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Soul Train BOTBs Natty Game = #1 Stevie Wonder vs #2 Prince
YellowSnow
Moderator, Swaye's Wigwam Posts: 35,815 
Soul Train BOTBs Natty Game = #1 Stevie Wonder vs #2 Prince 21 votes
#1 Stevie Wonder
66%
14 votes
#2 Prince
33%
7 votes
Comments
Either is worthy. Whoever Tequila picks, the other one is the true champion.
From '72 to FUCKING 1985 every album Steveland Morris made went top 5 on the pop charts. EVEN HIS FUCKING LIFE OF PLANTS ALBUM.
But his string of #1s on the R&B charts (all top 5 pop) is up there with the Beatles...
Talking Book
Innervisions
Fulfillingness' First Finale
Songs in the Key of Life
Hotter Than July
Stevie had nine top-10 pop hits in the sixties (one number 1: Fingertips) and then 12 in the 70s. He also had 6 in the 80s.
He was one of the people who really transitioned soul music from fun time music to more depth and changed the types of topics that were talked about in music. I think of him as akin to the Beatles in this way as well...
He has all time classics like My Cherie Amour, For Once in My Life, Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours - in his first 'fun times' era...
Then his depth/funk era produced a new level of musicality and richness to music and he still had all time classics like Superstition, You are the Sunshine of My Life, Higher Ground, Living for the City, I wish, Isn't She Lovely and Sir Duke.
By the 80s he had slowed down on innovation, but he was still pumping out hits that Prince couldn't even dream of matching 23 years after his debut - like Part Time Lover and I just Called to Say I Love You...
While Stevie got so popular he became a fun target for parody later in life, he had a seriousness and innovative ability as a musician that Prince really never quite had.
Prince's main message was 'I kind of want to act like a girl and fuck you'.
Stevie had #1 pop hits with songs like 'You Haven't Done Nothin' which were civil rights anthems.
Stevie funked the shit out of a Sesame Street episode.
John Lennon and Paul McCartney both publicly said the only guy everyone the in the Beatles acknowledged had a career on par with them was Stevie.
FOR COMPARISON
Prince's first record was in '78 (which was not a hit and not good) - 23 years later his record was Rainbow Children. You guys love that one or... never heard of it? lol
Prince's peak was a string of top 10 albums that started good (1999, Purple Rain, Around the World in a Day) but then decayed into total commercial wackness (Batman, Graffiti Bridge, Diamonds and Pearls, Symbol).
At the same distance from the start Stevie was making Songs in the Key of Life and Prince was making the Symbol record.
SitKoL singles: I Wish, Sir Duke, Isn't She Lovely
Symbol singles: My Name is Prince and Sexy MF
They are both amazing, but nothing can touch Stevie.
I ultimately think Stevie got fucked by never just going back to Steveland Morris. That branding as 'Stevie Wonder' and the later parodies made him seem like a joke. But he was a fucking funk superstar with the musicality of the Beatles.
Prince's first album was '78 (For You which was garbage, released when he was 19)... Stevie's first record was a record before LPs were really a thing (The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie Wonder released when he was 12)...
top 10 hits... #1s *asterisked
Prince (19; 5 #1s)
Little Red Corvette
Delirious
When Doves Cry*
Let's go Crazy*
Purple Rain
I would Die for You
Raspberry Beret
Pop Life (my personal fave)
Kiss*
Sign O' The Times
U Got the Look
I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man
Alphabet St.
Batdance*
Thieves in the Temple
Cream*
Diamonds and Pearls
7
The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
top songs that just hit outside (2)
I Wanna Be Your Lover (11)
1999 (12)
Stevie (24; 9 #1s)
Fingertips*
Uptight
Blowin' in the Wind
A Place in the Sun
I Was Made to Love Her
Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day
For Once in My Life
My Cherie Amour
Yeter-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday
Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours
Heaven Help Us All
If You Really Love Me
Superstition*
You Are the Sunshine of My Life*
You Haven't Done Nothin*
Boogie On Reggae Woman
I Wish*
Sir Duke*
Send One Your Love
Master Blaster
That Girl
Ebony and Ivory*
I Just Called to Say I Love You*
Part Time Lover*
top songs that just hit outside (5)
I'm Wondering (12)
We Can Work It Out (13)
Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing (16)
Do I Do (13)
Go Home (10)
How is this close?
Prince '82-'87
Stevie '72-'85
Top 5 albums longest run?
Prince '84-'86
Stevie '72-'85
So, one more thing to consider is how original and derivative each of them were.
Prince basically took a few templates and went with them: glam rock androgyny, sly and the family stone (multi colored band) and James Brown (stage moves).
He freely admits all these things. Prince started as New Wave Glam Rock mixed with Rick James.
Stevie started at a time where he was a cog in the wheel at Motown and there hadn’t really been anything like him, but people said he was a young Ray Charles.
Then he tore up the template of “system QB” at Motown and got in major fights with Berry Gordy to get creative control. Once he had complete creative control he totally changed black music to that point -> Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions etc.
There was no template at all for that. It wasn’t a combo of things... he was basically taking a bunch of shit that was around and combining it into something tremendously innovative and new.
Sure he was informed by black power and the Afrocentric movement in the early 70s in the same way that Prince was informed by the vapid materialism of the 80s, but he never just had like 4 influences that basically sum up who he is.