Thinking now about the music of Prince and Janet Jackson, these four artists,
Michael jackson, Madonna, Prince and Janet Jackson, intersting
interconnections between all of them. Prince and Janet Jackson maybe having
more of their success in the second half of the 1980s, but all of them big MTV
stars and, and stars that depended an awful lot on the video dimension of what
they did to bring the music to audiences. So let's start with the music of Prince
from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Born Prince Rogers Nelson Prince
developed an image as a kind of sexually charged and somewhat androgynous figure.
If you look at the, the video of him during those days and the pictures and
stuff, he's He you, you, you're reminded, to a certain extent, of maybe somebody
like David Bowie during the Ziggy Stardust period.
You know, you're not really quite sure whether he's, he's, he's dressing,
dressing to, to, to sort of approach, more, his feminine side, or whether he's
just a dandy, or a pretty boy, or what exactly is going on.
But there's something. Definitely sort of sexually charged so
it's not like he's not interested, asexual.
He's definitely sexual. Definitely, you know, in a lot of his
songs you can tell that that sexuality is a markedly kind of heterosexual nature,
but his appearance is somewhat androgenous, and so in many ways,
continues some of that kind of thing that we've already seen happening in rock and
roll. Certainly has his roots in 1970s black
pop and funk so really kind of coming out of the parliament funkadelic, Sly and the
Family Stone kind of background and sound and approached his music making.
Prince is a guy who was extremely prolific as a songs writer.
I mean the guy would, could just write songs and songs and songs.
A fantastic multi instrumentalist. If you left Prince alone in a studio,
with all of the instruments there, he could probably record, you know, any
number of tunes in an afternoon, or at least one, you know, give him a couple of
days and he could probably do a whole album.
In fact one of the problems for awhile was that Prince was recording and had
more music ready to go than the record company was willing to release, they
thought, oh God, we can't sell this stuff, you're going to flood the market.
So it turns out that Prince has got, or the reports are, that Prince has got tons
and tons of music in a vault somewhere. So we can look forward to hearing tons of
this Prince music unfold as they years go by.
tracking his career a bit. we can turn to the album, Prince, from
1979. His initial success was mostly in the
rhythm and blues market, so unlike Michael Jackson who was really crossing
over Prince was really having his success with black audiences.
That album, as I say, Prince for 1979 going to number three in the r&b charts
with the number one r&b hit I want to be your lover, made it to number 11 on the
pop charts, but again most of his early success in the black market, black music
market... 1980, dirty mind, a number seven R&B hit
album. Controversy from 1981 at number three,
R&B album, made it number 21 in the pop charts.
But it's with the 1982 album 1999, which was a number nine hit album, but that
song 1999 became extremely popular, especially after he had his, his success
with the next album Purple Rain. That was a number twelve pop hit, number
four on R and B charts. Other hits he had, Little Red Corvette, a
number 6 hit on the pop charts, number 15 on the R and B charts.
Delirious was a number eight pop chart, pop hit, and a number eighteen r and b
hit. We look at some of the music that's on
1999. You can really start to see the different
dimensions of, of, of Prince's music. On the one hand, you've got that title
song, 1999 that starts off with the big keyboard chords sounding an awful lot
like the Mama Papa's Monday Monday. the, the, but the, sort of the big synth.
Big beat kind of sound, really kind of reminds you of a kind of a 80s version of
Sly and the Family Stone, you know kind of sing along.
That's the kind of song that if you've been to a wedding reception in the last,
I don't know, ever since that's been out. So the last three years or something like
that you've probably heard that song played by the DJ and the minute it hits
everybody is out on the dance floor or it's a fantastic dance number.
But if you go a little bit deeper into the album and you listen o the track Lady
Cab Driver, the song about Prince and he's hooking up with this lady cab
driver. And the whole end of the song is a,
explicit sexual encounter between Prince and this lady cab driver.
As explicit as any of those disco records with the moaning and groaning except
maybe even more so. You ca really see the sexuality element
in what Prince was doing and these kinds of things went over real big.
This, this element of it went over real big in his stage shows.
had to tame it down a bit for videos and that kind of things because after all,
they did have to broadcast this stuff. Well after 1999 and 19, from 1982.
we get Purple Rain. A number 1 album for Prince and The
Revolution, now, as he was calling the group.
Number 2 on the R and B charts. this was also a soundtrack to a film that
was released by a, a major studio. A film that was not directed by.
Prince, or written by Prince, but was designed to showcase Prince.
Not unlike the Beatles' Hard Days Nights, say.
It became a real cult classic, you can still find it on, on movie channels on
cable TV. And America, I'm sure if you go to
Netflix or any of the kind of movie, online movie dealers, you should, you
should be able to find it there, too. number of big hits on that, When Doves
Cry was number1, Let's Go crazy number one, another great sort of dance tune,
let's go crazy. Purple rain number two, I would die for
you number eight, these records 1999 purple rain really defined Prince I think
in the middle of the 1980s, he goes on with tremendous success.
I mean I'm not going to list these albums, but they're fantastically
successful year and year, but remember, he not only were these top records that
came out one every year. But he had a lot more material.
They were telling him, don't release it. We can't, we can't take any more then
what you're already giving us. Around the World in a Day, number 1 in
1985. Parade, number 3 in 1986.
Sign O' the Times, number 6 in 1987. Lovesexy, number 11 in 1988.
And the soundtrack to the movie, Batman, number 1 in 1989.
Fantastic success. In the sweepstakes in the 80s sweepstakes
for who was the biggest the bigger artist, Prince or Michael Jackson.
Michael Jackson probably takes that, takes the prize, in the '80s.
In the '90s, as Michael Jackson starts to fall from favor, and Prince continues to
be active. I think the equation maybe starts to
change a bit. But, and it will probably continue to
change as we look back on the music of both of these artists.
But anyway, if you juxtapose Prince and, and Michael Jackson.
You really did, really did get two very sort of photogenic guys.
Fantastic performers. Michael Jackson more the dancer, Prince
more the sort of musician type, but a very interesting sort of juxtaposition.
Well we talk about Prince and Michael Jackson, how about the career of Janet
Jackson, who is the youngest sister of the Jackson kids.
