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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 28, 2010 21:16:55 GMT -5
Harrison might not have been a master of pyrotechnics, but I can't think of too many other guitarists whose solos are such integral parts of the songs. I can sing most of his Beatles solos note for note and there are very few cover versions that feature any improvements on those solos, IMO. I know that some of the fierier solos were played by McCartney ("Taxman," for example), but I think Harrison's guitar playing on Beatles records is a pretty high standard.
As a songwriter I think he's spotty, but when he's on, he's on. He wrote the 2 best songs on "Abbey Road," IMO...no small feat.
Maybe for a while, but "Revolver" was te last album Lennon had any real interest in, and Emerick claims that McCartney was the driving force behind "Revolver" as well.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a Lennon fan too, but McCartney is often unjustly maligned. He's a formidable musician, with an uncanny melodic sense, and his bass playing has never gotten its due. He's one of the most inventive bassists in rock/popular music. Listen to the bass part on "Something" from the remastered "Abbey Road," for example, and see what I mean.
Well, McCartney was the driving force behind the Beatles from 1966 on. Lennon lost interest in the group as soon as he discovered LSD. McCartney kept the group together.
Doggett mentions this heroin rumor in his book. Apparently another one was that Lennon was sick, possibly with a terminal illness.
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Post by Seguin on Aug 28, 2010 21:25:37 GMT -5
Allen, I think you´re right about McCartney´s songs. They are pretty mainstream pop songs for the most part and often very sentimental ("Yesterday", comes to mind). Not at all edgy or pushing the envelope, as Lennon´s often were. That said, they did make a great team together.
Sir John Lennon? I don´t think he would´ve accepted a knighthood. He was too much of a rebel to become a Sir John.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Aug 28, 2010 21:56:08 GMT -5
That's what made the Beatles music what it was - a blending of Lennon's edge and McCartney's pop instincts. It worked very well for the most part and they created some great stuff. On their own, it was a different story. Lennon with Ono, for example, is not Lennon with McCartney.
I think, at the end of his life, Lennon wanted U.S. citizenship and loved living in this country, regardless of the healthy dose of crap the government had dumped on him. Royal titles would not have suited him and I'm sure he'd be busting a gut over "Sir Paul."
Allen
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 28, 2010 22:46:58 GMT -5
Give a listen to the Fireman album, "Electric Arguments." It's the third collaboration between McCartney and Killing Joke bassist, Youth. While their first two projects were relatively disposable techno-ambient explorations, "Electric Arguments" is altogether different: edgy and experimental music that maintains a strong melodic component. I think it ranks as one of McCartney's best albums.
For the most part, Paul benefits from collaboration. Obviously, his work with Lennon stands out, but this album and his work with Elvis Costello show how good McCartney can be when challenged.
Jim
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Post by Seguin on Aug 28, 2010 23:47:31 GMT -5
Unfortunately, I have´nt heard that album or his work with Costello, but I´ll give them a listen if I stumble upon them. The only McCartney album I´ve got is the, "Band On The Run", album, and it´s not really my cup of tea. I can´t have a qualified opinion of all of his solo albums since I have´nt got them. Maybe I should look into them. You never know, maybe I´ll be pleasantly surprised listening to some of them.
That´s for sure! Lennon with the screaming Yoko Ono is horrible. I have yet to meet somebody who thinks it´s great music. ;D
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Post by Allen Wiener on Aug 29, 2010 0:14:34 GMT -5
Few think it's music, let alone great.
For some reason, I kind of liked McCartney's "Press to Play" LP, which was not well received. I didn't care at all for "Flowers in the Dirt," which got raves and was repeatedly compared to "Band on the Run," which I think is pretty good. Most of his other stuff is a vast wasteland for me; some good songs here and there, but I can't even I.D. the albums anymore.
I think Jim's right about him being better with collaborators, but they have to be people with stature enough to stand up to McCartney. One of his collaborations that didn't work was with Michael Jackson. The most distinctive thing to come out of that was that "The Girl Is Mine" has to be one of the very worst songs to ever make the charts (I think it was actually released on Jackson's "Thriller" LP). For my money, the best thing on that album was Vincent Price! I love that bit!
