jackson35 said:

I said the band has made important contributions to his music. i said nothing about his lyrics. cystral ball is not a good example of showing how muti talented prince is. stevie wonder and other musicians back in the day didn't need to play 27 instruments because it was not a requirement to do so. prince had to do this because in 1978, he did'nt have a big budget to pay people to make the kind of music that he wanted on his album. this has to do with ego and being stingy, there are a lot of talented session men and women that could have made prince's albums a classic, instead he turns down maurice white to do it all by himself. prince has admitted that he is guilty of not giving andre cymone the credit that he deserved in kickstarting the punk image in dirty mind and the music.how many of you knew that lisa coleman recorded the music for the time's first album and andre cymone came up with the image. but if you read any bio on the time, all you see is prince, prince prince.

Charmin.

not even close. He is no Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Madonna, James Brown, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Garth Brooks, Elton John, Billy Joel, Monkees, The Who, Hendrix, Joplin or Diana Ross just to name a FEW.

Lets see..

He only had 6 number one singles in this time frame. BOTH Michael Jackson AND Madonna had way more than 6 number ones in their ten year run AND they sold more albums. If you look at the other artists it really gets ugly for Prince. Prince no doubt had a good run but biased aside his work just doesnt stack up to the others as far as saying best ever by an artist. Yes Prince flooded the market with releases but other than 1999 and Purple Rain albums the rest were not exactly blockbuster albums. They were all very spotty and the sales and hits show it. Now Prince IS my favorite artist but he is not the greatest. In fact as much as I like him I find that I really don't like most of his albums. They all contain some great tracks but their are not too many killer albums to me copared to his output of cds. With other artists who really take their time I find that I really enjoy their albums in full more than P's. BUT when P is on he is great but he can really put out a bunch of crap too. Just my opinion. Im not trying to dog out P. He really is my favorite and his accomplishments are fantastic!! I just dont let my biased take over reality.

we are talking about music, not image. Music wise he has done most of the work, lyrics, guitar work etc. Ofcourse wendy and lisa did write some magical songs with him- Computer Blue, 17 days, mountains, sometimes it snows in april etc are they deserve credit for it. But the most of the rest was prince. The point trevor was trying to make was that prince was insecure in using better drummers than himself and that he couldnt play complicated beats and you agreed with him. Well crystal ball does show that he is multi talented and those are some complicated beats, and he has never had any problem using better drummers than himself.

dandeeland, we are talking about musical output, not number of albums sold or number one singles. Madonna is nowhere near the artist prince is, come on. Rihanna has several number one hits, does that make her better than prince? And his output between 79-88 was very consistent. Ofcourse there was filler but there were plenty of gems. And neither MJ or Madonna come close to his level of output I mean i like Mj, he has off the wall, thriller, bad and dangerous. These four albums are arguably as good as Dirty Mind, COntroversy, 1999 and Purple rain. However that is where the comparison ends. Outside of this, mj only has history and invincible. Prince has sott, parade, 3121, around the world in a day, prince (1979), love symbol, gold experience etc. Its not even close.

Yes his best work does stack up very well. Maybe you dont like most of his albums but alot of us here do. I am not crazy about lovesexy and around the world in a day (although they have some good songs) but most of the rest of his work between 79-88 is terrefic. Not to mention the b sides, stuff he wrote for others, unreleased material etc

Oh and if you are talking about hits, prince actually wrote more top 10 hits than either MJ or madonna.

hhhhdmt said:

we are talking about music, not image. Music wise he has done most of the work, lyrics, guitar work etc. Ofcourse wendy and lisa did write some magical songs with him- Computer Blue, 17 days, mountains, sometimes it snows in april etc are they deserve credit for it. But the most of the rest was prince. The point trevor was trying to make was that prince was insecure in using better drummers than himself and that he couldnt play complicated beats and you agreed with him. Well crystal ball does show that he is multi talented and those are some complicated beats, and he has never had any problem using better drummers than himself.

hhhhdmt I think the problem here is that you dont known a lot about the history of prince in terms of his musical ability. where are you getting your info from? his liner notes? bias bio from writer who dont know how to do proper research. did you known that wendy was the musical director of the band ? prince was not the one teaching the band their parts in how to play music that he recorded. It was wendy. after wendy it was sheila e. after her it was levi seacer jr. today it is morris haynes who is prince's musical director for the welcome to americia tour. prince does not known enough about music to be given these type of accolades.

jackson35 said:

hhhhdmt said:

we are talking about music, not image. Music wise he has done most of the work, lyrics, guitar work etc. Ofcourse wendy and lisa did write some magical songs with him- Computer Blue, 17 days, mountains, sometimes it snows in april etc are they deserve credit for it. But the most of the rest was prince. The point trevor was trying to make was that prince was insecure in using better drummers than himself and that he couldnt play complicated beats and you agreed with him. Well crystal ball does show that he is multi talented and those are some complicated beats, and he has never had any problem using better drummers than himself.

