a musician is someone who plays musical instruments, so being able to play your own instrument is a pretty essential part of being a musician. MJ wasn't a musician, he was a vocalist. using his mouth to make sounds to recreate instruments is just a cop out. anyone can do that, just look at nevermind the buzzcocks when they have a section where they do that

if you are comparing talent in a tangable way, you are comparing someone who plays drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, sings, writes, produces and mixes the music, literally creating the entire record himself, to someone who makes noises with his mouth to get other musicians to play

certain aspects can be argued left right and centre, but mainly revolve around personal preferance, such as who's vocals do you prefer, who's dancing you prefer, who's overall music you prefer, but when it comes down to tangable comparable skills, no one can deny that prince is the most talented

i have all the music that prince has ever released, and loads that hasn't been released, and all the music that MJ has ever released, and loads that hasn't been released, including outtakes, alternate versions, live shows, rehearsals, phone conversations, vocal training tapes, you name it. i've listened to and watched hours and hours recently as i was working on something in advance of the o2 shows. i'm thus extremely aware and knowledagble of both the released and unreleased work of both artists and how the music was created. when you listen to the demos and unreleased work of MJ it sounds very rough or of notably poorer quality (ie. songwriting) of his released work, but if you listen to the unreleased work of prince it's of the same releasable and finished quality, both due to the recording and the writing skills. prince on average used to record two fully completd tracks every day, that's written, recorded and finished. he didn't record demo's per se, he would literally go in the studio, lay down the drums, or program the drum machine, then record the bass, then keyboards, then guitar, etc, complete the music track in one, no click track, no guide tracks, then he would record his vocals, and mix the track, and it was finished, all in a matter of hours. some tracks would later have some minor alterations or overdubs, sometimes he would completly rerecord the track in the same manner, but due to his talent of being able to play what he wrote, he put down on tape first time almost everytime what you heard on the record. he would rarely rerecord a take or mess up. it was one shot and go, move on to the next instrument. i've been to his studio, discussed his recording with people he worked with, such as engineers, and they said they've never seen anyone else work like this, usually most artists or bands lay down a rough guide and work and work on it, but with prince he has the entire track laid out in his head and when he plays the drums as the first intrument, he has the intro, breaks, and all the parts in place for the other intstruments to be laid over. that's an incredible feat, and only one that an extremely talented artist can pull off. in fact i've never heard of another artist working in that way

the word genius is banded about too much these days. people like mozart and beethoven were genuises, prince is probably the only true musician alive today to be truly worthy of being called a genius. MJ was a talented singer and dancer no doubt, he had a talent for writing some good pop songs, but the lyrics weren't typically worthy of critical acclaim, catchy sure, but not exactly shakespearian in content, likewise chord structure. you can hear from early demos of some tracks just how much the involvement of real musicians added to the final track, the snap of the drums on bilie jean, the bassline, etc. you can really hear the song evolve from the original 2 and a half minute rough demo, through the studio demos to the original, and see how much quincy jones and the players added to his music. you only have to listen to the george benson album "give me the night" which was produced by quincy, and mainly written by rod temperton to hear how similar it sounds to off the wall and thriller to see just how much quincy jones involvement was. the initial three albums, off the wall, thriller and bad were a success mainly due to quincy jones production, including arranging so many great musicians, and secondly, and very closely, due to the videos that other people created for him. just look at the billie jean video compared to thriller and bad as an example of how much influence the big budgets and directors made. the videos were the driving force behind the legacy that was michael jackson, moreso than the music. that's why his dancing is regularly the first or second thing mentioned about MJ, he's known as a dancer. prince on the other hand is known as a musician

MJ was clearly the most popular, but prince was clearly the most talented

^ See it really annoys me when many like to say Michael wouldn't have been successful without Quincy Jones. It's a cheap shot! His work on Dangerous, Blood on the Dancefloor, Invincible is equally very good. A more mature, soulful sound - away from the 80's music and away from Quincy.

Prince was musically talented of the two but Michael Jackson was an innovator, a trailblazer and broke down music & racial barriers with his songs & videos. That in itself is a bigger achievement.