McCartney was the one who wanted (desperately) to keep the group together. I think he was genuinely afraid of going on his own or seeing an end to the Beatles. I'm not really sure of the reasons because he was clearly talented enough to carve out his own career and it was a losing battle anyway. Lennon had lost interest, as you say, and was steadily drifting toward leaving. I think Harrison also welcomed the breakup; he had a large backlog of songs at that point because he got minimal time on the Beatles albums. I agree that he did do the 2 best tracks on Abbey Road and that must have bolstered his confidence. I think he also was anxious to work with others. IIRC, he had already toured for a bit with Delaney and Bonnie and there's at least one recording (I think) of he and Clapton with that group from the tour. Even Ringo may have been getting tired of the bickering and was becoming interested in film. He was also already an alcoholic and that would get worse as the years went on.
My views of McCartney are probably colored by my views of him as a person, which is sometimes hard to separate. I do like some of his music; I thought "No More Lonely Nights" was one of the best ballads I'd heard in ages and I still enjoy that song. I recall back in the mid 60s, not long after the Beatles first came to the U.S., a musician friend was ecstatic about the group and particularly singled out McCartney's bass playing as the best he'd ever heard.
I think you put your finger on a key point about the Beatles music; it really was a combination of those 4 unique talents or styles, including Harrison's guitar work. Replacing any of them would have made it a different group with a different sound; together, they were quite special and so was the music. Too bad it ended so acrimoniously, but that's life, certainly in the world of music.
Allen
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 29, 2010 10:51:01 GMT -5
"Band on the Run" has never been one of my favorites. I still like McCartney's first solo album, "McCartney," a home-made effort that included 2 songs that were up to his Beatles standards, "Maybe I'm Amazed," and "Every Night," and there are parts of "Ram" that I think are outstanding. Most of the Wings stuff is throwaway...you have to dig through a lot of coal to find the diamonds. I could probably come up with an albums worth of strong songs from the entire Wings catalog.
McCartney has been doing interesting work lately. In addition to "Electric Arguments," I found "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard" to be an exceptional album.
His work with Costello is spread over a few albums, including Costello's "Spike." All their collaborative efforts are worth checking out, and are the strongest tunes on those particular McCartney albums.
I find Lennon''s solo material to be hit and miss. If you discount the early collaborations with Yoko ("Two Virgins," "Life with the Lions," "Wedding Album"), you're left with a patchy catalog. Aside from a couple of live sets (and the live John and Yoko with Frank Zappa and the Mothers is pretty incendiary; definitely worth checking out), there aren't that many strong solo albums in the Lennon catalog. "Plastic Ono Band," is an interesting record, but not one I pull off the shelf often. "Imagine" is a solid effort. "Mind Games" is spotty, about half of "Walls and Bridges" is excellent, "Rock and Roll" was a contractual obligation, "Sometime in NYC" is awful, except for the aforementioned live disc with Zappa. I liked "Double Fantasy," but only half that record is Lennon. Song for song, I don't think Lennon's solo career is any better than McCartney's, and that's not taking commercial appeal into consideration.
Jim
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 29, 2010 10:59:34 GMT -5
Harrison was, quite rightly, resentful that many of his songs were not considered for Beatles albums. He'd collaborated with Dylan and Eric Clapton, both of whom accepted him as a peer, and he found John and Paul's condescension insulting.
For a while there, it looked like Harrison would outdo them all. "All Things Must Pass," "The Concert for Bangladesh," and "Living in the Material World," were all successful and Harrison was outselling both John and Paul. Unfortunately, the legal wrangling took its toll on his creativity, added to the fact that Harrison hated being a pop star and valued privacy. He made a strong comeback late in his career though, with the Traveling Wilburys records.
Incidentally, as Dogget points out in his book, once the solo careers were underway, McCartney deliberately gravitated away from the group of musicians who were contributing to the albums of the other three ex-Beatles. No Jim Keltner, Clapton, Leon Russell, etc. IMO, McCartney would have been better off settling in with a peer group rather than surrounding himself with yes-men. Unfortunately, he's reportedly a bit of a control freak.
Jim
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Post by Allen Wiener on Aug 29, 2010 12:24:13 GMT -5
I'm not 100% sure, but isn't McCartney also the only ex-Beatle to work with George Martin after the break up? Those two were pretty tight, but none of the others seemed to care for him. I think Lennon and Harrison had a genuine desire to break out of the rut and work with new people, and I think Harrison particularly benefited from that. It was a burst or real creative success for him and you have to wonder why the Beatles (meaning Lennon & McCartney) rejected so much of that stuff out of hand, including several that ended up on "All Things Must Pass."