hhhhdmt I think the problem here is that you dont known a lot about the history of prince in terms of his musical ability. where are you getting your info from? his liner notes? bias bio from writer who dont know how to do proper research. did you known that wendy was the musical director of the band ? prince was not the one teaching the band their parts in how to play music that he recorded. It was wendy. after wendy it was sheila e. after her it was levi seacer jr. today it is morris haynes who is prince's musical director for the welcome to americia tour. prince does not known enough about music to be given these type of accolades.

the problem with you are that not only are you clueless, you are also making things up. Prince knows plenty about music, otherwise he wouldnt have written so many good songs and played different instruments. Unlike you, who agreed with trevors post that prince couldnt play complicated beats, and you were owned on that one. Prince doesnt need to teach his band to play music, they are hired musicians, they are supposed to have those skills.

jackson35 said:

hhhhdmt said:

we are talking about music, not image. Music wise he has done most of the work, lyrics, guitar work etc. Ofcourse wendy and lisa did write some magical songs with him- Computer Blue, 17 days, mountains, sometimes it snows in april etc are they deserve credit for it. But the most of the rest was prince. The point trevor was trying to make was that prince was insecure in using better drummers than himself and that he couldnt play complicated beats and you agreed with him. Well crystal ball does show that he is multi talented and those are some complicated beats, and he has never had any problem using better drummers than himself.

hhhhdmt I think the problem here is that you dont known a lot about the history of prince in terms of his musical ability. where are you getting your info from? his liner notes? bias bio from writer who dont know how to do proper research. did you known that wendy was the musical director of the band ? prince was not the one teaching the band their parts in how to play music that he recorded. It was wendy. after wendy it was sheila e. after her it was levi seacer jr. today it is morris haynes who is prince's musical director for the welcome to americia tour. prince does not known enough about music to be given these type of accolades.

Can the org perform a BRAIN check?

hhhhdmt said:

we are talking about music, not image. Music wise he has done most of the work, lyrics, guitar work etc. Ofcourse wendy and lisa did write some magical songs with him- Computer Blue, 17 days, mountains, sometimes it snows in april etc are they deserve credit for it. But the most of the rest was prince. The point trevor was trying to make was that prince was insecure in using better drummers than himself and that he couldnt play complicated beats and you agreed with him. Well crystal ball does show that he is multi talented and those are some complicated beats, and he has never had any problem using better drummers than himself.

Just to clear things up .. I never said Prince could not play complicated beats .. I said that Stevie Wonder drumming blows Prince drumming out of the water and Stevie Wonder writes way better songs and most songwriting musicians can play drums and keyboards and bass and all the other keyboard buttons that Prince presses to make different sounds that he then credits as an instruments Prince can play, they just don't on their records because they have a band that can do it better. I am well aware of Tamborine and Crystal Ball and IMPLIED that MOST of his drumming consists of some pretty lame drum machine beats. Technically speaking.

My main Point, since you keep ignoring it, was that Prince tends to write with collaborators and then once he gets his ideas from said collaborators .. goes into the studio and plays all the instruments himself instead of inviting his band in to play and be part of the record. It was only when prince realized and accepted that his band made the music sound better that he included the live tracks on Purple Rain his best and most popular record. But prior and after, there is no doubt that Prince struggled with his EGO and IMAGE as a genius who could do it all and CHOSE not to allow the people who contributed to writing the music to play so that he could credit it all to himself. That does not make him a super genius multi instrumentalist. It makes him a bit of a theif and an asshole boss who treats his bandmates like work for hire with no intellectual ownership of their own ideas.

Dream Factory and Sign are good examples of Prince ego being more important than the notion of allowing his collaborators to shine after working so hard to prop up Prince. I'd say Rosie Gaines is another example of Prince being somewhat upstaged (in his own mind) and choosing to treat a collobarator poorly as a result. Instead Prince gives Tony M 2 full records to puke all over and Rosie gets left behind. I'm not saying PRince is a talentless hack .. but you cannot elevate his status just because he claims to play instruments that most songwriters can play as competently. And you cannot act like he does it all himself when he had an outstanding team of uncredited collaborators that helped him make his best music, of which we are considering for the titile of "greatest decade by an artist in history". I don't think he is the greatest, tho he is one of the greatest and I argue that the excuses given as to why he is better than the artists I listed simply do not stick. Prince does not do it all on his own by a long shot, his songs aren't "better" than the beatles or stevie or dylan or marley or numerous others, and every musician is as prolific as prince, they just don't have the "prolific" label as their main marketing point, and Prince is not that great on guitar or bass or drums .. he's ok usually with sometimes great thrown in. Where as others are mindblowingly great all the time .. like a stevie on keyboards, a hendrix on guitar, a cohen lyrically etc .... and its still very sad how bad prince music is when all his ex-friends aren't around to make his songs listenable ...

