It's only because they don't have time to really dig into his music.

As a younger fan (millenial), I must confess that based off the official videos that he's released, I would have never become a fan. It wasn't until I did my own research that I realized how GOOD his work is.

It's kind of a pity. He has so many solid songs (including unreleased and music he wrote for others) that never made it into the mainstream.

Just a random thought.

which official videos though? the recent ones?

his videos def got worse after around the mid 90s i think. def after he left WB.

black sweat wasnt bad actually. but i think there were many bad to mediocre ones. his videos and artwork took a big hit after he left warners.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

which official videos though? the recent ones?

his videos def got worse after around the mid 90s i think. def after he left WB.

black sweat wasnt bad actually. but i think there were many bad to mediocre ones. his videos and artwork took a big hit after he left warners.

I think his 80's videos were terrible, Mountains, Alphabet St most were low budget if not all.

Seems like he started investing in music videos in the 2000's.

Then it is their right and not their failing.

.

Prince's music is a large part of my life, other people have their favourite artist or are just not that into music.

.

Why we like a musician or a song is complex and it is a mix place and time for the artist and especially for the listener. There are so many factors that are out of people's control. if you did not experience an artist when you both in the right place, time and state of mind it won't work.

MAYBE some of these questions will be answered when Susan Rogers' book comes out: "Wghat it sounds like" (why you like the music....)
https://www.amazon.com/This-What-Sounds-Like-Music/dp/0393541258

Agreed. His videos/single choices were often miss of course with some exceptions in each era, but generally... Like 80-85%.

The videos particularly with the bad miming... Someone here once said it was an 80s stylistic thing, uh..? It made sense though why most Joe 6-Pack people kind of get shocked he could actually rip on guitar post-R&R Hall o Fame or whatever if those videos were the prior context.

2022 music culture being more "hits" consumed and video-centric than prior generations what with their "visual albums" and TikToks and literally every podcast, a medium that is basically modern talk-radio, having a video component or else everyone in their YouTube comments complaining there isn't a video component... They want something fresh on their LED touch screens if they're gonna check out an artist and Prince videos look lower-budget with more minimalist concepts than their kid sister's TikToks.

Beyond that, though, younger gen does seem to love an old-school hit more than previous and are gleeful to add some classics to their gym playlists... but emphasis being hits. Generation-spanning hits, this is why your average teen/young adult will overrate MJ and seem perplexed this "Prince" guy with the same 80s purple puffy shirt outfit is even in the conversation.

From a purely hits perspective to the young gen that only knows old hits that went beyond the era, MJ kinda gets the kaleidescopic imagery and multifaceted aura we know is more apropos to Prince. Prince? "Yeah, 'Purple Rain' is okayy.." and they always mean just the song..

The album cuts and stuff he "gave away" are the true gems, but that's like a foreign language in 2022...

[Edited 8/26/22 22:51pm]

WhisperingDandelions said:

The album cuts and stuff he "gave away" are the true gems, but that's like a foreign language in 2022...

[Edited 8/26/22 22:51pm]

This and it's sad because he was beyond amazing. Just didn't make the right decisions. Makes me wonder if he cared about his legacy.

Come to think of it, when Morris told him to release these "amazing songs" following purple rain, he said he wouldn't because they were for his future "kids legacy". But since he never had living children, I'm assuming that his own personal legacy was irrelevant to him.

Thank God for the estate and the good work they're doing.

[Edited 8/27/22 8:29am]

I've never care about other people not liking Prince's music. My friends and I were pulled in with Purple Rain in high school, but by junior year, my friends jumped ship and I actually got shit for liking Prince. TWO YEARS LATER. So I pleasantly told them to eat me and continued to enjoy Prince. Whatever the appeal was that kept me locked it but didn't transfer to my friends, I never cared.

"When people say they don't like Prince's music," I tell them "ok," and go about my business.

TheBigBang said:

paisleyparkgirl said:

It's only because they don't have time to really dig into his music.

Or maybe they don't listen to the type of music Prince makes. Some people like country music or easy listening or hip hop or salsa or death metal. I have relatives that only listen to gospel, they don't listen to any secular music. My mom doesn't listen to Prince. She likes stuff like Tyrone Davis, The Temptations, Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke, Little Milton, Whitney Houston, Jerry Butler, Joe Tex, etc. With a younger audience, I don't think the average fan of BTS, Bad Bunny, Justin Bieber, Megan Thee Stallion, or Drake would be looking for Prince music. Like they weren't looking for Kate Bush & Fleetwood Mac until one of their songs got on Stranger Things & a viral TikTok video. There's younger people who do reaction videos to oldies, but 95% are hits or popular artists that their subscribers or people in the comments request, which is usually classic rock & 1980s Top 40.

