, but it's worth pointing out. if i felt prince was number 2 or number 20 or number 100, then i'd be clear about it. the problem with these type of questions is that few people responding can answer without bias and with the correct amount of musical knowledge thats required to accurately answer such as question, thus the end result is a matter of personal opinion, and being asked on the fansite of the artist in question it's understandable that artist will be selected as number one, but ask the same question on a general forum elsewhere and i'm sure the same can be agreed

As far as the Stevie/Prince debate, I think it's a fair one. But, Stevie doesn't have as many classic albums and he totally gets a massive pass on the amount of garbage he has put out, whereas every clunker Prince released was ripped to shreds.

unique said:

Have you ever listened to stevie Wonder? Seriously? because to say Stevie "only" made R&B soul music is ludicrous, as one poster once said on his magnum opus he was able to effortlessly meld soul with classical(village Ghetto Land), big band(Sir Duke) jazz fusion(Contusion) latin(another star) & funk(black man, i wish etc) and that's just SITKOL The same keyboard soul sound!?! this implies that Stevie Wonder was still using in his music the same piano heavy rhythm section template created by Ray Charles which he certainly wasn't. Hell ALong with Sly Stone Stevie helped usher in Clavinet funk, and was able to use his imagination to make acoustic and electric pianos emulate rhythm, acoustic and bass guitar. besides different doesn't exactly equate with good. Half the shit Prince puts out is suitable only for the trash collectors. Even in the 80's the man had duds like Dirty Mind & ATWIAD(neither of these albums have aged well, actually none of prince's production technique entirely hasn't aged well but these are the most apparent)

As for Stevie's greatness lasting only a decade, I think you're mistaking an exceptional discography with a great/mediocre discography. Stevie's 70's work was exceptional but his 60's work was great, and his 80's stuff pretty good, and the rest has been mediocre and inconsistent. You can't tell me you honestly believe prince's career has had a more qualitatively consistent career that Stevie Wonder?

As for your third point, hmmm, really one song alone tarnishes his entire career, which post "artist formerly known as..." single should I use to critique Prince now and forever, believe me I have pretty much an entire decade of music to judge(90's). BTW Ijust called to say I love you, while incredibly cheesy songwriting wise, still had good music composition wise.


Now let's look at Prince. ON this site alone his OWN fans are infuriated by his attempts to please the younger crowd(Sellout), whilst still going back and revisiting his prime days(burnout) and also distributing too much of his work in too small a window(quantity vs quality). IMO Prince only had maybe a few good years of a run in the 80's. his career before and since was inconsistent, his contributions to music, minimal. Prince was good at putting a bunch of other people music into his own thang. That's all good but not when it's too much of other people and not enough of your thang. When musically yuo sound too much like your idols you become an imitation which limits your own innovation so you may have a good sound, but not much else, style and no substance. Compound this with his vocal ability(which certainly isn't equal to Stevie's), and that IMO is why Stevie Wonder is better than Prince. Stevie propelled his genre and pop music in general forward, Prince is a ripoff and one of the reasons why pop music today is so shitty.

Sandino said:

i have all of stevies albums and a number of bootlegs, so i know his work very well, and i'll say it again, he stuck to the same style of soul/funk all the way through. no rock album, no jazz album, no classical album, no accoustic album, it's just the same stuff apart from that shitty plants album

you can take any pop album and say it has bits of funk/reggae/blues and other shit in there, but it's still a pop album. songs in the key of life is consistent throughout, even though it tinges on other styles, but all the music is very similar

prince on the other hand is clear when it comes to his musical styles, you have proper rock like the undertaker, proper blues, proper jazz like madhouse and news, you have accoustic piano and guitar, classical, you have his funky stuff like sexy mf and poppy stuff like kiss, psychedelic stuff like splash and raspberry beret, you have experimental and progresssive stuff like the war, in all my dreams and the rainbow children. you have double and triple album sets like 1999, sign o the times and lotusflower, full of great and interesting tracks. prince might not sell the same amount of records as he did in the 80s but he didn't stop making interesting albums, you can't say he stopped making good records in the 80s, like you can say stevie stopped making good records in the 70s, as prince still came out with stuff like the gold experience, emancipation, the rainbow chilren, news, xpectations, lotusflower, he may not be consistent, but he still keeps showing sings that he can still pull it off in the studio. some of the more interesting works may not sell as much, but that's not the point, he keeps trying something new

and studio works aren't the end of it, it's prince's live shows that keep things going, he doesn't keep doing the same show with the same songs all the time, it changes all the time, and whilst you have the standard shows, he also has all the aftershows where he can do rarities, covers and new songs. stevie's tours for the last 30 years have all been hits tours, he's never done anything like what prince has done at the cellys, with a rock show, accoustic show, funk show, etc all in the space of a week. hardly anyone does anything like that. few artists have the catalogue to play a different set every night, nevermind a different genre every night. he can even do 3 shows in a day with a different band, setlist and genre, as he did in LA in march

when people use examples of artists to demonstrate thier work, they will usually pick something thats old from a specific timepoint where they were at thier peak, but with prince you can pick more recent events like the superbowl, or the rock n roll hall of game, and people will be impressed, you don't have to look back at 25 years ago

