Interesting article in the NYTImes this weekend about how the notion of of the lone genius at work producing masterpieces alone is kind of a myth:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/20/opinion/sunday/the-end-of-genius.html

I found this article interesting because I have had this theory that some of our favorite works by our favorite artist comes from the period that they were the most collaborate and maybe some of these artist fell off because they became so famous and important they no longer were forced (or no longer needed) to collaborate.

I think Lauryn Hill is a great example of that. She wanted to be the multi-hyphenated on her own debut album but we have come to learn that The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill was more of a collaborative work than we thought with her leaning heavily on the New Ark musicians.

We know the first wu-tang albums were so good because of the competitive collaborative nature of how the clan worked together. Namely, if you came wack other members of the group would quickly tell you. I heard the same thing about early Death Row.


It seems there were more cooks in the Kitchen with Thriller than Michael Jackson but by the time MJJ did Invincible was he really listening to anyone regarding suggestions for the album? Not a rhetorical question, I really don't know.

And the same goes for Prince. We regard him his as this lone genius working alone and creating great music but I often read behind the scene stories about how certain of his great songs were written it seems like other people had in creating some of his great works. Take this account of how Kiss was written:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_(Prince_song)

I say to this day the greatest thing Prince could use right now is working with someone who he respects who he would actually listen to and could tell him "naw dude, that's wack, try this".


I say this not to diminish the genius of anyone mentioned here, just that maybe the notion of a lone genius at work is oversold and collaboration is often under appreciated.





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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

http://www.tumblr.com/blog/blackpeopleonlocalnews

the Beautiful Ones, Controversy, ...

and yeah band members had ideas and he ran with them

its also no doubt that there have always been band collabs for other projects such as Parade, some of SOTT, Lovesexy, Symbol album etc

Were they also collaborative works or just plain Prince.

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"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

http://www.tumblr.com/blog/blackpeopleonlocalnews

>Were they also collaborative works or just plain Prince.
>

The ones I mentioned were all Prince. Controversy had Lisa vocals.

Nope....That was Prince...In fact the label questioned the decision...So did members of his backing band...They thought it was too weird to be a single...

GOAT of his era......long live Prince.....God is alive....

I don't think Prince's solo genius is oversold but I think the impact the selling has on other acts can be problematic. Lauryn and D'Angelo are good examples - both tried way too hard to be sold as solo geniuses when neither is actually a solo genius. Both would've been better served selling the truth of their process bc I think both have struggled to maintain that image. I think it's holding them back (along with other issues, maybe).

I think the idea of solo genius is generally overrated. I'm not particularly impressed when I know a piece of music was created solo versus collaboratively. But I say this in 2014. I get that context matters. It was more impressive to be a solo act in the wayback in the wake of the era when hands ruled popular music. Solo acts are more common now and so the fear is less impressive.

And I'll send a shout to Stevie, Sly, and Paul while I'm at it.

fuck you.

>I don't think Prince's solo genius is oversold but I think
>the impact the selling has on other acts can be problematic.
>Lauryn and D'Angelo are good examples - both tried way too
>hard to be sold as solo geniuses when neither is actually a
>solo genius. Both would've been better served selling the
>truth of their process bc I think both have struggled to
>maintain that image. I think it's holding them back (along
>with other issues, maybe).
>
>I think the idea of solo genius is generally overrated. I'm
>not particularly impressed when I know a piece of music was
>created solo versus collaboratively. But I say this in 2014. I
>get that context matters. It was more impressive to be a solo
>act in the wayback in the wake of the era when hands ruled
>popular music. Solo acts are more common now and so the fear
>is less impressive.
>
>And I'll send a shout to Stevie, Sly, and Paul while I'm at
>it.



Correct answer^^^^^^^^^

GOAT of his era......long live Prince.....God is alive....

As described by questo anyway.

Like imo Dr. Dre & Diddy are genius's when they know just what a track needs to make it great whether they did the legwork or not.

phemom's the name, all-star writer/
searching 4 journalistic fame, mindframe igniter....www.twitter.com/hayabusaage

which is not to say he was as COMPLETELY do it yourself as he was marketed.
but he could do more himself than the vast majority of artists could.

mystique was his.
production was his.
songwriting was his (and yes, taking a few licks from jam sessions and creating songs
still counts as his).
the vox, keyboard, drums, guitars, and bass was his.

i can't think of a more self contained genius
other than stevie wonder.


of all the auteurs, he did the most of his own grunt work.



but yeah, some of that his hype.
and like SoWhat said, that hype works to the detriment of other acts.
and these days, to prince himself.

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiss_(Prince_song)
>
>I say to this day the greatest thing Prince could use right
>now is working with someone who he respects who he would
>actually listen to and could tell him "naw dude, that's wack,
>try this".
>
>
>I say this not to diminish the genius of anyone mentioned
>here, just that maybe the notion of a lone genius at work is
>oversold and collaboration is often under appreciated.

This is where it gets dicey....I believe SoWhat has the right answer...The problem with that whole Lone Wolf Genius tag is that it inspired lesser artists to go that direction...And we've seen the results of that from Lauryn to D'Angelo...

However...

It's impossible to diminish Prince's "lone wolf" genius by bringing up "Kiss"...Because one, he still wrote the song, and two, David Z, who produced "Kiss" for Mazarati, utilized the very same production values, style/sound, and instrumentation that Prince first innovated (The Linn Drum was a cool little percussive machine until Prince got his hands on it...)...

And it's equally dicey bringing up the fact that Prince has seen better days artistically (and this is the truth...I agree) as proof that Prince's past lone wolf genius cred was overrated...Prince's inability to make another SOTT has more to do with Father Time than anything else...