I agree that McCartney would have benefited from more open collaboration with others. But, as you say, McCartney wants to be the boss and surrounded himself with lesser musicians (Wings, various tour bands) and his wife, Linda. I generally agree with your assessment of McCartney's solo years and I recall that he put together a couple of compilation albums in the 80s or 90s of "greatest hits" that did distill a lot of his better stuff ("All the Best" or something). A couple that I forgot were his Russian LP, the "Unplugged" set, and around the time some covers he did of standards like "Don't Get Around Much Anymore" and "Summertime."
I also like his first solo LP, "McCartney," which got badly razed at the time for some reason. Have you heard the DCC Compact Classics edition of that, which was remastered by Steve Hoffman? I did a couple of interviews with him about his work and his story about how he did that job is amazing. He had to get an old piece of tube equipment out of from behind the iron curtain because he wanted to recreate the original set up before he put it in digital form as a final step; no one could find the machine anywhere else! Peter Mew at EMI did a great job on a complete remastered set of McCartney CDs; well worth having if you can find them. Mew and Hoffman each had totally different methods for remastering (Mew used noise reduction software), yet both achieved fantastic results.
I get the idea that all of them (except Ringo) always were condescending toward Harrison, including Martin. Once he had the affirmation of the others you mentioned, especially Dylan and Clapton, he saw the way out. You're right about Harrison pretty much dropping out at some point completely; he spent his time on film production, including the Monte Python stuff and was very successful at that. There was a big blowup between Lennon and Harrison backstage at one of George's shows, when Lennon was supposed to make a surprise guest appearance with him, and Lennon ended up not going on. Reportedly, Harrison tore Lennon a new one and all of his years of resentment came boiling over. It sounded like he was ready to slug Lennon, who (for once) just sat there and took it in silence. However, later the same night, the two appeared together for a radio interview, which is somewhere on a bootleg. Harrison was friendly, but very assertive in expressing views that were opposite of Lennon's (Lennon liked Elton John and David Bowie's stuff at the time; Harrison said he thought it (or their stage acts) were "silly"). McCartney was equally condescending (recall the scene in "Let It Be" where he is repeatedly dissatisfied with Harrison's playing and tries to literally talk him through the part). I nearly threw up when Harrison died and McCartney made those awful, self-serving, saccharine statements about how it was like "losing my little, baby brother." There's irony in that; he really did look down on Harrison like that and they never got along after the breakup. Harrison always made a point of sticking it to McCartney every chance he got. McCartney would always leak "rumors" of an imminent Beatles reunion before his concert tours or when he was releasing a new LP; it was calculated to stir up interest in his own projects and there was never an ounce of truth in it. Harrison would always be sure to make a counter-statement, such as "There will be no Beatles reunion as long as John Lennon remains dead." It drove McCartney ballistic! I'm surprised they were able to get the two of them to sit down together for the "Anthology" filming.
Lennon's solo output is definitely spotty, but I find many of his songs more thoughtful and mentally stimulating than McCartney's (for the most part). He was a nut and drugs (and Yoko Ono) had a big impact on what he did (or didn't do). But, all in all, he was a lot more interesting guy than Paul. For one thing, I've never heard or read an interesting interview with McCartney; I always know he's calculating and posing. Lennon's interviews are all interesting and fun to listen to, although he, too, was spinning a lot of yarns too. Maybe he was just more convincing!
This long thread begins to remind me how I got started on the Beatles project "all those years ago." You can really get sucked into their music and their story. A lot of great music and great drama, too!
Allen
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 29, 2010 13:13:29 GMT -5
I think one of the biggest differences between McCartney and the other 3 was that McCartney would have been content to continue as "Beatle Paul" forever. He still clings to that.
Lennon could have still expressed himself within the framework of the Beatles had he chosen to do so, but that option wasn't open to Harrison. Since Harrison was hanging with musicians he considered "serious," he was also embarrassed by some of the Beatles output ("Obladi Oblada," and "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" are mentioned repeatedly as being particularly offensive), and wanted to distance himself. Good thing too, because L&M weren't about to let him take a leadership role in the group.
