Who do you think qualifies for the title the most prolific artist of modern music, 1960 till today 2010 ?

and is Prince - writing hundreds of songs - actually the most prolific,

I have heard Frank Zappa has released a lot of albums too. But can he be compared to the hyper active Prince, when it comes to the frequenzy and number of released albums...?



just WHO do you consider the most prolific - in modern music.






Update:

notjoemama said:

thedance said:

[Edited 1/25/10 16:56pm]
[Edited 1/25/10 17:01pm]

This is a easy one im so going with your royal badness "P" I just feel like you give him any kind of music he can do it. I believe hes got the moderness but then again i know shit about Frank Zappa... P's got music for almost any genre

I think Prince took the lead after Frank went boots up.

Let's define "Prolific" for those who don't know (because I've found a lot of folks don't know).

Prolific: producing in large quantities or with great frequency, and in a short amount of time; highly productive; profusely productive or fruitful; characterized by abundant production

Both were prolific in their day. Prince doesn't put out an album every year, with a slew of remixed singles, plus 7" and 12" versions of a B-side, nor does he have a half dozen off shoot acts under his wing, writing music for them as well.

Zappa put out a lot of different material, and did it quite quickly as well. Both fit the bill for being prolific.

I guess it's a tie. Both released albums every year... Zappa had a 12 hour daily studio schedual, but Prince has all those aftershows & bootlets & the vault... also Zappa died in the early 90's but was releasing music since 64 I believe. Prince plays many different instruments but Zappa composed for orchestras... argh! I don't know

U take Zappa.....I'll take Prince.

MyNameIsCally said:

Let's be clear on a couple of things though:

Prince playing and recording after shows isn't being prolific. That's just a musician being a musician, burning off energy, or whatever. He wasn't creating new stuff at those shows, it was just an extra treat of live performances. He could have recorded every one of them (and probably did), but if it's not 1000 shows of new material, then it's not really the definition of "prolific".

The bootlegs, yes. Those are obviously studio recordings of songs we've never heard (or have, thanks to leaks by engineers, and Prince himself). If we just read The Vault or DMSR (by Per Nilsen), we know he recorded a song a day almost, and sometimes two songs a day. That is very prolific in music.

We have to remember that "prolific" has a sub-definition based on the difficulty and normal time spent creating a particular medium. How long does it take on average to work on a song for an artist? A few days? A week or two, spent tweaking, redoing backing vocals, etc? For Prince, he would usually record and mix down the song in one exhausting session. That he was beating the odds of the normal routine in how people recorded, in that he recorded in a day's time. Same goes for a painter. How long does it take to paint a masterpiece? A month? Two months? What if someone spit one out every two weeks? That'd be very prolific, based on the medium and the normal amount of time it takes to create that.

Having said all that, those after shows aren't really fitting the bill. But we know from The Vault, etc, that for every leaked song we DO have, there are another 5 we don't.

Frank Zappa, definitely. As much as I love Prince, I have to admit that FZ was much more "prolific". They are both amazing artists and they are very similar in musicianship.

zaza said:

So Zappa manufactured more product than Prince, in the same amount of time? I'm just askin'.

ernestsewell said:

I don't know for sure but my friend, who is big Zappa fan, told me that he has a lot of material, more than any other artist. But I don't know it for sure, if it was in the same amount of time as Prince.

Prince of course


NEXT

DesireeNevermind said:

Well that might not be true, we just don't know. No one knows how much original material lies in either Zappa's or Prince's vault. It's a good question though.

ernestsewell said:

ahhh but who cares about Zappa's vault?

ooh you changed ur avi. nice.

DesireeNevermind said:

A lot of people care about Zappa. It's not some faded figure in the annals of music history. He pushed boundaries that Prince could never begin to touch. He was a very prolific artist, creating a lot of material in a short amount of time (as did Prince back in the day).

There has to be a balance in that even if you don't like someone's music, you have to acknowledge their talent and gift. Prince isn't the beginning and end of music. (And he's long since lost his title as saviour of music.)

