Is Prince the Best Musican of the Last 30yrs

EyeTrainUFC said:
See this is where it gets so murky. Trent Reznor must be your favorite musician, so you pick him. You can't honestly think he is the best musician in the last 30 years. Can you?
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He's not my favorite musician, not even close. But on the subject of best musician, he literally plays every instrument imaginable (even on stage) and his work and influence on music is huge.

Yes, I am well aware the same can be said of Prince (for the most part).
 
Striderxdj said:
He's not my favorite musician, not even close. But on the subject of best musician, he literally plays every instrument imaginable (even on stage) and his work and influence on music is huge.

Yes, I am well aware the same can be said of Prince (for the most part).
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Really? Do you know what literally means? That aside, I see your point, and that's fair. I just don't know how you make this decision. Almost everything you could say is qualitative. If you tried to quantify you have to use things like speed and technical proficiency, in which case Reznor is boned.
 
I would say greatest performer, yes. I've seen close to 2000 concerts in various genres and when people ask me what the best show I ever saw was the answer is always Prince in 2004. I saw him again last year and he put on another mindblowing performance. Nobody works a crowd or has a crowd in the palm of their hand like Prince does. The man just oozes cool on stage.

I think the people underrating his musicianship might not be considering the whole package. Sure, I can name a number of better guitar players, bass players and keyboard players. But, I'm hard pressed to come up with someone that does all 3 so well. Plus, you have to consider his vocal range and the nuances he brings into his songs.

There's better technical players out there but a lot of them are playing stuff that's not very accesible/listenable to many people. If we're talking pure skill there's tons of jazz musicians that will shit all over pretty much any pop artist out there. But, their genre is such that they often go underappreciated.


Short answer - YES
 
Gorack said:
I would say greatest performer, yes. I've seen close to 2000 concerts in various genres and when people ask me what the best show I ever saw was the answer is always Prince in 2004. I saw him again last year and he put on another mindblowing performance. Nobody works a crowd or has a crowd in the palm of their hand like Prince does. The man just oozes cool on stage.

I think the people underrating his musicianship might not be considering the whole package. Sure, I can name a number of better guitar players, bass players and keyboard players. But, I'm hard pressed to come up with someone that does all 3 so well. Plus, you have to consider his vocal range and the nuances he brings into his songs.

There's better technical players out there but a lot of them are playing stuff that's not very accesible/listenable to many people. If we're talking pure skill there's tons of jazz musicians that will shit all over pretty much any pop artist out there. But, their genre is such that they often go underappreciated.


Short answer - YES
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Have you even ever seen Britney, Bieber, Wayne or any of the top musi.....

That's as far as I can go with this. I just couldn't do it.
 
Although I want to argue against him, Prince is a pretty good choice. Just to be contrarian I'll say Tony Macalpine. He's a great guitarist and pianist, but he can also sing and writes goods songs IMO. Even if his music isn't your cup of tea you have to admit it's unheard of to have that level of skills on piano and guitar.

Tony singing


Tony playing guitar


Tony playing piano
 
in b4 shredders...

too late.

It's hard for me to reconcile very technical guitarists, or other instrumentalists, from being the BEST musicians, if they write really bad music.

For example, Guthrie Govan is one of the most technically amazing guitar players I have ever heard. If you listen to his songs, though, they are very boring. Painfully boring. The chord progressions and sense of melody seems like it was created on MIDI for an 8-bit video game.

That can go for any metal/shred band.

In contrast, even technical jazz, like bebop- those guys still had melodies that were interesting or pretty. Someone like Charlie Parker could out-play everyone technically, but still had amazing, beautiful tone, and they were playing over much denser harmonic structures.

A lot of classical guitar players play cello very well, but that's such a niche market, that I won't compare an art musician to a pop one.

Prince does seem like a logical choice for best musician, if you take into account versatility, technical ability, and songwriting.
 
JStreetz816 said:
in b4 shredders...

too late.

It's hard for me to reconcile very technical guitarists, or other instrumentalists, from being the BEST musicians, if they write really bad music.

For example, Guthrie Govan is one of the most technically amazing guitar players I have ever heard. If you listen to his songs, though, they are very boring. Painfully boring. The chord progressions and sense of melody seems like it was created on MIDI for an 8-bit video game.

That can go for any metal/shred band.
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I didn't bring up the shred thing because I think shredders are the best, but simply to point out how difficult it is to say someone is the best. I agree with everything you said except the bolded which only shows me that you don't know much about metal. SOME would have been the appropriate word.
 
I'm checking out that first Tony MacAlpine track and man does it make me think Queensryche. I haven't listened to them in a couple of decades but if I remember right the sound is very similar. I like it, it reminds me of a lot of the late 80's metal sound. Will check out the other 2 tracks.
 
