Will Miner wrote:
>It's been 16 years since Thriller and 15 since Purple Rain, 12 since
>Sign O The Times. None of them has been <snip> ... influential on the
>hip and new in a while. Even the Prince clones are old history.
Um, Beatles clones were old history a lot longer ago but does that
mean the Beatles are not (for better or worse) a lasting influence? I
see Prince's influence quite plainly in much new R&B, trip-hop etc.
(Tricky and Massive Attack are obvious cases, and you see him cited by
even more wildly un-Princelike bands in interviews all the time.) Als
I suspect the real impact of TAFKAP will have to wait out the annoying
pomposity of the glyph-o-maniac's public pronouncements (just as
late-Miles's influence has resurged among jazzers and rockers alike,
now that his personal tics are fading in time's amnesia). And tho,
yeah, he seems to be in a less incandescent phase, every record he
puts out has enough brilliant strokes for me to be far from counting
him out yet. Unless he just gets crazier and crazier with the years,
in a Howard Hughes rather than Brian Wilson sorta way.
As for MJ - listen to the radio, man. From Hanson on up, the people
who are makin' hits were born to the sound of Thriller.
Carl W.