You said "he had a talent for writing some good pop songs". Oh come off it! I understand you are a Prince fanatic but give credit to Michael. Jeez! If he had some good pop songs, why is he revered all around the world? People who do not understand a word of English know his songs. It takes more than a 'good pop song' for that to happen.

Michael had been in the music industry since he was a little boy. It's easy to forget his talent from the age of 8. I haven't seen a kid like Michael sing with so much emotion and feeling - singing adult songs, about love & heartbreak and making it sound real & emotional. His career path was different to Prince so he didn't have the capacity to perfect each instrument. He was under the spotlight for his entire life and unfortunate circumstances robbed us from more great music.

But he couldnt play an instrument at all. where do you get this crap.

apparently MJ could play piano to a reasonable standard, but never did. i think he played some keyboards on one or two tracks on history (it's listed in the credits), but i would say that almost anyone can draw a picture, but that doesn't make them an artist, and almost anyone can sing, perhaps not well, but that doesn't make them a singer. some people can play instruments, such as myself i can play a number of instruments, albeit poorly, but i wouldn't consider myself a musician. if i was a singer in a band or a famous artist like MJ i could pull off playing a few chords or notes in the studio that could end up on a record, but wouldn't have the skill to do so onstage, and it's either the lack or skill or confidence that stops MJ doing so onstage, although his fanbase prefer him to dance onstage rather than sing or play an instrument, and happily paid to see him mime for 2 hours

I personally prefer Prince

i didn't say he wouldn't be successful without quincy jones, and didn't infer it either. he was hugely successful before quincy jones as a member of the jackson 5 and the jacksons. as a great vocalist he could have became successful in his solo career regardless of who he worked with. many great singers don't have such great writers or producers, but have hit albums

what i am trying to point out is that the tremendous success of the first three adult solo albums is down to quincy jones for the great music, and the big budget videos, with directors like john landis for thriller and martin scorsese for bad. with such great videos you could get heavy rotation almost regardless of the artist and the song. off the wall was a big success, as was thriller, but just look how the sales of thriller went through the roof after the thriller video, that video turned from from being a radio star to a video star, and from then onwards he was obliged to follow up the rest of his singles with innovative videos. after the release of bad, i think that's where he lost it, by spending too much energy into creating music videos and features such as captain eo, moonwalker and ghosts, instead of on the musical side

when quincy jones left MJ got some of the best producers to work on dangerous, but it was the second weakest proper album of his career, after invincable. out went the real instruments and in came the drum machines. new jack swing may have been hot when he started work on the album, but it was a fleeting genre, and tired by the time the album was released. even jimmy jam and terry lewis couldn't help save the album. they made great hits for his sister janet, but strangely couldn't do the same for MJ. the success of dangerous was mainly down to the promotional videos. the history album was a marked improvement, but whereas off the wall and thriller had no filler, the following albums certainly did, and considering the length of time it took to create the albums, it shouldn't have been the case. invincible suffered greatly from the reliance of drum machines and grooves instead of a good tune. it's sad that such a great singer ended a career on such a low point, particularly when his follow up work never got released. it's understandably why if you have heard it

as a kid MJ really unleashed the emotion and was a tremendous performer, but it seemed that he lost the drive in later years. his music also suffered from his tendancy to write material about the adverse side of his life, something that few of his listeners could associate themselves with. had those tracks been funky, or ended up on b sides it could have been interesting, but they had no place as they were on the finished albums. prince would do the same on occasion, but the flooded the market with tracks, a new album every year, often a double, sometimes a triple, and a bunch of b sides and other albums of his work for protoge artists, so no one song was put under the spotlight in the same way. in the same week he would literally be competing with his own songs in the charts

