curioso said:

Wha, Wha, WHAT THE HELL? R U Kidding me? Dude, I'm a HUGE fan of both, but Prince has done more styles of music...he's into everything and rocks the fuck out of it all. Stevie stays within his comfort zone with RnB.
Let's give credit where it's due

...Stevie's performances and output have been cringeworthy for two decades now. "I just called to say I love you"..come on!

Prince has some misses, but not many...in 30 years...and his misses are songs, not entire CD's, because there is a brilliant song or two in every release.

Prince and Stevie Wonder are simply supremely talented, hard working and dedicated musicians; the odds of them being geniuses is almost impossible. Any psychologist, doctor, or academic egghead will tell you that genius is an occurrence that happens in 1% of the population and is extremely rare: so how is it that we have all these modern day geniuses, bursting out of the seams?

Revolution said:

Trust me...you are no fan of Stevie Wonder...lol...Because by your comments, I can easily perceive that you have no understanding of Stevie's work...

It doesn't matter what Stevie's output has been in the last 20 years....The man's 70s work stands amongst the greatest musical and artistic runs in popular music history....I'm talking the Beatles' 60's run; Bowie's '70s run and yes, Prince's '80s run...In a word, Wonder's peak years were indeed genius....

Anyone (You) who says that Stevie's work stayed in the comfort zone of R&B (and if he did, who says you can't be a genius being primarily a R&B artist?) needs to pick up those game changing, genre-busting albums of the '70s....

Hell, on one project alone (Songs In The Key of Life), Wonder was melding soul with big band jazz ("Sir Duke"), latin rhythms ( "Ngiculela-Es Una Historia-I Am Singing," "Another Star"), classical music ("Village Ghetto Land," "Pastime Paradise") and jazz-fusion ("Contusion")...And he still found time to funk it up ("I Wish")...

Wonder was the one artist that was universally hailed as a musical genius before the term became a lazy description for every act that followed Wonder's singer, songwriter,producer, musician route...And that was because his talents was beyond whether or not he could showcase his gift on a rock track or any other genre of music....As a songwriter, he was arguably without peer during his peak---A man that could present soul-searching lyrics that melded the spiritual with social consciousness ("Visions")...He could create the epic concept song ("Living For The City")...and then there is his innovations with the synthesizer, as he was one of the first artist to utilize its technology to new artistic heights...

Really, I feel silly for even writing this post....I've been on the Org since the early '00's and this is by far one of the more puzzling comments I've ever encountered...Saying that Stevie Wonder doesn't fit the genius category is just as laughable as someone saying that Duke Ellington, Prince, Jimi Hendrix or Miles Davis were not geniuses...

To me, your post speaks volumes....
[Edited 7/14/09 17:45pm]

The same reason why historians labeled the great classical composers of the 1700's and 1800's geniuses....And the same reasons why jazz peers like Thelonious Monk, John Coletrane and Miles Davis were hailed as musical geniuses....

Because sometimes being an "egghead" is not enough to judge the transcending musical innovations of individual talents...

I will admit, folks throw out the G word way too much nowadays....But pointing at Stevie and Prince as examples for the laziness in which folks use the term genius are the wrong artists to use as examples.

...is just another example of people (historians are especially culpable) using the word "genius" in an effort to render their case study as superhuman in an attempt to mythologize them. Look, historians are people. And when people tell stories, they tend to exaggerate. Although I hold Mozart as a genius, there are a few scholars who are now suggesting that Mozart, as enormously gifted as he was, was simply a hard working sunnovabitch. And only a handful of Classical composers are hailed as geniuses, mind you.

And neither is being a subjective fan!

Meh, you come across as a subjective fan of both artists who just happen to be insanely talented and influential. Consider the scope and breadth of Newton's work. Now consider the scope and breadth of Stevie Wonder/Prince...something doesn't add up to me. Yeah, it could be comparing apples and oranges but still....But let it be known, I hold both Wonder and Prince near and dear to my heart. Those cats just ain't geniuses!

i really dont consider artists or musicians geniuses, i just think there is a difference between talent and genius.anything that can be taught through lessons is not genius imo.

Revolution said:

Stevie wonder: Brilliant vocalist, Songwriter, composer, Arranger, Producer, Instrumetalist, a True musician on all aspects .....And guess what? He is a blind man, that Says it all, Stevie is on a catgory on his own, Prince is nowhere near him.
[Edited 7/14/09 14:42pm]

Prince and Stevie Wonder are simply supremely talented, hard working and dedicated musicians; the odds of them being geniuses is almost impossible. Any psychologist, doctor, or academic egghead will tell you that genius is an occurrence that happens in 1% of the population and is extremely rare: so how is it that we have all these modern day geniuses, bursting out of the seams?

