It seems that nearly every day we read that someone famous has passed away. It's been a very difficult year so far. For every name that I can remember there are probably ten that I've forgotten about. That's not a commentary on their worth but rather on my bad memory. But the death of Prince last week was surprising and tragic. I won't forget that.
I don't like the word "genius" applied to pop stars. It's overused to the point of being nearly meaningless. However I think that it may apply to a few. My personal image is like the MasterCard logo of two intersecting circles. One circle (we'll say the red one) represents people who are very talented and accomplished. They are wonderful entertainers and we love them for it. The other circle (we'll color this one blue) represents people who are very creative. They write wonderful songs or are quietly creative in the studio but generally work in relative obscurity known only to a few. But that small sliver of space where they intersect (respectfully purple) is home to genius. There's not a lot of space there and not many live there.
A little "truth in advertising" here. I was never a big fan of Prince. But whenever he appeared on TV I couldn't help but watch. The same was true for David Bowie and Merle Haggard. I didn't dislike them, but I never loved them the way true fans did. But there was no mistaking their impact on the public and subsequently on the music business.
Pop music is disposable. We love it for a few weeks and then move on to the next new song. The song we loved last week has grown tiresome. A couple of years later it pops up on an "Oldies" station and we listen with fondness as it takes us back to some pleasant memories. The music business is built on this model. I'm not sure which came first, the model or the practice. However as times change, and they always do, the model seems to dominate. There seems to be little room or patience for "genius".
There are some wonderful entertainers today. As fresh and exciting to todays teenagers as the Beatles were to my generation. And just as incomprehensible to the oldsters. "I wish they would write good music today like when we were kids", is pretty much what older generations have said about younger generations since the invention of the radio......and before. (Actually, if you read some of the nastier descriptions of the Waltz when it was first introduced you would think they were talking about Heavy Metal.) But it's music designed for rapid consumption.
Taylor Swift, Katie Perry, et al. sing songs written by a committee and their recordings are produced by another committee. This is todays "normal". But Prince wrote, performed, and produced all of his music. As I watch a couple of his videos I realize not only how talented he was, but how hard he must have worked. As a guitarist I know that you don't play as well as he did accidentally. Singing, dancing, putting on memorable concerts all take an enormous amount of work. It seemed to me that fame was the result of his efforts but not the reason. Genius? I'm not sure. But he was definitely an artist. An artist forever known as Prince.