ChocolateBox3121 said:

ChocolateBox3121 said:

Camileyun said:

ChocolateBox3121 said:

“Think about it:

He grows up this poor black kid on a march to nowhere in a nowhere white town,

and when the news announces "Prince has died"

—there have been princes for 10,000 years,

there must be princes in Saudi Arabia and Europe and Africa right now—

nobody said "Prince who?"

The color purple has been part of the universe since the Big Bang.

Prince dies, they bathe global monuments in purple, nobody says,

"Why?"

I think from a racial point of view,

from a class point of view,

it's such a profound achievement.

You know,

this guy is the one genius

that every other genius says is a genius.

And he was able to pull that off.”

~ Van Jones~

Ugh..."nowhere white town", "class point of view"? I bristle anytime anyone invokes Van Jones when trying to make a point about Prince. VJ is a divider, Prince was a unifier.

You're obviously missing Van''s point.

ChocolateBox3121 said:

Camileyun said:

ChocolateBox3121 said: Ugh..."nowhere white town", "class point of view"? I bristle anytime anyone invokes Van Jones when trying to make a point about Prince. VJ is a divider, Prince was a unifier.

You're obviously missing Van''s point.

You know...it is entirely possible to get someone's point while disagreeing with it completely.

Genesia said:

ChocolateBox3121 said:

You're obviously missing Van''s point.

You know...it is entirely possible to get someone's point while disagreeing with it completely.

Not if U say U disagree with everything a person says concerning a particular someone.

ChocolateBox3121 said:

NorthC said:

we really are running out of things to talk about on this forum, aren't we?

is this the same thing as the Kennedy Center Honors? President Obama presented Carlos Santana with one of these medals awhile back

EmmaMcG said:

CherryMoon57 said:

You seem to forget that we are not discussing an award given to the most popular person in the world right now. This is not what this award is about and a brief look at the list of previous recipients of the award will immediately tell you that. With his musical stature, lifelong achievements and the impact he has had not only on the music scene but also in many people's lives, Prince stood just as high a chance as anyone else in the list. For you to say that he would not deserve it is absurd.

Did you read the description of the award and the criteria for who it is given to? Prince did nothing for the security of the United States and contributed nothing towards world peace. An argument could be made that he did contribute a cultural or other significant public work but the only thing he did that fits that description is Purple Rain. His other albums and movie projects were nowhere near that level of success. That's just a fact. Now, maybe in this day and age when morons give out medals and awards for "participation" rather than actual achievements, then yes, Prince could be given the Presidential Medal of Freedom. But if Prince gets it, then there's literally hundreds of people who are equally deserving so does every one of them get the medal too? I love Prince's music as much as anyone but to suggest he should be given every award going is ridiculous. There are many awards that he SHOULD have been given but wasn't. I don't think The Presidential Medal of Freedom is one of them.

Oh yes I did, and I even re-wrote it in my first post to you (reply #6). According to Wikipedia this award can be given to those who have distinguished themselves with a 'cultural or other significant public or private endeavors'.

There are other criteria but it can be one or the other not necessarily all of them. So even if Prince did not 'appear' to be a peace activist (I personally think he was), that would not have prevented him from being selected. Plus as many of us are now aware, he engaged in a lot of philantropic activities in the background. Again, the criteria considers the private activities, should these be meritable.

People like Alvin Ailey (dancer) and Diana Ross (singer) have both received this medal. And to get back to your initial argument, neither of them are popular with the younger generation, or internationally renowned for their world peace activism. Sadly Alvin had already passed when he was awarded the PMoF by Obama in 2014. (This is just to say that the person doesn't even have to be still alive when considered for the award, unlike what some of you have said in this thread. Although I doubt there are any hopes for Prince under the current presidency...)

Anyhoo, the real problem here is that you seem to contradict yourself a lot in this thread.

Despite:

- rushing to say in reply #1 that 'Prince didn't do anything to derserve' [the Presidential Medal of Freedom],

- claiming in #10 that Prince is really not that popular and even unknown to younger people and most people your generation,

- saying above that he didn't achieve anything significant other than 'Purple Rain' and even

- pretty much failed to promote his music (#15),

you then go on to describe how you (who are of the generation who doesn't know who Prince is) are a big Prince fan and that you bought every one of his albums (#24), including those you 'hate' (#25) .

