how much credit do the Beatles deserve?

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  • dunkman
    dunkman Posts: 19,646
    FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:
    Better still, leave dunk out. :D

    Now, back to the topic at, er, hand.

    I think Paul McCartney deserves a lot more credit than he gets, for elevating popular music above the constraints of blues-based rock (even though he was a great blues shouter with a lot of Ray Charles soul, on albums such as Beatles for Sale or songs such as I'm Down). He was listening to Stockhausen and incorporating classical music - before George Martin could push it - into song arrangements, way before King Crimson, ELP or the prog movement started strutting its bellbottoms across rock's glittering floor. When Paul combined classicism with popular music, he would do it in an unpretentious way, and he would never lose track of the centrality of a song and its hit potential, even on an album. That kind of ear for balance between art and commerce requires nothing short of genius. After the Beatles, he lost that particular focus, I think, but with The Beatles, he was a prime mover. With regard to the avant garde nature of The Beatles, people often talk of Lennon's musique concrete piece, Revolution 9, but Paul was the brains and ears behind the tape loops on John's Tomorrow Never Knows, and the as-yet unreleased Carnival of Light.

    Paul was the man who got Hendrix booked for Monterey; the man who was hanging out at UFO checking out Barrett's Floyd from the start; and who was also down the Indica gallery while John was playing recluse in his Weybridge mock tudor mansion.

    If he wasn't at the vanguard, he was pretty near it. So, he was light and fluffy a lot of the time. So he wrote some execrable pap. He also wrote many of the most unselfconsciously surrealist songs in rock (even a throwaway ditty such as Martha My Dear, though a cod-twenties ode to a sheepdog, had chord shifts and modulations that most bands in the day would kill for).


    as you know i'm a Beatles geek, but thanks Fins... for posting this far better than i could... but i get really annoyed when people think it was all Lennon doing the weird and wonderful stuff... Paul was in the vortex of a creative movement and he soaked in everything he could.. John was 'busy' eating cornflakes and watching daytime TV.

    and you cant leave me out... its an old scottish law.. "once invited for a 3some no-one can back out"... or words to that effect ;)
    oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
  • Zoso
    Zoso Posts: 6,425
    they deserve all the credit they get... Led Zeppelin even twisted old blues tracks and made them their own. The Bealtes were the best than and still are. They did everything for the first time and were the first boy band. They along with the king made rock n roll popular and added r n r into the mainstream. They are everything and everyone should have some beatles in their ipod at all times.
    I'm just flying around the other side of the world to say I love you

    Sha la la la i'm in love with a jersey girl

    I love you forever and forever :)

    Adel 03 Melb 1 03 LA 2 06 Santa Barbara 06 Gorge 1 06 Gorge 2 06 Adel 1 06 Adel 2 06 Camden 1 08 Camden 2 08 Washington DC 08 Hartford 08
  • Jeremy1012
    Jeremy1012 Posts: 7,170
    FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:
    Better still, leave dunk out. :D

    Now, back to the topic at, er, hand.

    I think Paul McCartney deserves a lot more credit than he gets, for elevating popular music above the constraints of blues-based rock (even though he was a great blues shouter with a lot of Ray Charles soul, on albums such as Beatles for Sale or songs such as I'm Down). He was listening to Stockhausen and incorporating classical music - before George Martin could push it - into song arrangements, way before King Crimson, ELP or the prog movement started strutting its bellbottoms across rock's glittering floor. When Paul combined classicism with popular music, he would do it in an unpretentious way, and he would never lose track of the centrality of a song and its hit potential, even on an album. That kind of ear for balance between art and commerce requires nothing short of genius. After the Beatles, he lost that particular focus, I think, but with The Beatles, he was a prime mover. With regard to the avant garde nature of The Beatles, people often talk of Lennon's musique concrete piece, Revolution 9, but Paul was the brains and ears behind the tape loops on John's Tomorrow Never Knows, and the as-yet unreleased Carnival of Light.

    Paul was the man who got Hendrix booked for Monterey; the man who was hanging out at UFO checking out Barrett's Floyd from the start; and who was also down the Indica gallery while John was playing recluse in his Weybridge mock tudor mansion.

