Timmy84 said:

kibbles said:

yeah, i believe the question was, was rick james popular in the 80s, not the difference between fame then versus now and how to achieve it so your point is COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT TO WHAT I POSTED.

like most everyone who was there at the time (i.e., soulalive, vainandy and yours truly) has answered, yes, rick was huge on the r&b tip, not so much on the pop tip, unless you include 'super freak'. so what the hell are you talking about? i really don't understand your point as it pertains to my post.

i already know that solid gold was a pop venue - that's why i mentioned it in relation to rick's crossover hit. (are you having a problem with reading comprehension today?) motown could have pushed and pushed and pushed, but rick was a hardcore r&b artist, and that's where he was staying 'cause he wasn't about trying to crossover. which is more than fine with me, who has mary jane on her shuffle right now.

It wasn't to you. It was to PURPLETHUNDER. Got damn.

[Edited 11/8/10 13:49pm]

okay, i apologize, but you copied my post so i didn't know.

kibbles said:

Timmy84 said:

It wasn't to you. It was to PURPLETHUNDER. Got damn.

[Edited 11/8/10 13:49pm]

okay, i apologize, but you copied my post so i didn't know.

It's all good.

Not extremely famous, but he was always singing about freaks.

angel345 said:

Not extremely famous, but he was always singing about freaks.

I think that was his favorite subject matter,lol

"Super Freak"

"Hard To Get"

rick james was famous enough to hang out with the biggest stars you can name. he knew every one from jack nickleson to the hiltons. he jammed with every one from prince to the bass player from the who to mick jagger. rick james was the the biggest star to come out of the funk community.

jackson35 said:

rick james was famous enough to hang out with the biggest stars you can name. he knew every one from jack nickleson to the hiltons. he jammed with every one from prince to the bass player from the who to mick jagger. rick james was the the biggest star to come out of the funk community.

Did Rick and Michael Jackson ever hang out ?

SoulAlive said:

angel345 said:

Not extremely famous, but he was always singing about freaks.

I think that was his favorite subject matter,lol

"Super Freak"

"Loosey's Rap"

"Sweet And Sexy Thing"

"17"

"Cold Blooded"

"U Bring The Freak Out"

"Hard To Get"

I think it was a freak contest going on between Rick James and Prince. Who had the freakiest girls or the freakiest music, if you remember

kjw709 said:

jackson35 said:

rick james was famous enough to hang out with the biggest stars you can name. he knew every one from jack nickleson to the hiltons. he jammed with every one from prince to the bass player from the who to mick jagger. rick james was the the biggest star to come out of the funk community.

Did Rick and Michael Jackson ever hang out ?

Once or twice...

SoulAlive said:

angel345 said:

Not extremely famous, but he was always singing about freaks.

I think that was his favorite subject matter,lol

"Super Freak"

"Loosey's Rap"

"Sweet And Sexy Thing"

"17"

"Cold Blooded"

"U Bring The Freak Out"

"Hard To Get"

"Cold Blooded" was actually about the one and only Linda Blair, who he was seeing at the time...

LittleBLUECorvette said:

MickyDolenz said:

I'd say Luther Vandross was more popular. Some of the singles from Thriller didn't chart that high on the R&B side. Most of Mike's sales were from the crossover audience. That's why he is called the 'King Of Pop'. He couldn't have sold that much only with a black R&B audience. Same for Lionel Richie, Prince, Billy Ocean, Whitney Houston, Janet Jackson, & Tina Turner.

All the single on Thriller were big on the RnB charts minus PYT and Human Nature which I don't know why (weird since I hear those two more than any other MJ songs Majic 102 here in Houston.)

Luther was bigger in the seconf half of the 80's but the first half, Rick. How that even out for the whole decade, I don't know.

He was bigger than Billy Ocean and Tina Turner in the 80s. Probably not Janet and Whitney though.

Rick James was bigger than Tina Turner in the 80s??? How do you figure? Between 1984 and 1989, Tina way outsold Rick and she was (is) a household name. Outside of the black community, Rick never was a household name.