Well, it sounds to me like either you are totally mad or Prince does deserve a medal after all!

CherryMoon57 said:

Mikado said:

Camileyun said:

Mikado said:

Obama was a big fan of Prince, and we know P performed at the White House for the first family, but why wasn't he awarded one of the highest honors in the U.S. - the Presidential Medal of Freedom?

Bruce Springsteen was - Aretha Franklin too, even Diana Ross was given the honor. Why not Prince?

Ask Obama. If you look at the extensive list of distinguished recipients awarded since JFK' s presidency (Chuck Yaeger, Duke Ellington, John Steinbeck, etc), one thing is pretty obvious. None of the recipients ever ran around in their skivies, humped pianos, and pleasured their guitars on stage (that we know of). The world was not necessarily ready for P back in the day or even today! It would be pretty funny running a montage of P back then just prior to him receiving his Presidential Medal of Freedom (freedom would take on a whole new meaning)! In all likelihood, P never aspired to receiving an award like that. He seemed to prefer anonymity in his philanthropic endeavors. [Edited 8/13/18 20:09pm]

But one was pregnant at TWELVE YEARS OLD & again at FOURTEEN YEARS OLD by the FATHER & SON!

At least Prince wasn't making babies barely starting puberty.

So STOP judging!

There are so many honors out there, but start at the low end with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Move up through the annual award shows, then to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Honorary degrees from universities and colleges. The Kennedy Center Honors and then the Presidential Medals. I thought I read someplace that Prince was okay with the EGOT group (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) but that outside of those four, he would accept the Hall of Fame honor (he did), but that was it. Hadn't he preliminarily accepted an honor from the University of Minnesota? Was that ever awarded? I got the impression he wasn't into a lot of that.

CherryMoon57 said:

EmmaMcG said:

He didn't do anything to deserve it. Of course, that argument could be made about several of its other recipients but just because one person got it that didn't deserve it doesn't mean that someone else who doesn't deserve it should get it.

'The Presidential Medal of Freedom is awarded by the President of the United States "for especially meritorious contribution to (1) the security or national interests of the United States, or (2) world peace, or (3) cultural or other significant public or private endeavors" ' (Wikipedia)

Prince's artistic achievements and humanitarian work largely cover this, don't they?

[Edited 8/11/18 16:35pm]

No, because he kept teh majority of his humanitarian work private. A casual fan wouldn't even know about it. While he was alive most of that was rumor, anyway.

ChocolateBox3121 said:

EmmaMcG said:

CherryMoon57 said:

Oh yes I did, and I even re-wrote it in my first post to you (reply #6). According to Wikipedia this award can be given to those who have distinguished themselves with a 'cultural or other significant public or private endeavors'.

There are other criteria but it can be one or the other not necessarily all of them. So even if Prince did not 'appear' to be a peace activist (I personally think he was), that would not have prevented him from being selected. Plus as many of us are now aware, he engaged in a lot of philantropic activities in the background. Again, the criteria considers the private activities, should these be meritable.

People like Alvin Ailey (dancer) and Diana Ross (singer) have both received this medal. And to get back to your initial argument, neither of them are popular with the younger generation, or internationally renowned for their world peace activism. Sadly Alvin had already passed when he was awarded the PMoF by Obama in 2014. (This is just to say that the person doesn't even have to be still alive when considered for the award, unlike what some of you have said in this thread. Although I doubt there are any hopes for Prince under the current presidency...)

Anyhoo, the real problem here is that you seem to contradict yourself a lot in this thread.

Despite:

- rushing to say in reply #1 that 'Prince didn't do anything to derserve' [the Presidential Medal of Freedom],

- claiming in #10 that Prince is really not that popular and even unknown to younger people and most people your generation,

- saying above that he didn't achieve anything significant other than 'Purple Rain' and even

- pretty much failed to promote his music (#15),

you then go on to describe how you (who are of the generation who doesn't know who Prince is) are a big Prince fan and that you bought every one of his albums (#24), including those you 'hate' (#25) .

