Prince has been in the music industry as long as Michael Jackson has, recently turning 51. Though Michael performed in the public’s eye a bit earlier as boy-wonder of the Jackson 5, Prince stayed in school yet was no less active in performing music through school and personal bands. The difference between the two men becomes very clear when you examine the true talents they possess.
To put things into perspective- how did these artists consider each other? Michael was OBSESSED with Prince- even naming his boys Prince in order to attempt to overshadow him, or steal some of his uniqueness. His boys are not named Prince out of respect for Prince- but rather his fear of them becoming lost with his legacy behind a brighter light that is Prince. Don’t buy it? In Michael’s OWN words, within the last few weeks of his death:
“You don’t understand,” a sleep deprived M. Jackson told Ortega. “If I’m not there to receive these ideas, God might give them to Prince.” ~ Entertainment Weekly, 2009
Let’s do a side-by-side comparison of their talents and legacies…but consider: Michael Jackson might have called himself “King of Pop“, but there’s a reason many others call Prince “The God of Music“!
Singing:
Michael was a talented singer with a limited range- predominately falsetto. Michael’s ability to truly change his voice was negligible and his voice work is relatively the same on each of his songs. Prince’s singing ability ranges from a deep bass to high falsetto, a greatly increased range than Michael could perform. In regards to the song styles, Michael stuck with pop without wavering. Prince, however, has literally touched upon almost every genre of music- you can find him singing country-lite to electronica, and everything in between. Unlike Michael, Prince is not content to tread the same ground and makes sure each effort is a new sound.
Prince’s singing ability clearly trumps Michael’s in range, skill and variety of song types.
Dancing:
Both artists are known for their dancing ability- however, Michael’s moves came from working with choreographers, using very intricately pre-planned movements, often of the same variety. However, Michael’s dancing became quite repetitious with reused slide-steps and arm motions, along with his signature moon-walk, crotch grab and leg snaps.
Prince simply dances- no pre-planning, just fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants movement. While the dance styles are drastically different, Prince has a tendency to create new dances for every song- often creating songs entirely to be the inspiration for the dance (”Jughead”, “Horny Pony”, “Housequake”). However, Prince does not require choreographers to provide his moves for him. Rather, he serves as the choreographer- one more hat to hang on his rack of skills and talents. And, Prince gets another bonus in this category: Michael never danced with a guitar in his hands, or for that matter performed alternating high kicks while playing the piano (as has Prince!)
I’ve witnessed Prince, from the front row of a concert while he was mere inches away from me, on a two-foot-wide catwalk with a five-string bass in his hands tucked under one leg while he hopped/danced- in rhythm- to the song he was still continuing to play flawlessly on the bass. That’s simply not something any other artist can pull off. Recently, Prince has reduced his focus on dancing- partly due to so many years of dance, he damaged his hip and required hip replacement surgery. However, his philosophy changed as well, as he eliminated a focus on dancing during shows in order to not detract from focusing on the music.
In the end, Prince clearly is one of the most skilled dancers we’ve ever seen, where Michael requires deliberate choreography and relies on a limited number of routine moves to use in repetition.
Songwriting:
Both men have ultra-mega-hits that will last time. However, the difference becomes clear once again- Michael’s amount of work is extremely limited in quantity, only putting out a spattering of albums over lengthy stretches of time, often co-writing the songs or having them provided by another songwriter. Certainly a hit is a hit, and Michael’s had his fair share.
Then consider Prince’s hand in songwriting. Prince has, since the beginning of his career in the late 70’s, put out one to three albums a year, every year. Music insiders will tell you this “floods” the market and reduces demand, yet Prince continues to outsell other artists and hits the top of the charts with every release. Another point of note is that throughout every album there are no filler songs. While this is easy to achieve when releasing an album every five years (or longer), having a 100% stream of A++ songs on each and every album at so prolific a pace is astounding.
Another consideration? Prince rarely collaborates with other songwriters. 95 percent of the songs in Prince’s discography have been written entirely by Prince himself. Even his band members rarely have a hand in the formation of a song- his first well known band, The Revolution, having the most influence in songwriting. Still, there are virtually no artists out there who take on so much of the creative creation of the output on an album.
Clearly, Prince has an uncanny ability to turn out track after track of quality material that surpasses the rest of what is heard by his peers. The fascinating part? Prince is so prolific that he has a “vault” of music in his recording studio with an jaw-dropping amount of unreleased material. It is amazing to realize it is a fact that no one living today (barring Prince and anyone with a key to the vault) will hear every song Prince ever writes, even if he died this second- because a new album could be released every year until – get this – possibly as late as 2150. A new Prince album, in the year 2150. Unheard of by any other artist.
When you consider that every Prince release is an automatic mega-hit in sales, combined with his more “commercial” albums like Purple Rain, the sheer number of albums he’s released, all reaching the top of various charts for many weeks on end, Prince has massively outsold Michael Jackson in number of albums and value provided. If Michael had been less willing to bow to the industry insiders in waiting so many years between albums, he may have had enough work to come close.
Obviously MJ received a massive boost to sales upon his death which can not be factored in for a valid comparison, as Prince has not passed and received the same massive boost by those rushing to grab his work. Therefore if you’re factoring in the sales by including those after MJ’s death, you’re invalidating the comparison. However, to drive the point home, even with this boost in sales, Prince still comes out on top in overall sales. Highly impressive, to say the least.
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