POLL: Prince vs. Madonna, Who Ya Got?

It's the Unpronounceable Symbol and the Sex Symbol: Pop Culture icons do battle, and YOU get to vote and comment!

On July 7, Sirius/XM Satellite Radio’s Volume channel used their “Feedback” morning show with Nik Carter and Lori Majewski to run a “Feedback Fight Club” call-in poll, pitting the two pop cultural icons of the last quarter of the 20th century, Madonna and Prince.

I thought it would be fun to use Substack’s new Polling feature to see how our subscribers on Front Row & Backstage might rate these two musical behemoths.

As I understand it, this 3-day poll can only be seen by our subscribers on the e-mail sent, so this won’t be plastered up on any social media site; it’ll just be us!

If you’d like to share this post e-mail with friends, feel free, as you’re welcome to do with any of FR&B’s posts! Feel free, also, to encourage them to subscribe! An exclusive poll like this one is one of many benefits to subscribing to FR&B!

What I’ll do here is present some stats and general career overviews to sort of set the stage. I have no real preference, and will avoid any appearance of favoring one over another. This Poll is for you!

As for my experience with these two, it was really from afar, just absorbing their respective pop cultural phenomena placements as they happened: This PEOPLE Magazine cover, that spate of hit records, a movie here for one, a movie there for the other. I never bought any recorded product from either.

I’ll refer to each in alphabetical order (as shown in the Poll box below).

Madge📸Harper’s Bazarre

MADONNA and PRINCE By the Numbers

Madonna had more #1 hits (12), than Prince (who had 5).

She had 38 Top Ten hits to Prince’s 19.

Madonna had 87 songs that charted (using the Billboard Hot 100 charts), while Prince had 47.

She had 46 #1 singles on Billboard’s Hot Dance Club play chart, while Prince had 7. Madonna enjoyed 26 certified gold singles. She had six singles top out at #2, apparently the most all-time.

And, she’s had the most consecutive Top 5 singles on the Billboard Hot 100: Every single from 1983’s “Lucky Star” through 1989’s “Cherish” reached the Top 5.

The Artist Formerly Known As

Career Beginnings

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Madonna was born in Bay City, Michigan, August 1958, two months after Prince (June ‘58). She will be 64 in mid-August, while Prince (born in Minneapolis) passed away in 2016 at age 57 in a Minneapolis suburb.

In 1979, Madonna began singing and dancing in Paris. She briefly sang, played guitar and drums in a New York-based band. In March 1981, she signed a recording contract with Gotham Records.

Within months, a meeting with Sire Records president, Seymour Stein, led to her landing a deal with the label, distributed by Warner Bros. Records. [Editor’s Note: I met Seymour’s wife, Linda, in a Houston hotel room in 1978, as she was traveling with key Sire artists, The Ramones. That rare meeting with Linda and the band can be read about by clicking here.]

October ‘82 saw the release of her debut single, “Everybody.” Her debut album was released in July 1983, and peaked at #8 on the Billboard 200.

Prince played in a band as early as 1975 (at 17), playing guitar in a session they recorded. In 1976, shortly after graduating from high school, he created a demo tape with producer Chris Moon. Unable to secure a recording contract, a Minneapolis businessman signed Prince, at 19, to a management contract, and helped him create a demo.

The demo, along with a press kit produced at his manager’s ad agency, resulted in interest from several record companies, including A&M, Columbia Records, and the aforementioned Warner Bros. His first album, For You, was released on Warner Bros. in April 1978, some 5 years before Madonna’s.

Musicians

Besides singing, Madonna plays guitar and dances. Prince sings, of course, dances, and has been known to play all the instruments on albums. They both have produced their own albums.

Madonna has released 14 studio albums, three soundtrack albums, six live albums, seven compilation albums, and 37 other limited releases.

Prince has released 42 studio albums (including four soundtrack albums), four live albums, nine compilation albums (including one soundtrack album), 17 video albums and three posthumous albums.

Style

This is the wild card for those who don’t have a favorite going in. Both artists were enormously influential in their use of clothing (or lack thereof), make-up, and hair, each gender-bending years before many had the guts to.

Both pushed the taboo envelope in their songwriting, penning tunes about graphic bedroom activities, again, long before most even dared to even consider it.

Both used MTV to their publicity and album-sales advantages, and both knew how to craftily and expertly manipulate the press to get the most mileage out of their public images and onstage antics.

And, of course, both utilized the medium of film to various degrees of success.

Your Turn!

Register your vote in the Poll Box below, and we’d love it if you’d share key listening and live concert moments about either Madonna or Prince, or both! Poll closes Sunday, July 10 at 8:20pm (CT). Thanks for participating!

📸Entertainment Weekly