We want our favorite musicians to have super/otherworldly powers because humans like to mythologize their heroes - but these guys are just hard working, dedicated, determined and talented artists. The word "genius" is useless today.

curioso said:

Wha, Wha, WHAT THE HELL? R U Kidding me? Dude, I'm a HUGE fan of both, but Prince has done more styles of music...he's into everything and rocks the fuck out of it all. Stevie stays within his comfort zone with RnB.
Let's give credit where it's due

...Stevie's performances and output have been cringeworthy for two decades now. "I just called to say I love you"..come on!

Prince has some misses, but not many...in 30 years...and his misses are songs, not entire CD's, because there is a brilliant song or two in every release.

I am well aware that the "genius" tag has been used and abused...lol....It's the main reason why folks balk at the usage of the word...But saying that artists such as the rare likes of Wonder, Prince, Coletrane, Ellington and Jimi Hendrix have produced genius work, were geniuses or have had genius moments is not exactly blasphemy...

curioso said:

Wha, Wha, WHAT THE HELL? R U Kidding me? Dude, I'm a HUGE fan of both, but Prince has done more styles of music...he's into everything and rocks the fuck out of it all. Stevie stays within his comfort zone with RnB.
Let's give credit where it's due

...Stevie's performances and output have been cringeworthy for two decades now. "I just called to say I love you"..come on!

Prince has some misses, but not many...in 30 years...and his misses are songs, not entire CD's, because there is a brilliant song or two in every release.

Revolution said:

In all fairness, compare stevie of the 60's and 70's to Prince of the 70's and 80's if you're going to measure their greatness. Of course I Just Called To Say I love You is an unfair comparison to Purple Rain from the same time.

alphastreet said:

Yeah and let's be fair....Prince has his share of "I Just Called To Say I Love You"-type crap,too "The Arms of Orion"? "Graffiti Bridge"? lol

SoulAlive said:

Yeah...In fact Prince has many shares of "I just called to say I love you" Type crap.

Prince is Prolific but he doesn't have a perfect body of work,His catalogue has so many crappy songs, he is responsible for throwing shitty music on our faces every year, he should just disappear for few years and comback with a great artistic Melodic album...I think he is still capable of doing that ....we want Melodic Memorable songs.

seeingvoices12 said:

I agree.I think some Prince fans confuse quantity with quality.Yes,he is extremely prolific but that doesn't mean that everything he records is good,or even worthy of being released.

It's ridiculous to say that Prince is nowhere near Stevie. It'd be ridiculous to say the reverse as well.

Prince 80's run is just as brilliant at Stevie's 70's run. They are both incredible singers, songwriters, musicians, producers. They're both also guilty of releasing less-than-stellar material from time to time.

There are some things that Stevie is better at than Prince and there are some things that Prince is better at than Stevie. That's all there is to it.

The word "genius" gets tossed about so casually and cavalierly these days that certainly the word has lost some of its lustre. But I like what Schopenhauer said about genius being the ability to hit a target no one else can see while talent is just the ability to hit a target no one else can hit.

Mozart, Monk, Beethoven...musical geniuses.


Prince, Stevie Wonder...not.

chuckaducci said:

-----

Such B.S. to write Prince and Stevie off because they are not classical or jazz artist both are geniuses who don't get their due.

laurarichardson said:

[Snip - luv4u]

Revolution said:

Trust me...you are no fan of Stevie Wonder...lol...Because by your comments, I can easily perceive that you have no understanding of Stevie's work...

It doesn't matter what Stevie's output has been in the last 20 years....The man's 70s work stands amongst the greatest musical and artistic runs in popular music history....I'm talking the Beatles' 60's run; Bowie's '70s run and yes, Prince's '80s run...In a word, Wonder's peak years were indeed genius....

Anyone (You) who says that Stevie's work stayed in the comfort zone of R&B (and if he did, who says you can't be a genius being primarily a R&B artist?) needs to pick up those game changing, genre-busting albums of the '70s....

Hell, on one project alone (Songs In The Key of Life), Wonder was melding soul with big band jazz ("Sir Duke"), latin rhythms ( "Ngiculela-Es Una Historia-I Am Singing," "Another Star"), classical music ("Village Ghetto Land," "Pastime Paradise") and jazz-fusion ("Contusion")...And he still found time to funk it up ("I Wish")...

Wonder was the one artist that was universally hailed as a musical genius before the term became a lazy description for every act that followed Wonder's singer, songwriter,producer, musician route...And that was because his talents was beyond whether or not he could showcase his gift on a rock track or any other genre of music....As a songwriter, he was arguably without peer during his peak---A man that could present soul-searching lyrics that melded the spiritual with social consciousness ("Visions")...He could create the epic concept song ("Living For The City")...and then there is his innovations with the synthesizer, as he was one of the first artist to utilize its technology to new artistic heights...

Really, I feel silly for even writing this post....I've been on the Org since the early '00's and this is by far one of the more puzzling comments I've ever encountered...Saying that Stevie Wonder doesn't fit the genius category is just as laughable as someone saying that Duke Ellington, Prince, Jimi Hendrix or Miles Davis were not geniuses...

To me, your post speaks volumes....
[Edited 7/14/09 17:45pm]

Someone who lives and breathes music. It shows in their performance.