MJ is like coca cola, not the greatest drink in the world, but the most widespread and well known, and very commercial in taste. few people don't like coca cola, but then few people would consider coca cola their favourite drink of all time. MJ had a commercial sound, and with the publicity he became known all around the world, just like coca cola. he is the type of artist where people will enjoy his music who wouldn't typically buy music, the type of people who aren't music critics or lovers. he's not the greatest artist, but was one of the most well known and biggest selling, along with the beatles and elvis. being a commercially successful artist doesn't equate with talent, in the same way as coke doesn't equate with fine beveridges. madonna was one of the most successful artists, but she probably has the least musical talent of them all, she just knows how to use what she has to her best advantage, something that MJ unfortunately didn't do. had he done so, he could have been an incredible performer, and perhaps progressed his music like marvin gaye or stevie wonder, creating a more mature sound befitting an artist of his stature. and that's what prince did, he came along and took a portion of MJ's audience, and matured his sound as he went along and as he and his audience got older, giving up the outrages outfits for suits, swapping the splits for more guitar solos, growing old gracefully, or as gracefully as a superstar living in a bubble can do

Well if the 2005 trial, fall out with Sony, other legal battles, drug dependency and being hounded by the press day, in day out hadn't occured, things may have been different in this decade with his music.

There are a lot of unreleased music of his so it will be interesting to hear what it sounds like.

Anyway, I've said my bit and i put across my honest view point and i'll leave it at that.

there's quite a lot of unreleased music circulating, but it's not very good. think about the outtakes that were eventually released on the special editions or box sets etc and how they compare to the rest of the tracks on the album (ie. how they aren't a patch on the other tracks), and you'll get an idea what they are like

the material he worked on after invincible was of similar sound to invincible, and similarly poor. had he created any music that was genuinely good, he would of course have released it, for a number of reasons, one for ego, and two for the money, and not necessarily in that order. a musician doesn't create great music to sit on it unreleased

MJ all the way. Prince does absolutely nothing for me.

Prince, beyond a shadow of doubt. MJ certainly had something, but as others have said he didn't come close to Prince in terms of songwriting, and musicianship.

MJ had maybe three great albums, but Prince, back in the day, put out great album after great album, many of them different from the last, and covering a wider range of music styles than MJ ever came close to.

for you
prince
dirty mind
controversy
1999
purple rain
around the world in a day
parade
sign o the times
lovesexy

those 10 albums, put out at a rate of one a year, must be one of the most prolific, high quality, sustained bodies of work by any artist, ever. period.

whilst he perhaps lost his musical mojo somewhere along the way after that, he remains today an incredible live performer.

saw him for the third time when he played the O2, and was lucky enough to finally see one of his legendary after shows - we were treated to an hour and a quarter of just Prince, bass and drums doing an amazing turn of mostly classic covers, with a few of his own. was just stupendously awesome in such a small venue.

for my money Prince has an awesome, and extensive back catalogue, a whole other world of great live stuff to seek out, from around the time of the railway children album, and would jump at the chance to see him again.

whereas MJ perhaps just has a great greatest hits album.

Iain

you said it - his talent was his voice.

but as unique posted above, Prince's talent goes way, way beyond his voice.

Iain

This was my fav album by prince.....even though - it wasen't his most popular.

Some great replies btw.

Has anyone heard ' in my dreams ' of the never- to- be released Black Album?

it's one of the best tunes he ever wrote. i asked him face to face to release it in fact. it wasn't from the black album though, but some cd copies included that as a bonus track. the black album was eventually released in 1994 as part of contractual negotiations with warners. there are a few more great tracks like that in the vaults. he has some far better unreleased stuff than some of the stuff he did release

This totally contradicts what you said about unreleased tracks a few posts ago

I got ripped of then!

In 1989, I bought a casette from a music magazine ( that long ago ) and on the front of said casette was: The Black Album. There were songs like Superfrag... etc and others -that I cant remember.

Prince was a huge fan of Freddie Mercury btw

Great song - 1985:

<embed id=VideoPlayback src=http://video.google.co.uk/googleplayer.swf?docid=-196646101143773778&hl=en&fs=true style=width:400px;height:326px allowFullScreen=true allowScriptAccess=always type=application/x-shockwave-flash> </embed>

Prince/Michael/Brown:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CoxNzOOoQU

Michael Jackson.

There is a reason he is considered one of the best of all time long before he passed away.

His music, his dancing and his live peformances have never been matched by anybody and probably never will.

To say Prince was a better dancer than MJ is simply moronic. I seriously doubt Prince himself would think that. I like Prince a great deal but I dont think he comes close to Michael Jackson in the long term.

