I can only think of jack white and beck that are involved in all the parts of the process of songwriting like prince are there any others you can think of?

lonelyalien said:

I can only think of jack white and beck that are involved in all the parts of the process of songwriting like prince are there any others you can think of?

There are always supremely talented people around, so I’m sure that there are others in various genres, but nobody of Prince’s stature and profile in popular culture.

The greatest multi-instrumentalist and general musical genius that I'm aware of is probably Hermeto Pascoal (even while Prince was alive), but then he works in a different field so they're not really comparable. He literally plays everything to the highest level. I saw him at the Barbican Centre in London a number of years ago, and it was one of the most extraordinary musical experiences I've ever had.

He opened the show with a piano improvisation that was like a cross between Franz Liszt and Thelonious Monk, before proceeding to play an old kettle with all of the nuance and subtly of John Coltrane on his sax.

fen said:

lonelyalien said:

I can only think of jack white and beck that are involved in all the parts of the process of songwriting like prince are there any others you can think of?

There are always supremely talented people around, so I’m sure that there are others in various genres, but nobody of Prince’s stature and profile in popular culture.

The greatest multi-instrumentalist and general musical genius that I'm aware of is probably Hermeto Pascoal (even while Prince was alive), but then he works in a different field so they're not really comparable. He literally plays everything to the highest level. I saw him at the Barbican Centre in London a number of years ago, and it was one of the most extraordinary musical experiences I've ever had.

He opened the show with a piano improvisation that was like a cross between Franz Liszt and Thelonious Monk, before proceeding to play an old kettle with all of the nuance and subtly of John Coltrane on his sax.

Some of y'all are short-sighted and act like every other musician or singer out there doesn't write lyrics or melodies, or can play anything. People dismiss Timberlake or try to piss on his career, yet he's produced people like Madonna and Duran Duran, written and produced for Beyonce, plays guitar and piano - at least. Jill Scott writes lyrics like few do anymore. Adele played instruments on her records, but playing something is better than nothing, or is it? Her voice is the instrument we all go to those albums to hear, not her banging out a bass on "Rolling In The Deep" (which she did, by the way). The list goes on.

Not everyone has the ability to sit and produce and twist knobs etc. They need a producer to bring that out in them, to help them get to a place they can see in their head. Has anyone ever bitched about Rick Rubin? "Oh, he's just a producer".

I mean, where is everyone's line of reality and logic opposed to the "if they don't do it like Prince, they're fake" bullshit?

Like Prince? None

Here are a couple that cover several bases similiar 2 Prince.

D'Angelo

Stokley

Donnie Hathaway

Bootsy

RJOrion said:

"how many are left?"...smh...there were never any others to begin with...

Stevie Wonder? It blows my mind that “Talking Book” (1972) was his fifteenth studio album. He was 22!

Graycap23 said:

Like Prince? None

Here are a couple that cover several bases similiar 2 Prince.

D'Angelo

Stokley

Donnie Hathaway

Bootsy

Yes, D’Angelo is great, but you couldn’t accuse him of being prolific. “Voodoo” is a masterpiece though.

Lewis Taylor is extremely talented, but he’s effectively retired. In fact, his first album was a big influence on D’Angelo – you can hear it all over Voodoo:

^ I recall reviewers drawing comparisons between Lewis Taylor and Prince at the time.

[Edited 5/20/18 12:49pm]

Omar Ly-Fook is another one that springs to mind. He keeps a low profile, but has some big-name admirers like Stevie Wonder and Leon Ware.

[Edited 5/20/18 13:12pm]

[Edited 5/20/18 13:14pm]

What I mean is somone who produces writes all the songs plays all the instruments like prince did I know stevie but Im thinking the younger generation.

fen said:

Yes, D’Angelo is great, but you couldn’t accuse him of being prolific. “Voodoo” is a masterpiece though.

But are you basing prolific on what he releases or what he's perhaps done at home? He could be recording a song every other day, or even once a week. That's 52 songs a year. That's prolific compared to many. Producing a lot of material (whether art, music, writing, or otherwise) in a short period of time.

To me, D'Angelo is a lot like Jesse or Sly. They record and make music a lot, but who's hearing it? We could use an injection.

Saddiq & Tonex also come 2 mind.

