Michael, Madonna, Whitney, Prince

I used to see the ‘80s as having four major solo artists: Michael Jackson, Madonna, Whitney Houston and Prince. These were the four who had hits consistently throughout the decade. They were icons.

 

What does it say about me that I always gravitated more toward the Madonna-Prince end of the axis? I fell for the nasty ones. If ‘80s music had been a classroom, Whitney and Michael would have been sitting up front and paying attention to the teacher. Madonna and Prince would have been the bad kids, sitting in the back of the room and throwing spitballs. They had a hint of darkness to their music that always appealed to me.

 

This occurred to me last week as I wondered: Why did I never care that much for Whitney Houston’s music? It’s dance pop, which should have been right up my alley, but I never got into it. I think the answer was that her singles just seemed too immaculate. They were so polished that we never saw her sweat. She could belt out a ballad but a lot of them seemed the same to me. I liked Thriller but after that, Michael Jackson’s work also seemed sort of safe and polished, so I didn’t get into Bad or Dangerous.

 

I think of two songs by these artists that hit number 1 back-to-back in 1987: “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You” and “Didn’t We Almost Have It All.” They sound kind of beige and safe to me. Technically, they were well done and tasteful but I didn’t feel a lot. With really sweeping ballads that have a lot of crescendos, I kind of shut down sometimes and don’t know why.

 

Contrast this with Prince, who was — and I mean this as a compliment — a nasty freak in the ‘80s. When I heard his ballads like “Purple Rain,” I could feel something that was missing from ballads by Jackson and Houston. There was real blood pumping through its veins. When Prince shrieks his throat raw in “The Beautiful Ones,” I still get the full body chills that I don’t get when I hear the vocals in songs like “I Will Always Love You.” Why does Prince’s song appeal to me more than Whitney’s?

 

For me, the difference in Prince’s material was the sense of musical adventure. If you listen to his ‘80s albums back to back, he was almost moving on to the next idea before listeners could digest the old one. Dirty Mind doesn’t sound anything like Purple Rain and that doesn’t sound anything like Under the Cherry Moon. As much talent as Michael and Whitney had, for awhile, it seemed like they were plugging away at the same formula. Meanwhile, so much of Prince was unorthodox. He was naked on the cover of Lovesexy and all nine of the album’s songs were one track. He recorded triple concept albums and then scrapped them. He took risks.

 

I never thought Madonna got much credit for her sense of musical adventure. The songs are basically pop but there are different shadings to a lot them. “True Blue” is a ‘60s girl group song while “Everybody” is a murky underground club hit and “Into the Groove” is like an exposed nerve of raw sex. The singles had to be safe enough to get airplay but Madonna took some risks within the formula. “Like a Prayer” is a song that uses a prayer as a double entendre for oral sex and features a gospel choir and electric guitar. On paper it’s bizarre but it works. “Live to Tell” was a risky choice for a first single: A six-minute ballad with an unconventional structure for an artist who had never recorded anything so heavy. But it worked. “Justify My Love” is a weird tone poem with a shuffling beat. These were all number 1 hits and showed some adventure and range.

 

I used to contrast “Justify My Love” with the contemporaneous “I’m Your Baby Tonight.” The latter seemed like Whitney Houston’s attempt to be more sexually aggressive but on the single cover, she’s on a motorcycle in a baggy sweater, white sneakers and white socks. Meanwhile, Madonna is on her single cover wearing a leather vest and smoking a cigarette. Madonna was dangerous and sexy and fun. She was the girl who would dance in a slip as crosses burned behind her. What does it say about me that I fell for her?

 

When Madonna and Prince collaborated in 1989, the results were the off-kilter but funky “Love Song.” If Michael and Whitney had collaborated in the ‘80s, I could see the results being a ballad that was smooth and sweeping and critically acclaimed but would not have done much for me.

 

The funny thing is that as much as Michael and Whitney seemed like the good kids musically, in their personal lives, things became sad and sordid, with drugs and all. As much as Madonna and Prince seemed like the bad kids in music, in their personal lives, they pretty much lived cleanly. They were never in rehab or bankrupt or anything. Maybe there’s a lesson there: If you’re going to be a rebel, you’re better off doing it in your art and after you get out of the recording studio, just go home and go to bed. You’ll last much longer.