[Edited 5/24/11 5:55am]

Two bands: The Beatles and Led Zeppelin.

TheFreakerFantastic said:

Indeed.

TrevorAyer said:

hhhhdmt said:

we are talking about music, not image. Music wise he has done most of the work, lyrics, guitar work etc. Ofcourse wendy and lisa did write some magical songs with him- Computer Blue, 17 days, mountains, sometimes it snows in april etc are they deserve credit for it. But the most of the rest was prince. The point trevor was trying to make was that prince was insecure in using better drummers than himself and that he couldnt play complicated beats and you agreed with him. Well crystal ball does show that he is multi talented and those are some complicated beats, and he has never had any problem using better drummers than himself.

Just to clear things up .. I never said Prince could not play complicated beats .. I said that Stevie Wonder drumming blows Prince drumming out of the water and Stevie Wonder writes way better songs and most songwriting musicians can play drums and keyboards and bass and all the other keyboard buttons that Prince presses to make different sounds that he then credits as an instruments Prince can play, they just don't on their records because they have a band that can do it better. I am well aware of Tamborine and Crystal Ball and IMPLIED that MOST of his drumming consists of some pretty lame drum machine beats. Technically speaking.

My main Point, since you keep ignoring it, was that Prince tends to write with collaborators and then once he gets his ideas from said collaborators .. goes into the studio and plays all the instruments himself instead of inviting his band in to play and be part of the record. It was only when prince realized and accepted that his band made the music sound better that he included the live tracks on Purple Rain his best and most popular record. But prior and after, there is no doubt that Prince struggled with his EGO and IMAGE as a genius who could do it all and CHOSE not to allow the people who contributed to writing the music to play so that he could credit it all to himself. That does not make him a super genius multi instrumentalist. It makes him a bit of a theif and an asshole boss who treats his bandmates like work for hire with no intellectual ownership of their own ideas.

Dream Factory and Sign are good examples of Prince ego being more important than the notion of allowing his collaborators to shine after working so hard to prop up Prince. I'd say Rosie Gaines is another example of Prince being somewhat upstaged (in his own mind) and choosing to treat a collobarator poorly as a result. Instead Prince gives Tony M 2 full records to puke all over and Rosie gets left behind. I'm not saying PRince is a talentless hack .. but you cannot elevate his status just because he claims to play instruments that most songwriters can play as competently. And you cannot act like he does it all himself when he had an outstanding team of uncredited collaborators that helped him make his best music, of which we are considering for the titile of "greatest decade by an artist in history". I don't think he is the greatest, tho he is one of the greatest and I argue that the excuses given as to why he is better than the artists I listed simply do not stick. Prince does not do it all on his own by a long shot, his songs aren't "better" than the beatles or stevie or dylan or marley or numerous others, and every musician is as prolific as prince, they just don't have the "prolific" label as their main marketing point, and Prince is not that great on guitar or bass or drums .. he's ok usually with sometimes great thrown in. Where as others are mindblowingly great all the time .. like a stevie on keyboards, a hendrix on guitar, a cohen lyrically etc .... and its still very sad how bad prince music is when all his ex-friends aren't around to make his songs listenable ...

[Edited 5/24/11 5:55am]

You said that prince used drum machines out of insecurity and you were proven wrong on it. Again you are giving his band members waayy too much credit considering they didnt even write most of the songs. Yes prince is that great on the guitar and very good on drums, piano and bass. Please name me all these amazing multi instrumentalists that play as well as prince, i would love to hear their names

Stevie wonders drumming does not blow prince's out of the water. Stevie is a fine drummer, maybe a bit better than prince, but he isnt the dennis chambers that you are making him out to be

Again most artists are at their best in their 20's. Stevie wonder, for example, has not released an album in years and is that because of his band members too? You have provided no evidence whatsoever that his bandmates wrote stuff that he took credit for, you are quite frankly making it up.

Purple rain is his most popular album, doesnt mean its his best. Every hit on the album was a prince composition. 1999 is arguably just as good as purple rain. Drum machines suited his sound, it had nothing and nothing to do with insecurity. Prince did use andre cymone on 1999, lisa etc, so much for the insecurity.

Claiming that most songwriters play multiple instruments as competently as prince is nothing short of laughable. They do not. Its prince who has written most of his best songs and not his bandmates. You dont like his recent output, we get it. But virtually no artist makes better music in their 50's than they do in their 20's. You wont see stevie wonder matching his peak output anytime soon.

and its your opinion that his recent music is not listenable. Wendy and lisa and his band members didnt make his music great, he did because he wrote most of it himself. Just because some trolls on this site repeat these ridicolous claims that his band members were the geniuses behind his work (they were not and they themselves would laugh at such a notion) doesnt mean its true. I happen to think 3121 is excellent and Lotus3flowr is very good. The fact is he is making better music than most artists his age who have either stopped making music or rarely release albums.

if wendy and lisa and the other songwriting "geniuses" joined prince again, you wont see prince matching his 80's output. Thats because most artist make their best music in their 20's when they are young, motivated and full of ideas. Thats because they were not orignally responsible for most of the material in the first place. His former band members would laugh at these posts if they read it themselves

[Edited 5/24/11 8:11am]

Um, Beatles...

hhhhdmt said:

if wendy and lisa and the other songwriting "geniuses" joined prince again, you wont see prince matching his 80's output. Thats because most artist make their best music in their 20's when they are young, motivated and full of ideas. Thats because they were not orignally responsible for most of the material in the first place. His former band members would laugh at these posts if they read it themselves

[Edited 5/24/11 8:11am]

They do laugh............and so does Prince.

