Who pushed more boundaries as an artist? Prince or Madonna?

I'm from Minneapolis and love Prince's music but I have to give it to Madonna.

Prince was the better musician (I think one could almost always say that no matter who you compared him to, lol)

However, Madonna was better at reading the zeitgeist of pop culture and really had more interesting things to say over a much longer period of time. She had 71 Top 40 singles. Of those, 63 hits went Top 10. Another way to think of it is she's had a single in the top 10 for 10 years of her career.

Even at his peak Prince wash just not even anywhere close to that popularity. My guess is Madonna is closer to Michael Jackson than Prince in her music's reach.

Prince seemed to revert lyrics-wise in the early 90s to the point where he just didn't have anything new to say. He seemed to be a little lost when hip-hop and electronica took over pop music. (Don't even get me started on his NPG rapper, oy). Instead of asking subversive, interesting questions like "what if I was your girlfriend?" he kind of hid behind his religion.

Prince is a better performance artist. Madonna simply schools him on conceptual artistry and cultural button pushing.

/r/GenX Thread Parent