Question speaks for itself.
[Edited 8/19/09 17:12pm]

Ask me in 10 or 20 years and I'll tell you. Not to be too facetious, but there are so many heir apparents that are here today, gone today that its hard to say who's going to sustain a career to be even close to Prince's league.

10 years ago I might have said D'angelo, but you see how that's worked out.

sinisterpentatonic said:

exenn said:

i agree!!

ElCapitan said:

Err... Who?

If I named then, ya'll would lose your shit.

4Eternity said:

exactly

Not a damn one. Hell, they aren't even on Millie Vanilli's level.
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[Edited 8/19/09 22:56pm]

vainandy said:

sinisterpentatonic said:

I wouldn't put anyone at Prince's level now or in the past. That doesn't mean that there aren't some impressive artists out there at the moment. The one that springs to mind immediately is LCD Soundsystem, who have shown a surprising amount of range. James Murphy (the lead singer) plays a bunch of instruments and has a few masterpieces under his belt. Bat for Lashes is another, although I think she takes more cues from Björk and Kate Bush than Prince.

vainandy said:[quote]Not a damn one. Hell, they aren't even on Millie Vanilli's level.

Not p o s s i b l e

vainandy said:

*cough* Chromeo *cough*

NONE!!!

No one new is up there in that level. Thats like saying Prince first two albums are comparable to James Brown and Sly at their level already at the time....we may compare him NOW to his influences however he had so much more to show us and still has not stopped. Something that some new artists forget.

Lets say Dirty Mind Came out and people said he was better than George Clinton and the year was 1980. People would look at you upside your head. However now and days in 2009 this can be a argument that Prince could win. We cant compare now....it is not fair.

Obviously this question was posed by a die-hard Prince fan addressed to die-hard Prince fans. Why do I say that? Because to say an artist is at Prince's level indicates that they think that he is at some unobtainable level to where he is better than anyone else out there, so it looks like to me that the question is a rhetorical question, yes? To which, if this is not a rhetorical question, a newer artist could not be at his "level" because he has been at the music thing for many years, and it would not be fair to compare a newer artist to a veteran entertainer. and of course all the die-hards are going to say "NONE".....go figure.

kenlacam said:

Nobody
[Edited 8/20/09 11:47am]

In my mind, if someone's only been in the game for a few years, you can't compare them to Prince. Let that newer artist be around for 10+ years and then ask the question again. Prince didn't get to the level he is now 5 years into his career. It grew and grew with each new album. The same would be true for any artist who is trying to go beyond their boundaries in the type of music they do. I hope someone who's debut was within this decade will come and reach Prince's level someday but the way it's looking right now, it's not looking very good.
[Edited 8/20/09 11:56am]

Can't think of any sexy JWs who write their own songs, produce their own songs, play all the instruments, perform all the vocals, release their own music, own the masters, and mask sexuality with religion all while sexily strutting around in 4.5 inch high heel boots. But I'm sure someone out there is working their way up to his level.

kenlacam said:

oh please. i'd be willin' to give it up to anyone who's doing it right. IMO Prince hasn't been revelant since 1989. his live shows are bangin' but his studio releases have been disappointing since Graffiti Bridge. i've been openly waiting on someone to fill his void since and IMO no one has done it, yet.

^Sinisterpentatonic, I'd have to partially agree with you here. I myself haave not found Prince to be relevant since 1989, with a couple of exceptions, but as a whole, not. Graffiti Bridge was very dissapointing, but I did like Diamonds and Pearls and the Symbol album as well, as well as Come. No one has done it yet, that is so true.

kenlacam said:

Who would u consider "relevant"?

If John Legend is still relevant and creating a range of music as he has, I will list him.

Contrary to some of the other post the OP meant this as a rhetorical post.

However, I think the question needs to be tackled on two levels

1. As hinted at earlier the idea that newer artists, that are artists who are only one or two albums deep, could be compared to Prince is fundamentally flawed because of temporal disjunction. They simply just haven’t had enough time to accumulate a body of work as rich as P’s yet. Even though I doubt they’d surpass Prince I would like to see what artists like Van Hunt, D’Angelo etc produce in the next 10 years (In the later case if he ever releases anything!). However, there are newer artists, in the sense that they emerged after Prince, that are comparable e.g. M'shell Ndegeocello’s and Beck have fine back catalogues.

2. More importantly, however, is the fact that the corporations, the emergence of magic hit formulas and producers seem to have stifled ‘black commercial music’. None of the artists I cited above, who fall under the rubric of black music, could be said to be commercial. In this sense, are there any black artists in their mid 20’s creating a oeuvre of work that is a rich and varied and commercially attractive (and by this I mean both marketed and subsequently appealing beyond the cult) as P’s was from (1980-1991)? Straight up, I don’t think so. Are there talents out there that could do so, most probably yes! Moroever, this argument could be said to apply to an even wider field, as don’t forget Prince belongs to a wider lineage of cultural ‘trailblazers’ that goes beyond black music and into whole field of popular music itself (e.g. Bowie, Wonder, Gaye, Hendrix, The Beatles etc). Do we really have cultural ‘trailblazers’ nowdays?

Of course the retort to all this, is that us Prince fans are just no hip to what is cultural trailblazing nowadays!

Graycap23 said:

There is no relevance in today's music. It is all sugar-coated meaningless garbage, with only a few exceptions, but that is just my opinion. Prince tries to stay relevant by throwing parties for his hollyweird friends but musically he has become lazy or just doesn't care anymore.

Superstition said:

John Legend, IMO is not relevant. He can play piano, but his music is overall very boring. i don't think he was ever relevant, except for a few die-hard fans but not "mainstream" relevant. His music appeals to a certain niche, and I'm not knocking those who like him, because he is still a legitimate artist.(just not relevant)