Major78 said:

From 1978-88 I feel that Prince has the greatest output of any artist in any 10 year period in music history. I want anyone to challenge this claim, put anyone up against him. Albums, Singles, B-sides, Outtakes, Bootlegs, Side projects, Movies, Performances, Tours, Lyrics, Musicianship, Cultural Influence, Sales, Producing other artists, whatever you can come up with. There is no one anywhere in music history that comes close to Prince. Agree or disagree and why?

You'll get no disagreement from me but, I feel / believe his music there after the first 10yrs is just as good, from my point of view.

I absolutely LOVE this decade of Prince's music..

BUT, what the BEATLES did in from '62 - "70 is unmatched by any artist....

hhhhdmt said:

TrevorAyer said:

Just to clear things up .. I never said Prince could not play complicated beats .. I said that Stevie Wonder drumming blows Prince drumming out of the water and Stevie Wonder writes way better songs and most songwriting musicians can play drums and keyboards and bass and all the other keyboard buttons that Prince presses to make different sounds that he then credits as an instruments Prince can play, they just don't on their records because they have a band that can do it better. I am well aware of Tamborine and Crystal Ball and IMPLIED that MOST of his drumming consists of some pretty lame drum machine beats. Technically speaking.

My main Point, since you keep ignoring it, was that Prince tends to write with collaborators and then once he gets his ideas from said collaborators .. goes into the studio and plays all the instruments himself instead of inviting his band in to play and be part of the record. It was only when prince realized and accepted that his band made the music sound better that he included the live tracks on Purple Rain his best and most popular record. But prior and after, there is no doubt that Prince struggled with his EGO and IMAGE as a genius who could do it all and CHOSE not to allow the people who contributed to writing the music to play so that he could credit it all to himself. That does not make him a super genius multi instrumentalist. It makes him a bit of a theif and an asshole boss who treats his bandmates like work for hire with no intellectual ownership of their own ideas.

Dream Factory and Sign are good examples of Prince ego being more important than the notion of allowing his collaborators to shine after working so hard to prop up Prince. I'd say Rosie Gaines is another example of Prince being somewhat upstaged (in his own mind) and choosing to treat a collobarator poorly as a result. Instead Prince gives Tony M 2 full records to puke all over and Rosie gets left behind. I'm not saying PRince is a talentless hack .. but you cannot elevate his status just because he claims to play instruments that most songwriters can play as competently. And you cannot act like he does it all himself when he had an outstanding team of uncredited collaborators that helped him make his best music, of which we are considering for the titile of "greatest decade by an artist in history". I don't think he is the greatest, tho he is one of the greatest and I argue that the excuses given as to why he is better than the artists I listed simply do not stick. Prince does not do it all on his own by a long shot, his songs aren't "better" than the beatles or stevie or dylan or marley or numerous others, and every musician is as prolific as prince, they just don't have the "prolific" label as their main marketing point, and Prince is not that great on guitar or bass or drums .. he's ok usually with sometimes great thrown in. Where as others are mindblowingly great all the time .. like a stevie on keyboards, a hendrix on guitar, a cohen lyrically etc .... and its still very sad how bad prince music is when all his ex-friends aren't around to make his songs listenable ...

[Edited 5/24/11 5:55am]

You said that prince used drum machines out of insecurity and you were proven wrong on it. Again you are giving his band members waayy too much credit considering they didnt even write most of the songs. Yes prince is that great on the guitar and very good on drums, piano and bass. Please name me all these amazing multi instrumentalists that play as well as prince, i would love to hear their names

Stevie wonders drumming does not blow prince's out of the water. Stevie is a fine drummer, maybe a bit better than prince, but he isnt the dennis chambers that you are making him out to be

Again most artists are at their best in their 20's. Stevie wonder, for example, has not released an album in years and is that because of his band members too? You have provided no evidence whatsoever that his bandmates wrote stuff that he took credit for, you are quite frankly making it up.

Purple rain is his most popular album, doesnt mean its his best. Every hit on the album was a prince composition. 1999 is arguably just as good as purple rain. Drum machines suited his sound, it had nothing and nothing to do with insecurity. Prince did use andre cymone on 1999, lisa etc, so much for the insecurity.