Ugh. He's so overrated on here

I have to say he wasn't well-known at all in Europe and still isn't to this day. The funk / r&b enthusiasts might know his stuff, but he's not known by the general public. They might recognize the name and "Super Freak". That might have a lot to do with his records simply not being available in too many stores. During the 1990s he seemed to have been almost forgotten here, just like Cameo or Zapp!. I couldn't find his records in the library, even if I had no trouble getting stuff like Funkadelic, Curtis Mayfield, EWF and tons of jazz-funk. Maybe people weren't talking about him due to his legal troubles, I don't know.

That sketch made him more famous over here as well. Probably due to that catch phrase having become such a widely spread internet meme.

It's a bit sad, actually.

Interestingly,Rick's videos were never shown on MTV and he spoke out against that network.But in 1985,MTV showed two videos for songs he wrote and produced for others ("In My House" by the Mary Jane Girls and "Party All The Time" by Eddie Murphy) He makes a cameo appearance in the latter,so in a way,he still made it onto MTV,lol.

SoulAlive said:

angel345 said:

Not extremely famous, but he was always singing about freaks.

I think that was his favorite subject matter,lol

"Super Freak"

"Loosey's Rap"

"Sweet And Sexy Thing"

"17"

"Cold Blooded"

"U Bring The Freak Out"

"Hard To Get"

Yeah Rick had a thing for freaks, but don't we all?

micheal jackson came to the street song tour in la and came backstage. rick was very big in europe. go to youtube and check out that rockplast show in germany in 81.

"Rockpalast (Rock Palace) is a German music television show that broadcasts live on German television station Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR). Rockpalast started in 1974 and continues to this day. Hundreds of rock and jazz bands have performed on Rockpalast"

Uhm, I don't want to be overly argumentative here, but how does being on some TV show in Germany mean Rick James was very big in Europe?

I could only find the chart positions for his singles in the UK, but none of them have cracked the top 40 there. I guess it's okay for an African-American performer at the time to get the singles even to chart overseas, but it's not an indication of great popularity. Maybe the albums sold a little bit better, I wouldn't know.

A google search on "rick james europe charts" only brought me to this page on prince.org.

[edit - "top 50" to "top 40"]

[Edited 11/10/10 11:11am]

novabrkr said:

"Rockpalast (Rock Palace) is a German music television show that broadcasts live on German television station Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR). Rockpalast started in 1974 and continues to this day. Hundreds of rock and jazz bands have performed on Rockpalast"

Uhm, I don't want to be overly argumentative here, but how does being on some TV show in Germany mean Rick James was very big in Europe?

I could only find the chart positions for his singles in the UK, but none of them have cracked the top 40 there. I guess it's okay for an African-American performer at the time to get the singles even to chart overseas, but it's not an indication of great popularity. Maybe the albums sold a little bit better, I wouldn't know.

A google search on "rick james europe charts" only brought me to this page on prince.org.

[edit - "top 50" to "top 40"]

[Edited 11/10/10 11:11am]

Rick barely made the European charts anyway. Only some modest charters in the UK. Rockpalast also had Mother's Finest on one of their shows lol Mother's Finest wasn't popular in either Europe or the U.S. but they had cult followings in both continents lol

mrpunkfunk said:

Yes, I think Rick was extremely famous in the '80s. He just didn't blow up around the world for two reasons, one was Motown didn't push his music as hard as they could've; and two, he was snorting cocaine and abusing drugs like they were going out of style. To me, there is NO question that he had the ability to be on the tier of Prince and MJ, NO QUESTION, he was mad talented, but I think his drug addiction robbed him of his ambition, and his music wasn't as dynamic as it had once been, especially after like '86.

I think that if you removed cocaine from the picture, and had he gotten better promo, he would've been huge worldwide.

Maybe, but P & MJ were ten years younger too. Age was becoming a factor in popularity even back then.