Lennon's drug use also played a big part in his loss of interest in the band, and probably played a bigger role in the band's breakup than his marriage to Yoko, which is usually cited as the primary reason for the split. The Beatles PR men did a good job of keeping Lennon's addiction out of the mainstream press, but recent books (Emerick's and Spitz's especially) have painted a more realistic (and harrowing) picture. Lennon was a junkie, plain and simple.
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Post by Paul Sylvain on Aug 29, 2010 15:17:35 GMT -5
I will agree with the comment that Paul's ability on the bass is rarely mentioned and often overlooked. He was innovative, even in the earliest Beatles days. Vocally, I still consider the band's rendition, driven by Paul's no-holds-barred wailing on Little Richard's "Long Tally Sally" one of their best performances. In fact, "The Beatle's Second Album" -- the US title of the vinyl LP -- was an absolute ass kicker, and I darn near wore that thing out after it was released. That, and "Revolver" are my favorite Beatles LPs.
The only Beatle I ever saw "live" was McCartney with Wings in West Berlin, Germany in 1972. It was the last stop on the band's first-ever European tour. I never got into the studio LPs, but the concert was excellent.
Still, the Beatles, in the end, became something of a dysfunctional family. What is often overlooked or forgotten is that the "lads" had already been together for a number of years, and had had a number of hits in Britain, by time the arrived on our shores and appeared on Ed Sullivan. We think of them being together a handful of years, beginning in '64, but they'd been ripping it up for a couple of three years before that. Nine or ten years together is a long time, and for most of the years they were prisoners of their fame. I love my wife, but I we both need down time and space, from time to time. The Beatles didn't get much of that until the latter couple of years.
There are a lot of reasons why things went down like they did. Yoko, bad management and investments, egos, and on and on.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 29, 2010 15:24:22 GMT -5
With all this talk about the Beatles solo careers, I thought it's be challenging to come up with top 10 favorite solo tracks for each of them. Here's my list for Lennon, based on nothing other than personal favorites that I return to most often:
Starting Over (from Double Fantasy) Love (from Plastic Ono Band) Crippled Inside (from Imagine) Woman (from Double Fantasy) Mind Games (from Mind Games) #9 Dream (from Walls and Bridges) Stand By Me (from Rock and Roll) Whatever Gets You Through the Night (from Walls and Bridges) Well (from Zappa's Playground Psychotics) Grow Old With Me (from Milk and Honey)
Jim
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Post by TRK on Aug 29, 2010 15:46:00 GMT -5
I really liked the way Lennon was heading with the "Plastic Ono Band" album: tight, spare music with spirit and ba**s. On "Well Well Well," that crackling, overdriven guitar is one of my favorite sounds, period. And, "Remember" has stood up very well over the years. Everything after that album was a gradual letdown (ok, I consider "Jealous Guy" one of his most beautiful songs, I like parts of "Walls and Bridges," and "Nobody Told Me There'd Be Days Like This" is a bittersweet reminder of some good, new directions Lennon might have gone off in if he'd lived longer.) I thought he lost a lot of his edge in the 1970s, and when some of that old, acerbic wit did resurface, it was usually in misguided efforts like "How Do You Sleep?"
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 29, 2010 15:50:44 GMT -5
Agreed, Tom. I wish he'd kept a tighter rein on Phil Spector and stayed with more sparse arrangements. Yoko supervised the remastering and remixing of "Imagine" and "Mind Games" in 2002 (I think). Both the new recordings eliminated a lot of the reverb that was prominent in the Spector mix, which brought the instruments and vocals up. Still a lot going on, but not nearly as muddy as the originals. Worth a listen.
Jim
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 29, 2010 15:56:29 GMT -5
Here's a McCartney playlist that, IMO, plays to his strengths:
My Brave Face (from Flowers in the Dirt) Maybe I'm Amazed (from McCartney) Light From Your Lighthouse (from Fireman, Electric Arguments) Tomorrow (from Wild Life) She's Given Up Talking (from Driving Rain) Friends To Go (from Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard) Sing the Changes (from Electric Arguments) You Want Her Too (from Flowers in the Dirt) Back Seat of My Car (from Ram) Only Love Remains (from Press to Play)
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