Claiming that most songwriters play multiple instruments as competently as prince is nothing short of laughable. They do not. Its prince who has written most of his best songs and not his bandmates. You dont like his recent output, we get it. But virtually no artist makes better music in their 50's than they do in their 20's. You wont see stevie wonder matching his peak output anytime soon.

what?? hhhmmbtbt??? u keep saying i said (or wrote) things that i did not say or write. prince didn't play drums out of "insecurity" .. he played all the instruments himself to maintain an image of boy genius who writes and records everything himself .. often at the expense of those who contributed to the music .. u can go on believing prince only had help with 2 songs (this is laughable) but its your delusion to do what u will with .. and you greatly overrate prince skills as a musician .. MOST songwriters dabble in piano bass guitar drums .. which is all that prince can really play .. never seen or heard him play anything else competently .. what he plays on those instruments is at best unimpressive as a virtuoso .. all the parts on the records are simple and post WB very very boring .. pre WB split it was alway simple stuff .. even his guitar playing on record is some of the most simple guitar parts ever .. its not like he can hang with hendrix, beck, santana, page, eddie van halen or santana or numerous others .. he cant .. he sounds like a boring session musician compared to them .. he is no virtuoso and should not be treated as such .. sure he hits a good metal run in the middle of the same blues solo he plays in the middle of every song he jams .. but thats about it .. its super rare that he does anything that impressive on guitar or keyboards or bass .. he does write good bass lines tho .. i'll give him that .. but so do many others and better ..

I don't see how I was proven wrong about something I didn't say or otherwise .. even if that was my point .. how is it PROVEN wrong?

I am happy u love prince so much .. I think he's done some great stuff ... best of all time .. NO WAY not by a long shot.

hhhhdmt said:

dandeeland, we are talking about musical output, not number of albums sold or number one singles. Madonna is nowhere near the artist prince is, come on. Rihanna has several number one hits, does that make her better than prince? And his output between 79-88 was very consistent. Ofcourse there was filler but there were plenty of gems. And neither MJ or Madonna come close to his level of output I mean i like Mj, he has off the wall, thriller, bad and dangerous. These four albums are arguably as good as Dirty Mind, COntroversy, 1999 and Purple rain. However that is where the comparison ends. Outside of this, mj only has history and invincible. Prince has sott, parade, 3121, around the world in a day, prince (1979), love symbol, gold experience etc. Its not even close.

Yes his best work does stack up very well. Maybe you dont like most of his albums but alot of us here do. I am not crazy about lovesexy and around the world in a day (although they have some good songs) but most of the rest of his work between 79-88 is terrefic. Not to mention the b sides, stuff he wrote for others, unreleased material etc

Oh and if you are talking about hits, prince actually wrote more top 10 hits than either MJ or madonna.

The fact that any of this had to be explained is puzzling... clearly we are talking about the massive amount of ground that Prince covered in those years. His commercial success is component however we are clearly talking about being an artist.

I have seen a couple of people mention David Bowie... but my goodness did Bowie during his decade cover the kind of ground Prince did? I mean the dude simply could not be nailed down. We are talking about an artist who wrote songs like Head, The Cross, Controversy, LRC, HouseQuake, She’s Always in My Hair, Purple Rain, the Ballad of Dorothy Parker, Adore, Raspberry Beret and When Doves Cry. Who are we kidding. We won't ever see another artist to that

Prince covered a tremendous amount of ground and he did it quite well. It is still shocking and it’s precisely why is recognized by musicians as a musicians musician

Love MJ & Madonna but even they (knew in MJs case) know what’s up.

Beyonce has won more Grammys than Prince... I guess she has made more of an impact too?

The output and quality of the material put out by Prince between Dirty Mind and Lovesexy we will simply never seen anything like that again

It is simply breath taking... how rapidly he matured and good he became

hhhhdmt said:

and its your opinion that his recent music is not listenable. Wendy and lisa and his band members didnt make his music great, he did because he wrote most of it himself. Just because some trolls on this site repeat these ridicolous claims that his band members were the geniuses behind his work (they were not and they themselves would laugh at such a notion) doesnt mean its true. I happen to think 3121 is excellent and Lotus3flowr is very good. The fact is he is making better music than most artists his age who have either stopped making music or rarely release albums.

if wendy and lisa and the other songwriting "geniuses" joined prince again, you wont see prince matching his 80's output. Thats because most artist make their best music in their 20's when they are young, motivated and full of ideas. Thats because they were not orignally responsible for most of the material in the first place. His former band members would laugh at these posts if they read it themselves

