Prince vs Michael Jackson

It's no surprise to anybody here that I have pretty harsh opinions on some aspects of Prince's career and personality.

But comparing MJ and Prince is (and has always been) apples and oranges.

MJ is in the middle of a personal & professional sanctification process BECAUSE of his death, not because of his accomplishments. MJ was a has-been during the last 10 years, at least, where all his headlines were related to weird happenings, and not musical events. When he announced the shows in London, many people were thinking "there is no way he can do that". Unfortunately we were right. If MJ would continue lliving his life and dying in his 60s or 70s, then his legend would have vanished in the middle of musical mediocrity and continued reports about weird stories, debts and more debts, re-issues and more re-issues, with decreasing sales. His death changed this upside down, and possibly the owners of his rights must be happy at this time. MJ did several astonishing albums in the 80s, became a major figure in the music biz, and was a fantastic dancer & singer. That's what he was in the 80s/early 90s. But in 2009, he was a pathetic figure that had lost control about his life. (And there is no offense intended in this comment, mind you: I think he had a sad life).

By sharp contrast, Prince was in the 80s, and keeps on being in the end of the 2000s. Forget about opinions and focus on facts: while not at the same rhythm as he had in the 80s, Prince keeps on releasing loads of music, and by comparison to pretty much any other music act, he's very, very prolific. His career had the peak in the late 80s (much like MJ had the peak in the early 80s), but you would ensure that, with the only exception of the "Slave" years, all Prince headlines were career-related, and very few gossip-related. Exactly the opposite with regards to MJ. Prince had a major commercial comeback in 2004, and then he showed over and over that he is at the very top if you are interested in live music: just look at Musicology, the Super Bowl, 21 nights in London, Coachella... nobody ignores, today, that Prince can blow your mind, anytime, playing live. Crazy millionaires pay crazy figures to bring him to play at private events. Uberprestigious jazz festivals bring him to play, both in 2007 and 2009. And experienced live players (ask Brian May) have no shame in praising Prince as a supernatural talent to play live music.

As I wrote once upon a time in HQ, you can have very strong critics towards Prince (and maybe you have read some of them from yours truly), but one thing is clear: by comparison to pretty much any peer of similar profile, Prince commitment to the making of music is at the very top. He's a hard-worker among hard-workers, and the passion and feeling he delivers evetytime on stage puts him in the category of truly living legends. As I have said many times, if you look at the world of truly top performers, you will see the Prince, Stones, U2, Springsteen, and not many others. If you put the "running on automatic mode" live acts out of that category, possibly you would have even less top contenders.

Now, if you look at their music outcome, Prince outperforms MJ by very, very far. You can like it or not, you can say his late output is good or awful, but you can not discuss that, judging strictly on released songs, Prince track record is quantum leaps above MJ, even if MJ outsold Prince by a large difference. And I personally consider that any Prince album, including all of the last ones, contain at least one masterpieces. Very few people with a 30 years long career can say the same. Furthermore: Prince has always been directly and personally responsible of his musical output. MJ's role is completely different: although some reports suggest his authorship in the songs from the glory years is more significant than initially believed, you can't deny that Quincy Jones had a large influence in the albums that made the MJ legend. To the point that one can wonder whether MJ's legend would be the same without Quincy, and the answer is "probably no". You will never find the Quincy Jones of Prince.

But that is only looking at their professional lives. If you consider their personal lives, including the way they managed their career, again they are apples and oranges. Prince is the paramount example of control freak since the very begining of his career, being the producer of his first album, and behaving the same until today, when we have read a few stories dealing with the Montreux performance which evidenced, once more, how Prince has been personally in control on what will happen next July 18th. If you compare that to MJ... well, let's say he has been surrounded by very good teams (in the top years) and of very bad teams (in the misery years), but his personality was far from a firm leader in control.

Now, maybe someone could read this and sum it up to "Jose says Prince is good and MJ was bad". Far from it. I am well aware of the good & bad sides of Prince, and far less informed about the good & bad sides of MJ; but I know they, as anybody else, have both sides. All I'm saying is that Prince, with all the highs and lows, has kept a PERMANENT commitment to make music, even in the most troubled times, and his profile as live player is second to none. You just need to ask anybody who has seen a Prince performance for the first time.

By contrast, MJ had a period of fireworks which established him as the "king of pop", but it turned out to be a very short kingdom, and it turned out to be an apparent kingdom only, since the actual responsibles of the kingdom were not the ones holding the crown.

(BTW obviously I don't want to speak about some dark aspects of the personalities of these two guys; that was not the point here, and besides I suspect that the information available on those aspects is far from accurate).