The Black influence on the music industry was there from the early history of recording even before there were charts and when it was sheet music being sold. Now can you say why I’m “the bad guy”?
Sure, he was eclectic and a synthesizer and probably was historic in that way. I think if you look back a page I am saying he was pop, but I don’t think he was “rock” and I think his songs are just middling. But if you can’t hear the black influences in his records I imagine Prince himself would be confused and mortified. You really think Miles Davis didn’t hear black music coming out of Prince?
I think you hear black music coming out of Adele. Rock finds its origins in black music. Pop is a subgenre of rock. So is hip-hop and rockabilly and heavy metal and electronica and punk and new wave and alternative and…
I can hear black influences coming out of Sarah McLachlan, who is so white she makes Duran Duran look like NWA.
Seriously, “Black influence” describes basically all genres of popular music.
It looks like Prince was worth over $400 million dollars and he left no will. This is going to get ugly and public.
Eh, probably not hip hop, but if you make rock and Jazz both sub-genres of the blues I can probably get behind wrapping hip hop in that cloak.
That said, yeah, when modern western popular music is all derived from the blues, jazz, or hip hop you are going to be hard pressed to find something that isn’t black influenced. You get some American folk music derivatives that you can maybe say aren’t influenced by the blues, but man it would be tough to say they don’t have common roots. Not a lot of baroque music in popular culture these days, not Gregorian an chants, symphonic works or European folk tunes.
They exist (the pogues, sigur ros, etc) but they are rare.
I don’t listen to Duran Duran, but then I haven’t listened to black pop in years.
I mean what the hell is “genius?” In intelligence it’s typically what percentage of people? 1/100? 1/500? Whatever percentage it is I’m sure Prince was in that percentile in the field of music. Now whether or not you like Prince is irrelevant.
Interestingly enough, here’s Pink Floyd’s tribute to Prince from Sunday’s concert, at about 4:20-ish.
Exactly. The guy was quite proficient or extremely gifted at a wide variety of instruments, singing, and production in a wide variety of musical styles. It’s like saying saying “meh, Einstein wasn’t a genius, imho. I’m more of a chemistry guy”
Fair point. 
I like Delirious for catchiness from Prince. That and Horny Toad. Oh, and You Got the Look. Seven is alright. The Beautiful Ones is quite good. Nothing wrong with Bob George.
In Octopus’s pantheon of all time greats in the music world, while not being my favorite singer, I’d rank Prince as the overall most talented of the folks I listen to regularly.
Not the Bible, but one of the books.
Not even Rio?
FWIW, I just read that he left no will and that he was likely worth much, much less. He has had some unpaid property tax bills (although the property taxes on Paisley Park are paid up), had an IRS tax lien in 2013 (unknown resolution) and failed to pay up on a $4.4 million dollar lawsuit he lost regarding his failure to promote a perfume line (the plaintiff’s lawyers dug around and found about $3 million in various Minnesota bank accounts and froze them to satisfy the debt).
This is not to say Prince was a (sorry) pauper. He is said to have owned around $26 million in property, including houses for family members and so forth. Plus it’s estimated that his posthumous earnings will dwarf those of previous deceased celebrities like Elvis Presley ($55 million last year) and even Michael Jackson ($1 billion so far).
All in all, whosoever is in line to receive inheritances from Prince’s estate will do very well indeed.
Someone posted that on my facebook feed earlier - yep, Comfortably Numb had me going headachy and sick feeling. I don’t know if its the frequency or the rhythm or what, but I can tell its Floyd from a consistent physical reaction. And I’ve had it since junior high when The Wall was big.
But I’m never going to say it isn’t objectively good music. People I respect love it. It just pretty obviously isn’t my cup of tea.
Shit, now Delirious is running through my brain. Its one of those earworms. I’ll have to start singing Its a Small World to myself now to get rid of it. Cause that’s a GREAT piece of music>
Well I dont know. I recognize Prince was a gifted musician but yet, I own none of his music nor would I buy any. Why? The topics of his songs like “Darling Nicky” dont do much for me however I do plan on buying “When the Doves Cry”.
Same as I recognize ACDC as being good yet I have no desire to buy their stuff.
I can recognize good musicianship yet not actually want to buy it.
As someone Tweeted, Prince could steal your girl, then steal her clothes, then steal somebody else’s girl in your girl’s clothes.
As this great article points out, when Prince initially signed to Warner, he insisted on being signed to their pop division instead of their R&B division. So even though his first few records were still mostly marketed to R&B radio, he was already working at blurring genre lines and becoming a full-fledged pop star.
He also insisted on what they called the “Stevie Wonder contract”–he wanted total creative control, even as an unsigned 18 year old. And they were smart enough to give it to him. So in a music industry full of manufactured acts and personas, Prince became a dominant force by doing exactly whatever the hell he wanted to do. That’s genius.
By the way, for anyone wanting to dig into the Prince catalog–just about all of it is on Tidal, and there’s a 30-day free trial. (Plus you get to listen to the new Beyonce, which is pretty great.)