MickyDolenz said:

paisleyparkgirl said:

It's only because they don't have time to really dig into his music.

There's younger people who do reaction videos to oldies, but 95% are hits or popular artists that their subscribers or people in the comments request, which is usually classic rock & 1980s Top 40.

I've come across a few Gen Z's doing Prince reaction videos and they really like them.

i mean, prince isnt for everyone.

never was, never will be.

MJ was the global superstar of the 80s, more so than prince, madonna, springsteen, etc.

i remember when he was still a 'current' artist and people were easily put off by prince cos of the image, and the fact he did songs many would hate, even if you knew they would like one song they didnt know. thats the prob when you cover such a range of styles.

also, prince is kinda of a departed era, the rock n roll era, the soul/funk era. hes of that generation. i guess people know his name, and people into outkast, or maybe bruno mars, or anderson paaak, they might be open to prince. and people into 80s music, which is kinda in vogue at the moment (though the 90s are too). so theres lots of ways for people to connect to princes music. but he was never an easy sell really. he was always a bit left field, a bit weird, a bit cult, not an obvious mass market artist.

so its okay. but it would be nice, yeah, if more people liked him. but i think prince will just live on, and be part of music history, and come in and out of fashion every so often. no one is immortal, pop music is a ruthless beast, but i dont think he will be easy to forget.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

i mean, prince isnt for everyone.

never was, never will be.

MJ was the global superstar of the 80s, more so than prince, madonna, springsteen, etc.

Why do some of you guys act like EVERYONE likes MJ's music. I know so many ppl who dislike his music and only like his videos.

[Edited 8/27/22 17:00pm]

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

no one is immortal, pop music is a ruthless beast

The Beatles never really went out of style. They sold more records after they broke up than when they were an active group. Not only do they get new remasters or deluxe versions of their albums every few years. They have Lego sets, dolls, board games, video games, a Cirque du Soleil show, many tribute bands, & even movies based on their music (Yesterday, Across The Universe, All This And WWII, etc.) The new version of Let It Be (Get Back) was a big hit on Disney+. Their compilation 1 is one of the biggest selling albums of the 2000s and this was when people was still buying CDs. Music magazines continue to write about them and there has probably been over a thousand books written about them as a group and solo. There's books and/or documentaries about people connected to the Fab 4 (ig. Pete Best, Stuart Sutcliffe, Astrid Kirchherr, George Martin, Magic Alex, Cynthia Lennon, Yoko Ono, Brian Epstein, Mal Evans, Freda Kelly, Linda McCartney, the Apple Scruffs, Wings, Traveling Wilburys, etc. A lot of people even bought an album by a band called Klaatu in the 1970s because they were rumored to be the reunited Beatles.

MickyDolenz said:

paisleyparkgirl said:

It's only because they don't have time to really dig into his music.

Or maybe they don't listen to the type of music Prince makes. Some people like country music or easy listening or hip hop or salsa or death metal.

Well, yeah, that's kind of the perspective this thread is highlighting.

They don't believe Prince is something they'd be into. As a teen, I only cared about heavier rock, indie rock, music with guitar emphasis, played/jammed with metal bands & had a childhood background more in 90s gangsta rap.

Avoided Prince for like a year of people telling me to check him out, asserting your exact quote almost verbatim to anyone who pressed me to give Prince a shot. I cared more about Slint, Nirvana, The Cure, The Smashing Pumpkins, Slipknot, Dr. Dre, Tool, NIN..... and was as genuinely shocked much like these YouTube reaction gen-Z'ers 15 years later that the Purple Rain album was miles ahead of 90% of the aforementioned.

Literally I can remember metalheads that just got done blaring Lamb of God, Rammstein, Sepultura, Pantera, etc. doing a double-take at the Prince poster on my wall like "uhhhh, wtf is Prince on your wall?" "'Cause he's the fuckin' man and greatest of all time."

Totally eroded my perceptions of what I was searching for, what I thought I wanted. It went from "I like rock," to "Hm, shoegaze? Maybe give it a shot." "Hmm, black metal? Okay, maybe give it a shot." "Electronica? Okay, sure, why not." "Classical modernism? Why not?" "Philly soul? All right." "Gospel?" (as a non-religious mind you) "Yeah, maybe gospel's worth checking out." Country, Jazz, Doo-Wop, etc. etc.