TrivialPursuit said:

fen said:

Yes, D’Angelo is great, but you couldn’t accuse him of being prolific. “Voodoo” is a masterpiece though.

But are you basing prolific on what he releases or what he's perhaps done at home? He could be recording a song every other day, or even once a week. That's 52 songs a year. That's prolific compared to many. Producing a lot of material (whether art, music, writing, or otherwise) in a short period of time.

To me, D'Angelo is a lot like Jesse or Sly. They record and make music a lot, but who's hearing it? We could use an injection.

Hi TrivialPursuit. Yes, I’m just basing that on the rate at which he releases new material. There was 14 years between Voodoo and Black Messiah.

fen said:

TrivialPursuit said:

But are you basing prolific on what he releases or what he's perhaps done at home? He could be recording a song every other day, or even once a week. That's 52 songs a year. That's prolific compared to many. Producing a lot of material (whether art, music, writing, or otherwise) in a short period of time.

To me, D'Angelo is a lot like Jesse or Sly. They record and make music a lot, but who's hearing it? We could use an injection.

Hi TrivialPursuit. Yes, I’m just basing that on the rate at which he releases new material. There was 14 years between Voodoo and Black Messiah.

Of course, he's had some personal issues to contend with, so I'm not knocking him. “Another Life” from Black Messiah is possibly my favourite soul ballad of the last 25 years.

Harts is new school and greatly inspired by Prince and Prince co-signed on his talent. He plays all his own instruments.

[Edited 5/20/18 18:56pm]

As far as work ethics go, I doubt that any could replicate Prince's when it came to touring, the soundcheck, main show and the aftershow all at full steam. I've heard stories of Billy Corgan, Rivers Cuomo, and the Mars Volta/At The Drive-In guys writing boatloads of songs but they don't have the aura of " The Vault " to their credit. I'm not a member of the Bootleg Insiders club, so I don't know the value of their collection. Jack White has already been mentioned; Lewis Taylor was a favorite on this site some years back, I can't think of any others at the moment.

I think Springsteen needs mentioning ... master song writer, can play a range of instruments, has produced and written for others. Not the genius Prince was but he's up there.

silverchild said:

NorthC said:

Don't know about young musicians. Sometimes I think young people are so obsessed with their phones that they don't have time for anything else anymore. [Edited 5/20/18 12:04pm]

Counterpoint: there are a LOT of young folks out there who are incredibly passionate about music, and now it's easier than ever to get an instrument, learn or teach yourself how to play it, and record your own shit cheaply and efficiently. If you don't know a lot of them, it's only because you haven't stumbled upon their work yet. Old folks waste just as much time on their phones anyway

NorthC said:

Lenny Kravitz
Sananda Maitreya

I wasn't aware Lenny was a multi-instrumentalist. I like him and his music a lot, but I think he lacks Prince's flair for songwriting. Then again, so do most.

Jacob Collier is already a more versatile musician than Prince ever was:

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The members of Hiatus Kaiyote are all multi-talented multi-instrumentalists:

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Same thing goes for the members of Vulfpeck, Theo Katzman in particular:

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[Edited 5/21/18 13:07pm]

hausofmoi7 said:

Meshell is one of favorites by far. I heard an interview she did talking about her creative process. She seemed to value the collaborative process of creating over being someone who wanted to be seen as doing it all herself. Me'shell mentioned that she thought session musicians were uncredited songwriters. She said that session musicians should probably be credited as songwriters also. Me'Shell also mentioned in the interview that she doesn't write her own lyrics. she said she values lyrics in songs and that is why she chooses to have writers come in and create that part for her albums. I'm sure she works with people who can convey what she would like to express on a particular album. Me'Shell didn't seem like she wanted or cared to be seen as a one person band. Making the best possible music seemed to be paramount to her. . [Edited 5/21/18 2:44am]

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From Me'shell.com:

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Lasting and collaborative relationships with her fellow musicians is among the most important parts of music making for Meshell, prompting her to say on more than one occasion: “Meshell Ndegeocello is a band”.

