many prince songs need you to like prince the person/character/princeworld quite a bit. he was quite a big character in most of his songs. theres relatively few that dont require you to navigate around it. or navigate around his voice (the prince falsetto is also a bit of a deal breaker ive found for a lot of people. compared to other guys singing falsetto (dangelo for example), theres not that much tenderness). whereas with MJ, despite his pretty weird and unusual life, his records are much more 'normal', and accessible to the average person. thats partly cos theyre produced more typically (and just better, arguably, at least up to and including the bad album, then things start to get more 'of their time' and 90s) but also cos he made songs that were less odd and obviously U/PG rated. everyone likes MJ. prince is much more of an acquired taste. prince was sort of in love with his own brilliance (he doesnt often allow for that much 'vulnerability' in his vocals), and so was the audience, hes the one most people can admire, even if they dont like his music, but MJ is the one most people love.