He's been a conduit to so much.

As paisleyparkgirl said:

paisleyparkgirl said:

I've come across a few Gen Z's doing Prince reaction videos and they really like them.

Not just like him, they're often shocked how much they like him. Like "Wow, I didn't know Prince was like this." And again, tying back to the topic of this thread, save "When Doves Cry" which is one of the rare singles/videos that actually does hook them (they like "Gett Off" a lot, too), they usually get all juiced up and start searching for other hits on their own and you can see the deflation at some of these tepid videos/single choices.

The ones who do go further down the rabbit hole and look for album cuts or forgotten hits like "Head" get so elated/excited at their new discovery, it's a thing of beauty to YouTube.

It's about perception more than "not their style," which, really, is more of an atavistic old-school music subculture "Disco sucks" probably latent racism type of perspective. Gen Z likes to think of themselves as enjoying "everything." "Oh, what do you like?" "Everything."

They just gotta be compelled to give it a shot.

[Edited 8/27/22 23:19pm]

[Edited 8/27/22 23:21pm]

paisleyparkgirl said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

i mean, prince isnt for everyone.

never was, never will be.

MJ was the global superstar of the 80s, more so than prince, madonna, springsteen, etc.

Why do some of you guys act like EVERYONE likes MJ's music. I know so many ppl who dislike his music and only like his videos.

[Edited 8/27/22 17:00pm]

.

MJ was a thriller but then he became just bad

[Edited 8/28/22 0:02am]

paisleyparkgirl said:

WhisperingDandelions said:

It's about perception more than "not their style," which, really, is more of an atavistic old-school music subculture "Disco sucks" probably latent racism type of perspective. Gen Z likes to think of themselves as enjoying "everything." "Oh, what do you like?" "Everything."

That may be so. But in general, people I've been around usually listen to 1 genre and maybe something similar in sound to it like R&B, hip hop, blues, & disco. They also likely to own more records from their own race/ethnicity than another. Like Mexicans are more likely to listen to Tejano & ranchera than white or Chinese people would. A genre can also be more popular in certain areas of the USA than another, like zydeco or Miami Bass. There is a reason that TV channels like Telemundo, TV One, & BET exist. There is also a separate Latin Grammy Awards show.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

paisleyparkgirl said:

Why do some of you guys act like EVERYONE likes MJ's music. I know so many ppl who dislike his music and only like his videos.

[Edited 8/27/22 17:00pm]

Mj was just more popular globally than prince. Everyone knows him. From rich to poor nations. Prince? Less so.

Yes he was more known it doesn't mean people liked his music like that. Well at least from my personal experiences, all the talk seemed to be about his dancing and the aesthetic of his videos or of course the scandals.

nosajd said:

Most of my friends who don’t like his music hate his voice, his lyrics, and his androgyny.

Do they like Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Queen, Glam Rockers, etc?

the thing with prince is that unlike bowie, queen, etc, he also sings in falsetto, and a falsetto that is actually weirdly kinda... agressive? or maybe, exuberant? (i just mean compared to alot of rnb artists using falsetto, prince didnt often do it as, idk, softly). so its another thing to contend with lol. i love a lot of rnb singers like philip bailey etc, or marvin gaye, so falsetto isnt that unusual for me, but i know a lot of ppl not used to that hated prince singing in such a high pitch.

but anyway, theres a prince song for everyone, even if they dont like everything. his catalogue is too diverse for anyoe to refuse it all. he did most things, and did them well, but maybe didnt do those things that often. so i mean if you like the stones, they will do songs like start me up many many times. whereas prince didnt have that kind of thing. cos he was always trying diff styles/modes/genres.

[Edited 8/28/22 15:01pm]

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

his catalogue is too diverse for anyoe to refuse it all. he did most things, and did them well, but maybe didnt do those things that often.

I think there are more types of music that Prince didn't do. Like where is his Mediæval Bæbes style Renaissance Faire songs, bluegurass, & polkas?

when people shit on prince or his music i don't say nothing. but i make a mental note.

lilpoundcake never forgets.

laytonian said:

MickyDolenz said:

MickyDolenz said:

WhisperingDandelions said:

It's about perception more than "not their style," which, really, is more of an atavistic old-school music subculture "Disco sucks" probably latent racism type of perspective. Gen Z likes to think of themselves as enjoying "everything." "Oh, what do you like?" "Everything."

