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aaron695

> during a moment of loss of one of humanity's greats.

Compared to, lets say Bill Gates who's saved millions of lives?

Even artistically, I'm not sure Prince was up there in the top 1%

The power of marketing.....

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Prince has provided millions (probably billions) of fans with moments of joy in their lives. The album "Purple Rain" pretty much was the bookmark of my freshman year at college. So many memories of that first year away from home come rushing back whenever I hear any of the songs from that album. I can vividly recall specific events, settings, and people for almost all of them, over three decades later.

I never saw Prince live, but talking to people who did, he commanded the stage and the audience like few others. Without exception they describe him as one of the best live performers they have ever seen.

I don't see why you bring up Bill Gates. His philanthropy is laudable and that stands on its own. I don't see how recognizing that Prince is probably up there with the best performing artists in human history takes anything away from that.

William Shakespear didn't saved as many lives as any physician of the time. Yet here we are, 400 years after his death, commemorating the man and his work.

Different people contribute differently to the betterment of mankind. That doesn't mean some contributors need to be censored away from popular culture just because you perceive their contributions to be not as important as others'.

I agree with your point, though I think many physicians at the time of Shakespeare may actually have had a negative score when it came to saving lives.

http://historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistoriesResponsive...

Just lol. Blind comment. He played and produced his first album his self, all 27 instruments, all production, composition, arrangement. Pretty sure he was under 20 also. Sign o the Times, lyrically hits you like Bob Dylan. I'm not sure what makes an artist to you but Prince created some of the best art I've heard. But yes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

If you're serious, do you genuinely believe you know what you're talking about?

I totally agree with the sentiment of this comment (though I'm not sure how much marketing is involved.) Prince was very good at music and was, well, kind of a dick. I don't quite get the massive outpouring of grief that has ensued.

"Kind of a dick" I think could easily apply to Gates as well, no?

Well, I wasn't really responding to the Bill Gates part in particular. Gates was a bit of a megalomaniac with MS. But he's doing awesome stuff with the money now. As person I'm not aware of him ever being a jerk.

So if you gain lots of money via semi nefarious means what fraction do you have to dedicate to good works before the earlier wrong is cancelled?

I know that he didn't gas 6 million people but letting people buy their way out of moral debt with a fraction of the money they gained still seems horribly repugnant.

First, what moral debt? Second, I imagine the sum total of his humanitarian efforts are greater than the total charity if all of those dollars remained in the pockets of each person who bought windows 95 et al. So repugnant seems like a real stretch.

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