Ross Tucker Said What?!
Prince versus Taylor Swift is NO CONTEST!
Apparently a mentally challenged sports analyst said that Taylor Swift, “has at least 10 songs better than any of [Prince’s].” Now maybe he was delerious from drugs or alcohol, perhaps he was just talking smack, or perhaps he was having a stroke at the very moment he said that, but the bottom line is that this is an insane statement by any measure.
https://rollingout.com/2018/12/16/nfl-analyst-destroyed-after-saying-taylor-swift-songs-better-than-prince/
We can trot out stats like Taylor has sold more than 40 million albums whereas Prince has sold over 100 million, but that may not be fair. We can state that he is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and she is not, but she may get there one day. We can say that Prince has an Academy Award (i.e., an Oscar) for Best Original Song Score, which I am willing to bet she will never get (mainly because it is no longer an actual category). We can laud him for masterfully being able to play over 30 instruments, and she plays how many? We can do this all day long, but let's put all of that aside.
For any intellectually honest arbiter of music I find it astonishing and highly improbable that these two musical artists could be credibly compared to one another in any way when it is so abundantly clear that one is clearly superior to the other. Purple Rain is regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time as is 1999 and Sign O' the Times. They were groundbreaking in their day, and changed the face of music forever. Can the same be said for any of her albums? Practically every Prince release has printed on it, "Produced, Arranged, Composed and Performed by Prince." Is Swift so unreliant on others for her craft? Has she revolutionized the sound of music, created her own genre, and single-handedly transformed the entire industry and how it functions?
Prince was a controversial guy who used shock tactics early in his career to set himself apart. He certainly did not pander to the masses for the sake of sales. He broke the rules and did what he wanted to do. Is Taylor Swift so daring? Why I think not. So, the bottom line is that perhaps we should not judge Mr. Tucker too harshly because his statement was so absurd that it is very clear that he was just talking out of his ass.