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Another talented "he does it all"-type fellow to mention is Dave Sitek.

modified said:

Jacob Collier is already a more versatile musician than Prince ever was:

[Edited 5/21/18 13:07pm]

Jacob Collier is clearly very talented, but I don’t like his music very much to be honest. It’s all terribly polite and showy. We shouldn’t underestimate how much modern DAWs and samplers contribute to making performances like this possible either. Ableton Live represented paradigm shift in this regard. If Prince had grown up working with a modern DAW in his bedroom, I’ve no doubt that he could have achieved similar feats, and I'd wager that the music would have been better.

[Edited 5/21/18 14:15pm]

fen said:

modified said:

Jacob Collier is already a more versatile musician than Prince ever was:

[Edited 5/21/18 13:07pm]

Jacob Collier is clearly very talented, but I don’t like his music very much to be honest. It’s all terribly polite and showy. We shouldn’t underestimate how much modern DAWs and samplers contribute to making performances like this possible either. Ableton Live represented paradigm shift in this regard. If Prince had grown up working with a modern DAW in his bedroom, I’ve no doubt that he could have achieved similar feats, and I'd wager that the music would have been better.

[Edited 5/21/18 14:15pm]

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Fen that's kinda unfair Its like saying The Beatles would have been better with hip hop verses or Charlie Byrd would've been better with electric guitars. Tech changes, times change, life changes.

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Prince could've also become so dependent on DAW that he became a trap producer and never mastered harmonies or how to tune an instrument and been much worse because "the computer does it". A part of me wonders if all this shenanigansery about vocoders, Ableton, and ProTools had never existed if ANY of our current pop 'artists' would be "who they are" today.

[Edited 5/21/18 14:27pm]

@ fen - I agree Jacob Collier is still kinda annoying. He has to get out of that damn room and stop doing his one-man-band schtick.

I saw the debut of his band in London in March. It was great, but on his Asian shows last month he was back doing the one-man-band.

And even in his band show he was still doing a lot of the same solo stuff and a way too slick Sting cover. Here is a Collier band moment:

Here is his most recent studio effort:

The big difference between Prince and Jacob Collier is not the technology they work with; Jacob Collier is much more advanced in music theory. He is a jazz/classical musician.

Prince sadly never really evolved beyond the pop, rock, soul, r&b, funk idiom. He stuck to producing songs on riffs or a few chords in the same key.

StrangeButTrue said:

fen said:

Jacob Collier is clearly very talented, but I don’t like his music very much to be honest. It’s all terribly polite and showy. We shouldn’t underestimate how much modern DAWs and samplers contribute to making performances like this possible either. Ableton Live represented paradigm shift in this regard. If Prince had grown up working with a modern DAW in his bedroom, I’ve no doubt that he could have achieved similar feats, and I'd wager that the music would have been better.

[Edited 5/21/18 14:15pm]

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Fen that's kinda unfair Its like saying The Beatles would have been better with hip hop verses or Charlie Byrd would've been better with electric guitars. Tech changes, times change, life changes.

.

Prince could've also become so dependent on DAW that he became a trap producer and never mastered harmonies or how to tune an instrument and been much worse because "the computer does it". A part of me wonders if all this shenanigansery about vocoders, Ableton, and ProTools had never existed if ANY of our current pop 'artists' would be "who they are" today.

[Edited 5/21/18 14:27pm]

Possibly, but there’s no doubt that modern real-time recording/looping and effects processing make that kind of one-man performance possible. It just wasn’t feasible in the past. Of course, you still need to be a superb musician to pull it off.

I’m not denying Jacob Collier’s technical talent as a musician and musical thinker. My main issue with him is that his music leaves me completely cold beyond a vague “yes, that’s quite impressive”. Stuff like Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, Miles’ A Kind Of Blue or Morton Feldman's listless compositions will literally bring me to tears. Equally, the funkiest Prince, James Brown or Parliament-Funkadelic performance will leave me feeling genuinely euphoric. Collier is like watching a cross between Weather Report and a more irritating Bobby McFerrin. Structurally his stuff is often impressive and as a Jazz/Classical music fan I should love it, but there’s just something essential missing for me at the moment. It’s as though he’s having a purely technical conversation with himself, and I like my music to have intensity and passion (and preferably a little angst). He’s still very young of course, so he may win me over in time... once he actually has something to communicate.

Armchair critic that I am.

[Edited 5/23/18 9:41am]