That may be so. But in general, people I've been around usually listen to 1 genre and maybe something similar in sound to it like R&B, hip hop, blues, & disco. They also likely to own more records from their own race/ethnicity than another. Like Mexicans are more likely to listen to Tejano & ranchera than white or Chinese people would. A genre can also be more popular in certain areas of the USA than another, like zydeco or Miami Bass. There is a reason that TV channels like Telemundo, TV One, & BET exist. There is also a separate Latin Grammy Awards show.

Right, same, but that's speaking more to the "atavistic old-school" generational preference aforementioned in the exact post you quoted...

You don't exactly strike me as gen-Z, or even believing yourself to have your finger anywhere near thepulse of gen-Z, so again you seem to be agreeing with the posts you're quoting and then feigning a disagreement just to be contrary.

You yourself referenced YouTube reaction videos from today rating legacy videos/hits from 40+ years ago, mostly 80s pop/classic rock, TikTok'ers making hits from 40+ years ago cool again, okay, already that is marked difference from whatever your generation might be or whatever my generation would be, who didn't exactly have huge enclaves of say, fans of the new-in-1987 Keith Sweat album checking back for Duane Eddy records, or conversely Guns'n'Roses fans-of-the-moment crate digging for The Moonglows. Don't dismiss the lumping in of mainstream Top 40 pop and classic rock like it wasn't considered sacrilegious to enjoy both in the past.

Your yourself brought in your requisite Beatles name-check which, again, speaks to the modern generations that they are still such a colossal juggernaut amongst, as again you referenced "the average fan of BTS, Bad Bunny, Justin Bieber, Megan Thee Stallion, or Drake." (although you are blatantly mischaracterizing Beatles popularity as consistent across decades, really it kinda lulled in the early 90s with those awful original CD pressings and then rebounded with the release of 1, far as the youf is concerned anyway, just look at the merch/docs/excess/fanfare then vs. now)

Obviously gen-Z doesn't enjoy "everything," that's absurd youthfully-exuberant hyperbole, however, they are certainly closer to that unattainable ideal than generations past.


And your racial take really sends the generational shift home.... you've never encountered any of these backpackin' white boy hip-hop heads reciting every lyric to every major rap release from the 80s until now? You think only blacks are responsible for Lizzo or Doja Cat popularity? This ain't ma and pa moving from the old country, kids put on whatever... My latina mother never misses a BET Awards, she even keeps 'em on the DVR... It's pop culture at this point.


Normally you got solid takes but this might be a liiiiiil too purely contrarian for contrarian sake. The Modus Operandi Experience. And now you're making with the prop comedy, Carrot Top?

Anyway, it relates back to OP & Prince because: He's got a lil sumthin' for everybody, somewhere, somehow in that oeuvre (MickeyDolenz prop comedy notwithstanding)... just not really most of the hits.

[Edited 8/29/22 20:11pm]

MickyDolenz said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

his catalogue is too diverse for anyoe to refuse it all. he did most things, and did them well, but maybe didnt do those things that often.

I think there are more types of music that Prince didn't do. Like where is his Mediæval Bæbes style Renaissance Faire songs, bluegurass, & polkas?

he wasnt into american roots music really. or non-american or western/anglophone music, by and large. some older blues and jazz were as old as prince was willing to look back really. he wasnt jack white.

I used to get a lot of shit from the jocks in high school for liking Prince. Prince was "cool" up until about 86 then he wasn't. I never understood why give someone shit for music they like. Never made any sense to me. I still loved his stuff so didnt really care. But it was high school and it would sting sometimes, have to admit.

But now no one (except one friend) has outright said to me they don't like Prince's music. The good friend who doesn't like his music told me he thinks he was super talented, but just not into that kind of music (he's a classical/opera fan). We all grow up.

nosajd said:

Most of my friends who don’t like his music hate his voice, his lyrics, and his androgyny.

Well, he was sooo out there in some ways, that people who aren't big fans couldn't get into him. What has always impressed me was him as the entire package. He was an innovator, could play so many of the instruments, could compose, write the lyrics, mix in the studio, sing, dance great, and be the stylist for the "look" of his different albums and timeframes. I guess the non-fans should take a trip to Paisley Park sometime. Tha would get them on the Prince train, I think. (but remember, I am of the same era as Prince, so maybe I appreciate him more...)