Competition/Rivalry in Music

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Watched the Brian Wilson biopic Love and Mercy t'other night. Aside from making me finally 'get' Pet Sounds, it brought up the idea of musical competition to me. Brian Wilson was being spurred on by hearing Beatles records. Not wanting to get left behind by them, wanting to outdo them.

So friendly/not-so-friendly competition as a driving force of innovation and talent (and, conversely, as a driving force of decadence and catastrophic extremes). 3000 words. Discuss and please show your working.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
A quick Google search retrieves this:

"Healthy Competition" is the second episode of series 3 of the BBC sit-com, Only Fools and Horses. It was first broadcast on 17 November 1983. In the episode, Rodney decides to leave Trotters Independent Traders and go into business with Mickey Pearce.
Healthy Competition - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthy_Competition
 

trilliam

Well-known member
Read somewhere that when Brian heard Strawberry Fields Forever for the first time (in the whip) he pulled over and basically fell into depression at The Beatles reaching "that sound" before he did.

Rick James thought prince was a fassyhole, and that's not the word Rick would've used if you get my drift.

Music beef is cool.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
The Prince vs Michael Jackson beef was legendary:


"A heated game of ping-pong ended with Jackson walking out of the room and Prince gloating, “Did you see that? He played like Helen Keller.” When Jackson sought to collaborate with Prince on a song called “Bad”, Prince not only rejected the offer, he mockingly re-recorded the song and sent it back to MJ. When Jackson attended a Prince concert in 2006, Prince came out into the audience, walked right up to Jackson, and aggressively playing bass in his face."

Beyond this entertaining anecdotal stuff, though, I'm not sure how this rivalry influenced their music.

Maybe this article goes into it? http://www.popmatters.com/feature/prince-and-michael-jackson-the-rivalry-and-the-revolution/

It's a bit late for me to read it.
 
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