But mainly?

Beyond "Kiss" and the 85-86 period where Prince made it a point to include Wendy & Lisa in more of the studio work, back then Prince's whole being had been that of the "lone" genius...He's the guy that did 99.9 percent of Dirty Mind, Controversy, 1999, SOTT, ect on some lone wolf shit...

Like any great artist some ideas indeed come from jam sessions. But even with an album like Purple Rain, Prince made it a point to write and produce the songs...In other words he wasn't singing anyone else's songs or allowing a producer to steer him...

But on the real, you shouldn't take the word from someone wasting his/her time writing out a long ass post about how you know who has delivered work that lives up to that lone wolf tag....lol

Take Prince's engineer word for it...

---
Susan Rogers on working with Prince from 83-87

"I can't think of any other artist who has ever done what he's done. His competition at that time was Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and Madonna. Now there have been other artists since that have seemingly done it all in the studio. But they don't really do it all. They are not writing, producing and arranging all of their material. And playing every instrument and writing music for movies at the same time and writing for other artists. Prince was doing all this and designing every aspect of his live show. He even designed his own clothes. To do all this and be on top for as long as he was and to have that many hit records and exercising that much control and power and that much anonymity over that many aspects of your music there's no precedent for that.

Let me tell you. At that time, four hours of sleep was a good night's sleep for Prince. I would usually get a phone call at 9 a.m. and it's from Prince. When he would call that meant come to the studio immediately. Prince would tell me what kind of set up he wanted. The most important thing was to never hand Prince an instrument that wasn't in tune. His technicians taught me how to tune his piano, drums, bass, and guitar. And this included setting up a vocal mic as well. Prince would come downstairs and usually have a lyric sheet written in long hand. And he would tape it up on a stand in front of the drums. I'd hit record and he would play the entire drum track from beginning to end without a click with the song in his head. He was a musical genius, especially on the drum machine.

That's how talented he is. Prince wanted to be able to walk from the drum booth into the control room, pick up the bass and play the bass parts. Next he might do the keyboard or pick up the guitar. He'd get half of the instrumentation done and then by himself he would record his vocals. Once it was time for vocals, I would leave the room. He always had to do his vocals alone because he needed that concentration. We could finish an entire song and have it printed and mixed in one day and have copies made. And then a few hours later, the phone would ring again and it's Prince *laughs*. And I would come back and do the whole thing again. But that's just so extremely rare. Most people don't or can't work like that.


A typical session for Prince was when we started a song from scratch we typically didn't leave the studio until it was mixed and printed. No one else did that. But Prince did that for every song. So if we came in and we started a song from scratch we would either do the drum machine or live drums first. Then we might bring in members of his band. But usually he would finish an entire song without any help. We would not leave until everything was overdubbed."

GOAT of his era......long live Prince.....God is alive....

Peace,

Spirit (Alan)
http://wutangbook.com

awesome!!

http://www.soundcloud.com/jaydeep-bhadra

thanks

"yes, sometimes my rhymes are sexist, but you lovely bitches and hos should know i'm tryin to correct it"- hiphopopotamus

this attack on solo genius in modern times.

I mean, in a sense, I get it, cats think he's overrated, and that his "best" material came within the context of a band, a band which, btw, he freely shared writing and production credits with, even if they didn't have much to do with the song.

But it's still an odd example to cite, even if his current output is lackluster.

___________________________________________________________________________________________
Gender Coons Gotta Go

of course, "Jaws" is a beast of a movie.
but ppl trying to imitate it's success led to "transformers 2."

so in a way, Spielburg (and later on, Geoege Lucas)
ruined Hollywood by creating some of the best movies of all time.


prince and MJ, as great as they were,
kinda ruined music. just in the sense that less talented ppl
tried (and failed) to do what they did.

It's interesting when you juxtapose it with Susan Cain's work. Her evidence suggests that people (especially creatives) do better work alone than in groups. The new york times article includes muses as a person's group. That doesn't seem quite fair but if we are to take thatstance then madonna, bruce springsteen and mj are prince's collaborators.

In the hip-hop world this shit is glaring. It's something that chuck d often speaks on. I'll give a few examples.

Dr dre/snoop/doggpound the only one that seems to understand that greatness came from the synergy they were able to create is dre. Everytime dre does an album he brings 20 producers and 20 rappers. That same process is what created doggystyle. murder was the case and all eyes on me. It has been missing from the dogg pounds group and solo projects and the difference is palpable.

Bone thugs: during the recording of their ep and debut they flew all their friends out to california in order to collaborate and the results are great. On the subsequent group and solo projects the magic never returned.

Nas: during illmatic and to a lesser degree iww he was entrenched. Producers, rappers, everybody. Definitely a collaborative project, the stories that have come out of those sessions are legendary.

>It seems there were more cooks in the Kitchen with Thriller
>than Michael Jackson but by the time MJJ did Invincible was he
>really listening to anyone regarding suggestions for the
>album?


I can't believe you said that, lol. Mike was 24/25 when Thriller came out.
He was 43 when Invincible was released, and yes he was still "listening to others
regarding suggestions", which is why he ended up not working with Pharrell before
he passed and was still bringing in producers instead of doing it all himself.
More than anything, he was just an older guy in a music scene that had drastically changed
while this generation didn't watch him grow up like the one who made Thriller so huge.
Also, I don't ever really recall Mike necessarily being "sold" as a long wolf genius
the way Prince is... although I think Murph's comment proves Prince's tag is
pretty deserved, even if his "mystery" is mostly his own doing.

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Days like this I miss Sha Mecca