MJ or Prince? Who was your guy ?

[Mr.Marion]

http://youtu.be/WWpmnXfBXjc

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aPU05wN2gGM

[daz71]

jimi hendrix.

[CrimsonGhost]

Prince. Of course Prince.

[emeraldknight47]

jimi hendrix.

Amen ta that, daz!

And, of course, his Purple Highness. Jackson was OK with Thriller, then he just got weird....

[enyawd72]

I always felt like MJ was overrated. Yes, he was an immensely talented performer, but Prince was a true musician. His writing and guitar ability and mastery of so many instruments set him far and above MJ.

[Hedji]

The Purple One reigns supreme.

[Keeler]

Both are great, but Prince is another level of greatness. Still bummed over his loss.

[huedell]

The fact that Michael Jackson was a great songwriter meant a lot to me as it did with Prince, ditto for their unique vocal approaches....

...and then, as much as I love Prince's rock guitar performance (I'd even go as far to say he's underrated there), I never took it much farther than that as far as the oft-seen "high-brow" critical take on Prince that focuses on valuing and/or praising the "jack-of-all-trades" element of Prince's instrumental and studio producing ability... but, it should be noted that these are skills that I gloss over for their diminishing returns as far as defining any true originality in ANY musician----not just Prince.

That said: Pound for pound, Prince still wins by a large margin.

8 or so albums by Prince that I essentially love through and through vs. 3 to 4 from Jackson.

[CrimsonGhost]

Still though, LITTLE Michael Jackson from the Jackson 5 was amazing.

[megomania]

Neither for me.

Thought Michael Jackson was the most overrated of all-time.

Prince. Meh.

I change the station when either comes on.

But they both have their legions of supporters.

-Chris

[Spawn67]

Well in our schoolyard we used to always have this argument (hey we were kids) and I always said prince but at the same time yes I did own a copy of thriller haha.

About 2 weeks ago our local station played those old american top 40 re broadcasts. 2 weeks ago they played the exact day of the brodcast from May 1983. The top 3 songs were from Micheal Jackson, Prince, and David Bowie (that let's dance song)...Crazy to think that all 3 of them are dead now ...

[Mikey]

Liked MJ during the J5 up to Thriller.

Never liked Prince

[huedell]

Still though, LITTLE Michael Jackson from the Jackson 5 was amazing.

That was a little before my time.... but, good point in that I love the well-known J5 classics and didn't really think to factor them in.

[Brazoo]

Both great - I decline to pick a winner, because I can't think of a fair way to choose a loser.

I can see the point people are making about Prince being ahead because he's a more accomplished musician, but I don't know if I can personally quantify "greatness" of an artist that same way. Elvis comes to mind as comparison to MJ. Neither were great musicians - both had something that still made them great and stand out from everyone in their cultural era.

"Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough" is my favorite MJ song, and for people who doubt MJ's writing abilities please check out this home demo version of that song. This is the tape he gave Quincy Jones before the started working on "Off The Wall". It features Jermaine on bass and a very young Janet banging coke bottles.

Even if it doesn't change your mind about MJ as a song writer I think it's SOOO fun and awesome to hear that you'll get a kick out of it anyway:

[palitoy]

To me that's like comparing Neil Diamond and Neil Young, sure they have the first same name but I like both of them for different reasons.