Bighead said:

- Hmm. I disagree. I think Prince will start to be remembered when he dies. If Prince gets to live as long as Ray Charles, he will be receiving those Life Achievement Awards and several tributes. He is already receiving now.

For me, the only difference between Prince and people like Dylan, Brown, Hendrix, etc, is that Prince arrived too late to the game. Like Eric Leeds said, popular music was already defined in 78. But in terms of pure talent and genius - when it comes to popular music - Prince is much more than Purple Rain, and influenced pop music, R&B a lot.
[Edited 6/26/09 18:31pm]

It was 35 years ago this summer that I bought my first Jackson 5 lp. It was the first of many to come. I never gave up on Mike and his brothers, even when I was teased for being a fan. Of course I got the last laugh in '83 when the (rest of the) world jumped on board... There are so many stories and so little time. And maybe that's the way God intended it, so those who've touched us can continue to do so... RIPMJ

Forgot about this song, played it today, make me feel good.

LittleBLUECorvette said:

Nice choice... I never really got into this song before. Uhhh... This is on one of the Jacksons albums on Epic?

Cinnie said:

It's on there second album there, Goin' Places. A lot of good material on that one. Do What You Wanna Do is probably my favorite and Mike does a nice ballad "Heaven Knows I Love You Girl"

RIP Mike

thriller was a great album, but MJ dropped the ball by taking so long to release his follow up, which at the time was a particularly long time as normally artists would release an album a year back then. so prince released 1999, purple rain, around the world in a day, parade and sign o the times by the time the follow up to thriller came out, and bad wasn't a patch on it's predecessor. in the meantime MJ had many problems and issues and pretty much went off the rails

it's sad that a once promising artist went off the rails like MJ did. in the end, his last recorded music was never released and he never got to perform a full show in 12 years. the live side of his work was never fully realised, so no-one ever got to see him as an adult perform a full set singing his own songs

for every hit single, he had a bizarre story, starting off as fun with a pet monkey, a zoo, elephant man bones and hyperbaric chamber, and ending with bankruptcy, drug abuse and child abuse. no other artist with so many hits has as many scandals, so with big artists the scandals are usually forgotten about as the music plays a bigger part of history. it's a shame that he didn't put more into his work to make people remember him more for the music than the scandal

many prince fans started off listening to michael jackson, but as his releases were few and far between over the last 30 years, prince flooded his fans with new albums and live shows, and his material was of a more adult nature, rather than the childlike image that michael tried to portray. as kids growing up want to shake off the child and grow towards the adult, they will reach for more adult orientated music like princes (or rap and rnb music today), so it's almost like prince came along and snapped up a chunk of fans who waited too long for a new michael jackson record, and once they listened to prince and found out more about him, they become hooked on prince and forget about michael. when jackson finally drops a new release, it's usually been more dissapointing than the previous album, and with a number of great prince albums released during that period it shows up the lesser tracks on the jackson albums, so whilst the singles stand out as being great, the other tracks seemed very much second rate by comparison

i always considered michael to be much closer to madonna than prince, in that she relied on others to write, record and produce tracks for her, whilst prince would just do everything himself and in his own studio. madonna, prince and michael were almost as popular as each other around 1985, but 25 years later, who would have thought madonna would have been the most succesful? had michael avoided the bad moves such as moonwalker, captain eo and ghosts, and stuck to the music instead of the bizarre, perhaps he could have been the most succesful still, and followed a similar career path to madonna

the past few months i've recently went through my fairly comprehensive collection of jackson material, viewing concert and tv footage, and compiling the playlist posted earlier. in listening to everything i could really hear the music change from the greatness in off the wall and thriller and becoming more dissapointing as it went on, but with real gems that stood out on later albums, standing out moreso as they were so good, but the other tracks were so dissapointing. i think if he had retired early after history and dissapeared out of public life it would have made a more fitting end to his career. it's just sad how it all ended so badly

i never expected him to appear at the o2 shows, certainly not all of them, i was just waiting for something to be announced as an excuse for the shows to be cancelled. i never thought he was fit enough to put on the type of show that randy phillips was suggesting, so when the story first broke i thought it was another sham story like turning up at the court room in pyjamas, i never thought the curtain would come down like this

i hear AEG are facing huge losses of millions as a result of this, and whilst a price can't be put on anyones life, perhaps it will serve as a message to randy phillips and AEG that they took one step too far in the way they treated the fans in the way they handled the ticket sales and cancelations (i suppose now i can mention that they only originally sold half the number of tickets that the o2 could hold, knowing they could comfortably seat far more, but they wanted so much to claim a sell out and hype everything up), and by pushing michael into something he obviously wasn't comfortable in doing, and ultimately contributed to his death

i put together the tracklist on the front page just two weeks ago, and it seems to serve as the perfect tribute to the most important part of his life to his fans, which is the music of his adult life. i didn't expect much more to be added to the list, but i didn't think it would become the final tracklist to his life

he lived his life in the tabloids, and ended his life in the tabloids. i don't think anyone will ever know the real michael jackson



and when the groove is dead and gone...

I watched "Captain Eo" today. I was alone when I watched it and I still got embarrassed. There is entertainment. There is art. At times you can have art that entertains and entertainment that occasionally prompts some thought. Michael Jackson was nothing but entertainment. Musical genius, (musical anything) doesn't even enter the conversation. He sang, he danced, he elevated the music video to silly levels. Song and dance. Nothing high-brow. I don't get what all the fuss is about. Musically that guy wasn't about anything. he was good at many things that made his records desirable, but I don't think music was one of them. Most of it dated extrememly poorly, to boot. Wow.

Bighead said:

Sorry to disagree but for a lot of neither Prince or MJ fans, the child abuse allegations and face changes far out weigh his hits I'm afraid. Not everyone thinks he was some massive icon, he was a pop singer and dancer at the end of the day and not the pope.

Bighead said:

Not only is Prince one of the greatest musicians ever born, Prince will be revered because has never been marked by scandal. MJ is being remembered for his music and his videos but in the same sentences, the media cannot seem to stop talking about his child molestation charges. If it were not for the music channels and radio stations, MJ would be remembered for his alleged liken for male boys and his questionable sexuality. Prince alleged eccentricities had nothing to do with his personal life but more with his ability to appeal to every person in the society and remain true to himself. Prince was not perfect, but who is? He did endure some episodic rumors about his life but those rumors did not overwhelm him and those rumors quickly dissipated as fast as they evolved. Prince will be remembered as a great musician. I cannot imagine and refuse to imagine how it would be for anyone who genuinely loves Prince if he died prematurely.

i tell ya.. Stranger In Moscow and Earth Song are beautiful