[Edited 5/24/11 8:11am]

prince best music credited or uncredited came with the help an influence of others .. his worst work came after his best collaborators were no longer around ... if prince is such a great genius why not put out JUST ONE song that can stand next to his WB greats .. JUST ONE ... not asking for a whole record or anything .. just something with a spark that doesn't sound like a rehash of every other song he allegedly already wrote .. why no new ORIGINAL ideas if he came up with all that good stuff ALL BY HIMSELF? Can "age" really be the excuse for 20 years of pure crap, not even close to prince former greatness .. I don't think its all about age at all. Listen to that new boot that is out with roadhouse garden and all that good stuff on it and tell me that his band was not rediculously talented .. they were .. I don't believe for a second that they didn't work on songs together .. and I do believe, because it happens all the time in the record biz, that prince did not credit them as much as he should have .. Dez solo on LRC was listed as one of the best of all time .. Mountains was written in a group jam .. as was Dirty Mind .. LIsa did the strings on Rasberry Beret and Bobby Z is primarily responsible for KIss being the only reason Parade was not a flop .. Kiss a throw away that Prince saw nothing in ... I could go on .. you could to .. I'm sure u know deep down the reality is prince comes up with decent ideas, left to his own devices he often ruins them .. with the right people around they turn into rediculously awesome pieces of music that are timeless .. with the wrong people around we get shit that makes Milli Vanilli sound good.

TrevorAyer said:

hhhhdmt said:

and its your opinion that his recent music is not listenable. Wendy and lisa and his band members didnt make his music great, he did because he wrote most of it himself. Just because some trolls on this site repeat these ridicolous claims that his band members were the geniuses behind his work (they were not and they themselves would laugh at such a notion) doesnt mean its true. I happen to think 3121 is excellent and Lotus3flowr is very good. The fact is he is making better music than most artists his age who have either stopped making music or rarely release albums.

if wendy and lisa and the other songwriting "geniuses" joined prince again, you wont see prince matching his 80's output. Thats because most artist make their best music in their 20's when they are young, motivated and full of ideas. Thats because they were not orignally responsible for most of the material in the first place. His former band members would laugh at these posts if they read it themselves

[Edited 5/24/11 8:11am]

prince best music credited or uncredited came with the help an influence of others .. his worst work came after his best collaborators were no longer around ... if prince is such a great genius why not put out JUST ONE song that can stand next to his WB greats .. JUST ONE ... not asking for a whole record or anything .. just something with a spark that doesn't sound like a rehash of every other song he allegedly already wrote .. why no new ORIGINAL ideas if he came up with all that good stuff ALL BY HIMSELF?

So I guess u have not been listening the last few years.

Btw.........where is this great material from those folks that MADE Prince? I'd like 2 hear it ALL.

The Rainbow Children

Exodus

Gold

NEWS

3121.........................

[Edited 5/24/11 10:57am]

TrevorAyer said:

hhhhdmt said:

You said that prince used drum machines out of insecurity and you were proven wrong on it. Again you are giving his band members waayy too much credit considering they didnt even write most of the songs. Yes prince is that great on the guitar and very good on drums, piano and bass. Please name me all these amazing multi instrumentalists that play as well as prince, i would love to hear their names

Stevie wonders drumming does not blow prince's out of the water. Stevie is a fine drummer, maybe a bit better than prince, but he isnt the dennis chambers that you are making him out to be

Again most artists are at their best in their 20's. Stevie wonder, for example, has not released an album in years and is that because of his band members too? You have provided no evidence whatsoever that his bandmates wrote stuff that he took credit for, you are quite frankly making it up.

Purple rain is his most popular album, doesnt mean its his best. Every hit on the album was a prince composition. 1999 is arguably just as good as purple rain. Drum machines suited his sound, it had nothing and nothing to do with insecurity. Prince did use andre cymone on 1999, lisa etc, so much for the insecurity.

Claiming that most songwriters play multiple instruments as competently as prince is nothing short of laughable. They do not. Its prince who has written most of his best songs and not his bandmates. You dont like his recent output, we get it. But virtually no artist makes better music in their 50's than they do in their 20's. You wont see stevie wonder matching his peak output anytime soon.

what?? hhhmmbtbt??? u keep saying i said (or wrote) things that i did not say or write. prince didn't play drums out of "insecurity" .. he played all the instruments himself to maintain an image of boy genius who writes and records everything himself .. often at the expense of those who contributed to the music .. u can go on believing prince only had help with 2 songs (this is laughable) but its your delusion to do what u will with .. and you greatly overrate prince skills as a musician .. MOST songwriters dabble in piano bass guitar drums .. which is all that prince can really play .. never seen or heard him play anything else competently .. what he plays on those instruments is at best unimpressive as a virtuoso .. all the parts on the records are simple and post WB very very boring .. pre WB split it was alway simple stuff .. even his guitar playing on record is some of the most simple guitar parts ever .. its not like he can hang with hendrix, beck, santana, page, eddie van halen or santana or numerous others .. he cant .. he sounds like a boring session musician compared to them .. he is no virtuoso and should not be treated as such .. sure he hits a good metal run in the middle of the same blues solo he plays in the middle of every song he jams .. but thats about it .. its super rare that he does anything that impressive on guitar or keyboards or bass .. he does write good bass lines tho .. i'll give him that .. but so do many others and better ..