Well, it sounds to me like either you are totally mad or Prince does deserve a medal after all!

I never said that nobody of my generation knows who Prince is. As you so intelligently point out, I am of my generation. My 6 year old daughter also knows who he is because I play his music a lot. None of what I said is contradictory. I don't believe that Prince deserves this particular award just because other people who also didn't deserve it got it. Purple Rain IS his biggest mainstream achievement. Nothing he did before or after came close. That's a fact. In later years he did fail to promote his music and his legacy has suffered because of it. That is also a fact. But NONE of his shortcomings make any difference to me. I still love his music, whether it was popular like Purple Rain or virtually unknown like Hit'n'run Phase Two. His record sales, awards, legacy etc are subjects I have precisely ZERO interest in. Because I am not a "fan of Prince, The Man", I am a "fan of Prince, The Musician". And because I am a fan of his music and not of him personally, I am able to determine that due to his many shortcomings, he simply doesn't merit this particular award. Unfortunately though, and this is why I rarely post in the Prince section of the org anymore, it seems that the mere suggestion of Prince being less than perfect is a crime and the maniacs here will string you up for it. You need to get out of your little bubble and realise that not everyone thinks about Prince the way you do. Not everyone appreciates his music the way we do. Asking why he never received an award is ridiculous. He didn't get it because the powers that be didn't deem him worthy of it. That's all. There's no great mystery.

You are perfectly entitled to your opinion, even though I totally disagree with it, whether you are judging the people you barely know on here or taking it upon yourself to decide that 'Prince, the musician' did not deserve a certain award based on how you wrongly deem the popularity of his musical achievements.

Perhaps if you got out of your own little bubble you will see that without being perfect, Prince was still far more than just a record selling musician to many, and not just the 'maniacs here' as you so randomly and harshly call them.

But at the end of the day, all depends of course on what we understand by the word 'achievement'.

[Edited 8/14/18 15:47pm]

1. What a very specific award/wonderment this is.

-

2. Prince was too risque in the 1st part of his career.

-

3. Even if Obama would have offered it, Prince may have politely declined.

-

4. Prince is one of the most popular/famous/acclaimed artists in the history of Earth. This is fact and there are stats to back it up. Any claims of ignorance or "young people not knowing who he is", etc. speaks to the ignorance of these people, not to Prince's impact.

CherryMoon57 said:

In all honesty and reality, no medal of any kind means anything to Prince now. In fact, in the whole scheme of life, what do they really mean at all? When you die, you leave all that stuff behind, and none of it matters then anyway, so why place such importance on it? Like the saying goes..."you come into this world alone, and you leave alone"..and that's true in more ways than one. Prince didn't take not one Grammy, American Music Award, MTV award, etc, with him when he passed, because in the end, none of it means anything and really doesn't matter.

1contessa said:

EmmaMcG said:

endiadj said:

EmmaMcG said:

The thing is though that quite a lot of people said "Prince who?". The majority of people I know who are my age or younger don't have a clue who he is and the few that do only know 2 or 3 songs. He might have been a big pop culture figure in the 80s but that was a long time ago.

Do they know who Bruce Springsteen is?

Good Question. Example: The whole fucking world didn't know what/who Black Panther is until this year. People (in general) need to be spoon fed* greatness even if it's been around for half a century.

-

*Again, this comes down to marketing/promotion/big budget commercial/consumer synergy.

[Edited 8/14/18 17:01pm]

ShaggyDog said:

EmmaMcG said:

1contessa said:

In all honesty and reality, no medal of any kind means anything to Prince now. In fact, in the whole scheme of life, what do they really mean at all? When you die, you leave all that stuff behind, and none of it matters then anyway, so why place such importance on it? Like the saying goes..."you come into this world alone, and you leave alone"..and that's true in more ways than one. Prince didn't take not one Grammy, American Music Award, MTV award, etc, with him when he passed, because in the end, none of it means anything and really doesn't matter.

Fucking hell, you're a cheerful one aren't you? Mind you, you're not wrong.

Sorry, didn't mean to bring anyone down, just believe in being honest and keeping things real.