stevie lost it 30 years ago now, he had 10 years of great albums, then 10 years of dross in the 80s. even bowies 80s shit wasn't as bad, and some of it was quite good. the tin machine stuff was a load of shite, but at least he was doing something different, and likewise with the drum and bass album and live shows. epic fail, but full points for trying. as much as people will say prince is washed up, he keeps proving us wrong

the reason prince is the best of all time is because he has the songs, he has the albums and he cuts it live, he experiments, he progresses and changes, and those are the key aspects. he truly covers a multitude of different musical styles, and not just by dipping his toe in with a song or album or two. that's what seperates him from the rest and makes him the best. you can pick out great prince tracks from any decade from the 70s to the 90s, but you can't do that with stevie or bowie, or few other artists

I grow weary of building sound arguments only for you to ignore them and pinpoint one thing you disagree with and go off on wil tangents so I"m going to say this.

Stevie Wonder propelled his genre forward vocally & musically, production, songwriting etc, something you can't say for Prince in ANY of the genre's he's worked in and before you cite the minneapolis sound, I'll like to say that that was a fad and not a trend that reappeared in R&B any further than the 80's. Also you still haven't specified how exactly Prince's compositions stack up to the composers you mentioned? I'm interested in knowing this because even at his peak Prince's chord progressions never mesmerized me.

Also as a performer, a performer is judged on his ability to energize the crowd, his live musicianship & improvisation, not the catalogue of songs he chooses to perform. Stevie wonder is able to do all three of these things in his prime and even today he can perform the latter two brilliantly, IN SPITE of his handicaps.

Sandino said:

i'm saying prince is the overall best. it's easy to argue over who is the better person in individual categories, but not so easy when you take everything as a whole. i would say prince could outperform any of those composers, and perform a bigger variety of musical styles, he has time on his side there

as a performer, he's been a fantastic performer since the beginning, he's played live shows every year since the beginning, and still manages to keep things fresh and interesting. take his most recent live shows this year as an example, like montreux, two sets in one day

you can't compare stevies shows to princes and honestly say stevies live shows are better. he phones home half the show with his hits, and bores the audience if he plays anything from the past 20 years. prince moves around the stage, moving from vocals to guitar to keyboards, sometimes bass and drums, whilst he doesn't do it much now, he used to dance and jump around the stage like crazy. with stevie you simply get him sitting down playing his songs, he doesn't change the arrangements or perform tracks in a different style, it's the same song as it was nearly 40 years ago

you seem to creating a set of rules in your head to define who is best of all time, that is different from what anyone else would reasonably expect. best of all time does not mean they have to be the best at any one specific thing, or be a pioneer, or any of the other things you say, but simply the overall best

unique said:

I'm not quite sure why you felt the need to detail your education. Surely you're not suggesting that YOU are somehow better qualified to judge whether one artist is 'better' than another? You certainly seem to be saying this by mentioning that you've had to make objective decisions in your working life!

If the former is correct, then that is one of the more elitist and ridiculous things I've read on any forum. The great equalizing quality about any art form, is that it doesn't require 'qualifications' to appreciate it, or for it to make you feel something.

I'm afraid you have completely missed the point. I'm not suggesting that it's not possible to discern who's the 'best' because it's not possible for one to be objective; rather I'm stating that the terms ART & BEST are mutually exclusive.

Other art forms seem to avoid having individuals singled out as being the 'objective best'. That's because the notion is simply ridiculous. Who is the single BEST painter? Who is the BEST film maker? Who is the single GREATEST author?

I feel like I'm stating the obvious, but clearly I'm not. The reason the above questions have no clear objective, universal answers, is two fold. One, the breadth, depth & variety of the artists and their works; and two, that Art, if anything, is an expression of the human condition. And the human condition cannot be neatly detailed in a criteria set.

To put it simply, what speaks to one person quite possibly won't speak to another. You can have two intelligent, informed and musically obsessed people with completely different tastes in music. Stretch this to hundreds, thousands, or millions of people, then the likelihood of one artwork or artist 'speaking' to everyone, or even a majority, is unlikely. This point is also conveniently played out in org forums where there is little to no agreement on the 'best' or 'worst' Prince songs, for example. Consensus does not equate to greatness. Music is not a democratic/political process.

Finally, I've used the terms 'speak to' & 'feel' when describing the effect a work of art has on an individual. And that's because there are no words to adequately describe the feeling one has when connecting with a work of art. It's completely and utterly unquantifiable. So by suggesting that one artist is the absolute objective best, is also suggesting that those who don't 'feel' that artists work are wrong. Clearly that's ridiculous.

I love Prince's work, but it doesn't completely reach me in the same way say Radiohead, Morrissey or Bowie does. I love Prince's guitar work, but then again I also love the work of Jeff Beck and Nuno Bettencourt. The point is, that all these artists are so vastly different that there is no viable means to judge them against one another. But more importantly there is no viable way to compare how these artists 'speak to' or make individuals 'feel'.

Art is not science.
[Edited 7/31/09 19:47pm]