I don't see how I was proven wrong about something I didn't say or otherwise .. even if that was my point .. how is it PROVEN wrong?

I am happy u love prince so much .. I think he's done some great stuff ... best of all time .. NO WAY not by a long shot.

Cmplete nonsense. Then again this is coming from someone who thinks sting should be rated higher

He is not a virtuso on any instrument but he is an amazing multi instrumentalist. I asked you to name me many multi instrumentalists on his level and you did not do so because there arent many guys who are MI's on his level

A boring session player? Prince is easily among the top 100 or so greatest guitarist or atleast among the top 500. Besides guys like van halen deicated most of their time on one instrument whereas prince has spent alot of time on instruments other than the guitar.

Please stop this nonsense of "often at the expense of others". he has written most of his best songs by himself.

You havent seen him play anything competently? Well he does play guitar, bass, piano and drums all at a pro level. You dont have to be a virtuso at an instrument to play it at a professional level. Virtusos are extremely skilled at their instrument while pros are skilled. Not every pro is a virtuso at their respective instrument, that doesnt mean they are not good at it.

Oh and even as a guitarist he can certainly hang in with the guys you mentioned. Sure there are better players than him but he is pretty amazing himself- especially as a rhythm player. Plus he is a pretty versatile player too. Go listen to lotus3flwr, just my imagination from the bootleg, fury on snl or the rock and roll hall of fame performance and then tell me he cannot play. Even many non prince fans consider him a great guitarist, and yet you simply dismiss him as a session player.

Prince did not play "all" the instruments to maintain an image of a boy genius. He let andre play "little red corvette", did he not? Lisa and Dr Fink played on dirty mind. You are simply making things up.m

The fact that you think there are many multi instrumentalists on prince's level shows how clueless you are. The fact that you think he is a boring session guitar player (whereas even many rock fans who are not prince fans were amazed by his guitar skills at the rock and roll hall of fame) shows further cluelessness. And claiming that he played all the instruments out of insecurity is a balant lie. Not to mention exxagerating the songwriting of his band members and claiming the wrote more than they actually did

I stand by my comment. His output between 1979-88 is among the best in pop/rock music history, if not the very best.

TrevorAyer said:

hhhhdmt said:

and its your opinion that his recent music is not listenable. Wendy and lisa and his band members didnt make his music great, he did because he wrote most of it himself. Just because some trolls on this site repeat these ridicolous claims that his band members were the geniuses behind his work (they were not and they themselves would laugh at such a notion) doesnt mean its true. I happen to think 3121 is excellent and Lotus3flowr is very good. The fact is he is making better music than most artists his age who have either stopped making music or rarely release albums.

if wendy and lisa and the other songwriting "geniuses" joined prince again, you wont see prince matching his 80's output. Thats because most artist make their best music in their 20's when they are young, motivated and full of ideas. Thats because they were not orignally responsible for most of the material in the first place. His former band members would laugh at these posts if they read it themselves

[Edited 5/24/11 8:11am]

prince best music credited or uncredited came with the help an influence of others .. his worst work came after his best collaborators were no longer around ... if prince is such a great genius why not put out JUST ONE song that can stand next to his WB greats .. JUST ONE ... not asking for a whole record or anything .. just something with a spark that doesn't sound like a rehash of every other song he allegedly already wrote .. why no new ORIGINAL ideas if he came up with all that good stuff ALL BY HIMSELF? Can "age" really be the excuse for 20 years of pure crap, not even close to prince former greatness .. I don't think its all about age at all. Listen to that new boot that is out with roadhouse garden and all that good stuff on it and tell me that his band was not rediculously talented .. they were .. I don't believe for a second that they didn't work on songs together .. and I do believe, because it happens all the time in the record biz, that prince did not credit them as much as he should have .. Dez solo on LRC was listed as one of the best of all time .. Mountains was written in a group jam .. as was Dirty Mind .. LIsa did the strings on Rasberry Beret and Bobby Z is primarily responsible for KIss being the only reason Parade was not a flop .. Kiss a throw away that Prince saw nothing in ... I could go on .. you could to .. I'm sure u know deep down the reality is prince comes up with decent ideas, left to his own devices he often ruins them .. with the right people around they turn into rediculously awesome pieces of music that are timeless .. with the wrong people around we get shit that makes Milli Vanilli sound good.

you have zero evidence for this so called uncredited work. Most artists are at their peak in their 20's, plain and simple as that. They did work on some songs and they were credited for them- like mountains and computer blue. It just happens so that prince wrote most of the songs himself,and his band members would tell you that himself. You are very good at making stuff up but it doesnt change the reality is that most of his best work is him and only him.

Lisa did the strings on rb? Wow amazing, but its still a prince composition. And prince can easily play the lrc solo just as well as dez could.