EyeTrainUFC said:
I didn't bring up the shred thing because I think shredders are the best, but simply to point out how difficult it is to say someone is the best. I agree with everything you said except the bolded which only shows me that you don't know much about metal. SOME would have been the appropriate word.
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You're right. I painted too broad a stroke. I would revise it to 'the majority of' metal bands.

I have nothing against metal at all. Through my guitar teacher, I grew up on shredders like EVH and Randy Rhoads, and then got into thrash and other stuff when I was a teenager.

I don't listen to much metal any more, but I know there are a ton of talented musicians in that genre. Some of them will write GREAT music, and I truly mean that. I just honestly believe that most metal is derivative and unimpressive imaginatively.
 
That's the hardest thing about being a metal-head. I really like pagan, viking/folk metal. This is such a small niche in metal, and as a metal-head I dislike 95% of metal. So how do I stick up for it when you could post 100 videos of what you think to be shitty metal, and I'm probably going to agree with you on all of it? What does boil my blood is when people dismiss an entire genre because they've heard Slipknot and think that's what all metal bands sound like.

Anyways, back to Prince. I can't think of anyone that I think is a better overall musician that is even 10% as successful as him. That's a pretty strong case for him.
 
JStreetz816 said:
in b4 shredders...

too late.

It's hard for me to reconcile very technical guitarists, or other instrumentalists, from being the BEST musicians, if they write really bad music.

For example, Guthrie Govan is one of the most technically amazing guitar players I have ever heard. If you listen to his songs, though, they are very boring. Painfully boring. The chord progressions and sense of melody seems like it was created on MIDI for an 8-bit video game.

That can go for any metal/shred band.

In contrast, even technical jazz, like bebop- those guys still had melodies that were interesting or pretty. Someone like Charlie Parker could out-play everyone technically, but still had amazing, beautiful tone, and they were playing over much denser harmonic structures.

A lot of classical guitar players play cello very well, but that's such a niche market, that I won't compare an art musician to a pop one.

Prince does seem like a logical choice for best musician, if you take into account versatility, technical ability, and songwriting.
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You're really going to generalize an entire genre of music like that based off of.... what? If you dislike metal, that's cool, but don't make ignorant comments about something you know nothing about. Jazz has actually been a gigantic influence on metal and lots of jazz riffs are used constantly with what you call "shredding". Metal has deep jazz and classical roots.
 
Gorack said:
I'm checking out that first Tony MacAlpine track and man does it make me think Queensryche. I haven't listened to them in a couple of decades but if I remember right the sound is very similar. I like it, it reminds me of a lot of the late 80's metal sound. Will check out the other 2 tracks.
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Yeah, I believe that album was from that time period. Although I don't like his vocal songs that much, his voice is pretty good, so it's a shame he quit singing. There are so many guitarist that should quit singing, he's one of the rare ones that's good enough to sing without embarrassing himself.
 
Never really been into his music.

But he is very talented yes.


Should also add I don't think you can nail down a "BEST" like this.
More like just saying he is in the top end. There are so many fantastic musicians in this world.
 
SamboPunch said:
You're really going to generalize an entire genre of music like that based off of.... what? If you dislike metal, that's cool, but don't make ignorant comments about something you know nothing about. Jazz has actually been a gigantic influence on metal and lots of jazz riffs are used constantly with what you call "shredding". Metal has deep jazz and classical roots.
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I actually already got called out on that and responded.

Also, metal is WAY more influenced by classical music than jazz.

Math metal might steal some time signatures that are big in jazz, but harmonically, metal bands aren't playing complex harmonies; they're just not. Metal bands might employ key changes, but simply put, anything denser than a 7th is going to sound like shit on a distorted guitar.
 
Chandler sama said:
Yeah, I believe that album was from that time period. Although I don't like his vocal songs that much, his voice is pretty good, so it's a shame he quit singing. There are so many guitarist that should quit singing, he's one of the rare ones that's good enough to sing without embarrassing himself.
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His piano playing is fantastic! It's kind of sad when you see so many people just walk by something like that without stopping to listen. Just shows you why guys like him go underappreciated.
 
There's lots of polyglot musicians of various genres, so like previous posters have said, it's hard to compare. But when also considering his prolific production (I've heard he literally has like 100s of finished songs that are unreleased), side projects, and influence; you can definitely make a good case.

Purple Rain was the 1st record I ever got (along w/ Van Halen 1984).

And if you like the funk and/or house music, he was a big influence in the early 80s when house music wasn't yet house, but was evolving from funk/disco.

And we can't forget Vanity and Sheila E!! "Nasty Girl" still slays the ladies on the dance floor



 
There is no best, only those who have mastered mental discipline.

 
There is no best, only those who have mastered mental discipline.

 
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