Oh, and I REALLY wish some people would do thier research on songs Michael Jackson wrote completely by himself. There are many of them and many big hits.

Off the wall
Bad
Thriller
Dangerous

Better IMO than anything prince has done since Purple Rain.

I cant be bothered to link them all but all you have to do is go on youtube and look at MJs live performances. Whilst some may be lip sync there just isnt anybody else who could do what he could on stage.

In the words of Chris Rock....'PRINCE WON!'

http://www.youtube.com/results?searc...rch_type=&aq=f

i think you are getting confused. prince has literally thousands of fully completed unreleased tracks in his vaults, including literally dozens with fully completed videos that no-one has seen. about 500 of these tracks are in circulation amongst fans, and a great many of them are amazing tracks, i mean truly amazing

it's MJ i was referring to about his unreleased music not being a patch on the released work. there has been a lot of talk about some of it being released, but based on what some people have heard, there isn't any great stuff out there. if he had great material he would have released it

as to why prince doesn't release certain tracks, it's a long and complicated story, he records and releases so much stuff as it is, and he is always looking for the next thing, so shelves old projects to move to the next, plus his old material has a lot of sexually explicit lyrics which don't fit in with his jehovas witness lifestyle, thus as long as he is JW we won't be getting official versions of some of the vault material in a long time. likewise as long as he keeps recording and releasing, he won't have an interest in releasing old music. this year along he has released a triple album of new studio material, plus a bunch of extra tracks on his website. he's now also moved back to MPLS from la la land, so is back with his full studio setup (well that's 5 studios and two large soundstages), so he can record nonstop 24/7/365. the guy doesn't sleep much

Oh and Unique.

You clearly are not a fan of Michael Jackson so its hard to have a debate when you keep on coming out with things that are clearly untrue.

Michael Jackson had a commercial sound? Is that a joke?

I dont think Ive ever heard ANYBODY say that about his music. Mainly because its a load of nonsense.

prince has an ego inversely proportionate to the size of his body, fortunately he has the skills to back up what he says. unfortunately he cast war on the internet so you won't find much of his stuff on youtube, so checkout the sign o the times live concert movie as an example of his dancing, then watch a MJ live concert on dvd and you can see with your own eyes that he makes MJ look like he's nailed to the floor. MJ was a junkie, and just couldn't pull it off in concert, that's why he relied on dancing and lipsynching. prince doesn't lipsynch, but he moves far more energetically and acrobatically than MJ, and doesn't sound out of breathe when doing so. i recent waded through hours of footage of professionally shot prince concert footage and noticed that after being spun around and jumping all over the place, he will come back to the mic and sing note perfect as if he hadn't moved. any other artist who sings live whilst dancing will sound out of breathe. the guy had amazing control of his vocal technique and stamina. if i could only somehow let you see some of the fotoage i have you really wouldn't say MJ was the better dancer. i could also show you a pile of MJ shows and each one looks the same as the next, his shows were more like stage musicals, the exact same thing every night. no enthusiasm from the band or dancers, just routine night after night in time to the band playing to the backing tape of MJ's prerecorded vocals

what the hell are you on about? pop is the most commercial music, as it is short for popular. MJ was the king of pop, the king of popular commercial music

do you understand what that term actually means? commercial doesn't mean advertisements

i wouldn't say i was a fan of his music these days, but i have more of his work than i imagine you or anyone else posting on this thread will ever have. in saying so, i have a tremendous collection of music, with complete collections of music from a large number of artists, but i know MJ's work far better than most, having followed his work since the 70s

what points exactly do you think i've said about MJ aren't true? let me make something perfectly clear here, i've only stated fact and opinion, and haven't made anything up. i have no desire or inclination to do so. i am passionate about music, and i love discussing it, as must be clear from my posts, but i don't care who is the best artist of all time or anything like that, but i can certainly help arrive at making the appropriate decision, regardless of if it's an artist i like or don't like

Unique has a lot of info - about Prince......more than I know...and I thought I knew everything about 'said' individual.

You ask any historians- of the 'greats'....and Prince will come trumps- all the time.

Prince evolved on each album...........where as Michael just did his moon walk, again...and again.

Ditto.