Compare/Contrast Essay

Compare/Contrast Essay On February 8th 2006, two legendary proclaimed musicians coupled together to perform a masterpiece of a song. The artists were, songstress and songwriter, Mary J. Blige and, songwriter and musician, Bono. The song was Bono’s own chart-topping hit titled “One”. The place was at the 2006 Annual Grammy Awards, a place that author Don Franks describes as “the only peer-presented award to honor artistic achievement, technical proficiency and overall excellence in the recording industry” (113). The end result was amazing. Each one of these two award-winning artists is recognized as a genius in their own right by the entertainment industry. They are one in the same in that they each continuously entertain an impressive amount of fans and send similar messages through their lyrics, but they are at the same time very different because their backgrounds, styles, and audiences are widely varied. Viewers everywhere were delighted by the outcome when these two phenomenal entertainers collaborated for a once in a lifetime performance. Their combined record sale total is over 200 million albums; they have both performed at hundreds of thousands of concerts worldwide; and they each have toured abroad hundreds of times. Bono is recognized as a great in multiple countries. Originally from Ireland, his music has traveled throughout the world, and has always managed to become a hit. Mary, too, is great in her own right. She has won an impressive amount of awards for a black female artist and has had hits on multiple genre charts. They both have extremely diverse audiences and are able to reach a vast fan base with their lyrics. Each of these artists strives to reach into the inside of their listeners souls and pull at their heart strings. In the essay “2 Live Crew Decoded” Henry Louis Gates Jr. states that “… “hip-hop”, is engaged in sexual carnivalesque…and rock songs have always been about sex” (580). Each of these artists is from these two

Cited: Davis, Erik. “Dissolving the Rock.” Village Voice 41 (1996): 931-958 Franks, Don. Tony, Grammy, Emmy, Country: a Broadway, Television, and Records Awards Reference. North Carolina: McFarland, 1986. Fry, Maddy. “Bono Biography.” http://www.atu2.com/band/bono/ Gates Jr., Henry Louis. “2 Live Crew, Decoded.” The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues Across the Disciplines. 10th ed. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. 579-582.