DaveG said:

I absolutely LOVE this decade of Prince's music..

BUT, what the BEATLES did in from '62 - "70 is unmatched by any artist....

It's really, really perplexing and scary how much they were able to do from the beginning to the end in this short period. And all sounding different, and consistently hitting home run songs with pop cultural acceptance and critical acceptance.

dandeeland said:

not even close. He is no Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Madonna, James Brown, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Garth Brooks, Elton John, Billy Joel, Monkees, The Who, Hendrix, Joplin or Diana Ross just to name a FEW.

Lets see..

He only had 6 number one singles in this time frame. BOTH Michael Jackson AND Madonna had way more than 6 number ones in their ten year run AND they sold more albums. If you look at the other artists it really gets ugly for Prince. Prince no doubt had a good run but biased aside his work just doesnt stack up to the others as far as saying best ever by an artist. Yes Prince flooded the market with releases but other than 1999 and Purple Rain albums the rest were not exactly blockbuster albums. They were all very spotty and the sales and hits show it. Now Prince IS my favorite artist but he is not the greatest. In fact as much as I like him I find that I really don't like most of his albums. They all contain some great tracks but their are not too many killer albums to me copared to his output of cds. With other artists who really take their time I find that I really enjoy their albums in full more than P's. BUT when P is on he is great but he can really put out a bunch of crap too. Just my opinion. Im not trying to dog out P. He really is my favorite and his accomplishments are fantastic!! I just dont let my biased take over reality.

According to the most recent VH1 100 greatest artists of all time Prince is #7 and Elvis #8

10 Stevie Wonder
09 James Brown
08 Elvis Presley
07 Prince
06 Jimi Hendrix
05 Bob Dylan
04 Rolling Stones
03 Led Zeppelin
02 Michael Jackson
01 The Beatles

- Voting was conducted by Shugoll Research. The list was determined by a poll of musicians and music experts. Over 200 artists voted including Alicia Keys, Diddy, Ozzy Osbourne and Carrie Underwood, as well as members of U2, the Police, Metallica and Aerosmith.

for you to consider Madonna at the same level as Prince? Are you joking? And Garth Brooks/Monkees? Now that's just funny

1993 said:

dandeeland said:

not even close. He is no Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Madonna, James Brown, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Garth Brooks, Elton John, Billy Joel, Monkees, The Who, Hendrix, Joplin or Diana Ross just to name a FEW.

Lets see..

He only had 6 number one singles in this time frame. BOTH Michael Jackson AND Madonna had way more than 6 number ones in their ten year run AND they sold more albums. If you look at the other artists it really gets ugly for Prince. Prince no doubt had a good run but biased aside his work just doesnt stack up to the others as far as saying best ever by an artist. Yes Prince flooded the market with releases but other than 1999 and Purple Rain albums the rest were not exactly blockbuster albums. They were all very spotty and the sales and hits show it. Now Prince IS my favorite artist but he is not the greatest. In fact as much as I like him I find that I really don't like most of his albums. They all contain some great tracks but their are not too many killer albums to me copared to his output of cds. With other artists who really take their time I find that I really enjoy their albums in full more than P's. BUT when P is on he is great but he can really put out a bunch of crap too. Just my opinion. Im not trying to dog out P. He really is my favorite and his accomplishments are fantastic!! I just dont let my biased take over reality.

According to the most recent VH1 100 greatest artists of all time Prince is #7 and Elvis #8

10 Stevie Wonder
09 James Brown
08 Elvis Presley
07 Prince
06 Jimi Hendrix
05 Bob Dylan
04 Rolling Stones
03 Led Zeppelin
02 Michael Jackson
01 The Beatles

- Voting was conducted by Shugoll Research. The list was determined by a poll of musicians and music experts. Over 200 artists voted including Alicia Keys, Diddy, Ozzy Osbourne and Carrie Underwood, as well as members of U2, the Police, Metallica and Aerosmith.

for you to consider Madonna at the same level as Prince? Are you joking? And Garth Brooks/Monkees? Now that's just funny

Oh Lord.

The truth of the matter is....

most people know about 5 Prince songs.......

JEDINATION said:

The truth of the matter is....

most people know about 5 Prince songs.......

Maybe in your world.

Graycap23 said:

JEDINATION said:

The truth of the matter is....

most people know about 5 Prince songs.......

Maybe in your world.

"Wrecka Stow" ?

[Edited 5/24/11 12:32pm]

Mr. Cap, what I meant by the "5 song" comment was just a observation on how P-Geeks tend to get "giddy" about the Purple Yoda and his place in music history.

JEDINATION said:

Mr. Cap, what I meant by the "5 song" comment was just a observation on how P-Geeks tend to get "giddy" about the Purple Yoda and his place in music history.

its irrelevant. Alot of people today couldnt name you 5 led zepp songs or 5 songs from other older artists, doesnt mean those artists werent any good