Zappa was days short of being 52 when he died. Prince will be 52 this year. At this point, if Zappa had more original songs in his vault than Prince will by the first of June, then Zappa would be more prolific. Of course it's not a contest to see who can create the most in the shortest amount of time. The man released 55 albums albums before his death. FIFTY-FIVE! How many has Prince released(not compilations)? So he might already be a bit beyond Prince's sheer state of output. Another 24 have been released since his death in 1993.

In my teenage years, I saw a lot more Zappa in musician magazines (like Keyboard, or whatever), than I ever saw mentions of Prince. Doesn't mean Zappa is better, but there's something to be said for 79 albums.

I think they're neck n' neck, if it has to be an issue.

Avatar: Thanks. I made it today.

^ 100% true

from merriam webster dictionary:

Main Entry: pro·lif·ic
Pronunciation: \prə-ˈli-fik\
Function: adjective
Etymology: French prolifique, from Middle French, from Latin proles + Middle French -figue -fic
Date: 1650
1 : producing young or fruit especially freely : fruitful
2 archaic : causing abundant growth, generation, or reproduction
3 : marked by abundant inventiveness or productivity

for # 1, zappa wins, 4 kids (although being fruitful could be interpreted in other ways i guess, and prince did 'produce' young artists. so this one could be divided i guess, lol)
#2 i would say it could be a tie.
#3 is partly subjective. inventiveness could go to either one depending on your taste, but zappa wins productivity, 57 albums when he died, and its up to about 80 now. and only about 4 or 5 that i can think of are collections of previously released music.

by the way, i love zappa & prince!
[Edited 1/19/10 18:10pm]

this is an opinion-type thread...right???

This may be a bold statement but hey why not, Zappa may well have been more prolific than P but I think (and this is in no way automatically a good thing) but I think P song for song is probably more commercially prolific maybe who knows just adding my thoughts.

I think it depends on what we mean by prolific. If we mean by releasing music, doesn't Zappa have the edge?


If we mean by recording music, I'm not sure we'll have an answer until the vault is finally openned.

My guess is that Prince hasn't slowed down one single bit. He's probably recording as much stuff as he's ever recorded, but just not releasing it.

If you compare their musical output. I guess Zappa's more prolific. he sometimes put out 3 or 4 albums a year. There's still more Zappa music than Prince music out there.
And yes I do care about Zappa's vault. He also recorded everything he ever did, live shows, different takes, classical music, rock, doo wop, the list goes on and on.

Frank Zappa and Prince - two prolific geniuses!

But what about other musicians who may not be as well known. Wesley Willis, despite his mental disorder, was known to be EXTREMELY prolific.

And just because Zappa and Prince recorded their music, what about people that write a song and never record it (or write it on paper)?

I could write a song today on the guitar, then tomorrow write another one. By Friday I could play you 5 songs I wrote this week. Pretty prolific, huh? Yes, but I didn't record any of them. I didn't write them down. I don't have to. Big difference between you and me.

What about all the Francis L's of the world that don't write em down? Can't rule them out as not being prolific.

this thread is turning into a quantity over quality argument.

Whom would I choose 2 listen 2 on a regular basis? Prince.

IMO who is more prolific??? Easy...Prince.

He's referred to as a modern day Mozart for a reason...

2020 said:

You don't know what prolific means, do you?

He's not referred to as a modern day Mozart....not in a good 10 years or more. If he's not about his past, then how can anyone acknowledge some quote about him back then?

DesireeNevermind said:

And it should be about QUANTITY, which is what "prolific" refers to - the AMOUNT of work in a period of time.

DesireeNevermind said:

at the quality department Zappa also scores higher than Prince. Zappa was way more consistent with the quality of his recorded output.

I hope Prince wakes up one day and remembers his muse...

starbuck said:

Hmmmm... that's debatable. I don't necessarily disagree, but it's certainly not fact.

While we're on the topic of prolificity, let's not forget Miles Davis. He's another cat who put out at least one album a year from 1950-1985 - not to mention a shite load of recordings as a sideman in the five years prior. He also toured more or less his entire adult life meaning a shite load of live albums and bootlegs.

Can you really go past Sun Ra?

"Who?" you ask....

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...iscography


Swa

Late to the party.
My vote's for FZ.