    If he wasn't at the vanguard, he was pretty near it. So, he was light and fluffy a lot of the time. So he wrote some execrable pap. He also wrote many of the most unselfconsciously surrealist songs in rock (even a throwaway ditty such as Martha My Dear, though a cod-twenties ode to a sheepdog, had chord shifts and modulations that most bands in the day would kill for).
    Aye. He's a cunt though ;)

    But seriously, I don't care how into Karlheinz Stockhausen he was, or how important he was in pushing pop towards the avant-garde, the execrable pap was all too common on the later albums, especially the White Album. I love The Beatles and they are not overrated but I absolutely despise McCartney.
    "I remember one night at Muzdalifa with nothing but the sky overhead, I lay awake amid sleeping Muslim brothers and I learned that pilgrims from every land — every colour, and class, and rank; high officials and the beggar alike — all snored in the same language"
  • dunkman
    dunkman Posts: 19,646
    Jeremy1012 wrote:
    I love The Beatles and they are not overrated but I absolutely despise McCartney.


    why?
    oh scary... 40000 morbidly obese christians wearing fanny packs invading europe is probably the least scariest thing since I watched an edited version of The Care Bears movie in an extremely brightly lit cinema.
  • StuffnJunk
    StuffnJunk Posts: 897
    i think lennon was inspired to write meaningful, deep lyrics by Bob Dylan
    "I'll tell you what: If all I had was Pearl Jam, and I didn't have another band in the world, I would not be worried. Because in there is the essence of making great music. You don't have to use it all at once, but it's there." - Neil Young
  • brain of c
    brain of c Posts: 5,213
    1.78
    d'oh!!!!!!

    http://www.myspace.com/brain_of_c
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Jeremy1012 wrote:
    Aye. He's a cunt though ;)

    But seriously, I don't care how into Karlheinz Stockhausen he was, or how important he was in pushing pop towards the avant-garde, the execrable pap was all too common on the later albums, especially the White Album. I love The Beatles and they are not overrated but I absolutely despise McCartney.

    Take the pap challenge.

    What are Paul's pap songs on The White Album?
  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    Jeremy1012 wrote:
    Aye. He's a cunt though ;)

    But seriously, I don't care how into Karlheinz Stockhausen he was, or how important he was in pushing pop towards the avant-garde, the execrable pap was all too common on the later albums, especially the White Album. I love The Beatles and they are not overrated but I absolutely despise McCartney.

    i dont despise mccartney, but i agree with your sentiment. regardless of paul's hand in it, lennon wrote the best stuff in the latter half of the beatles days while paul was writing cheesy crap that was better suited to bloated broadway musicals or simplistic commercial jangles. furthermore, paul's solo career was utterly unremarkable while john's, for all its inconsistency, was far more vibrant and engaging. the best of john's solo work blows anything paul did post-beatles out of the water.
  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:
    Take the pap challenge.

    What are Paul's pap songs on The White Album?

    ob-la-di, ob-la-da... aka corky's theme song from the tv show "life goes on."
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    dunkman wrote:
    why?


    He loves him desperately. It's all in Freud. "That which irritates is beautiful." A bit like me with Brian Sewell or Phil Collins. I secretly worship them. ;)
  • Jeremy1012
    Jeremy1012 Posts: 7,170
    dunkman wrote:
    why?
    MAXWELL'S SILVER HAMMER

    WHEN I'M SIXTY FOUR

    ETC!!!
    "I remember one night at Muzdalifa with nothing but the sky overhead, I lay awake amid sleeping Muslim brothers and I learned that pilgrims from every land — every colour, and class, and rank; high officials and the beggar alike — all snored in the same language"
  • Jeremy1012
    Jeremy1012 Posts: 7,170
    FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:
    He loves him desperately. It's all in Freud. "That which irritates is beautiful." A bit like me with Brian Sewell or Phil Collins. I secretly worship them. ;)
    fuck you :)
    I hate Macca
    "I remember one night at Muzdalifa with nothing but the sky overhead, I lay awake amid sleeping Muslim brothers and I learned that pilgrims from every land — every colour, and class, and rank; high officials and the beggar alike — all snored in the same language"
  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    Jeremy1012 wrote:
    MAXWELL'S SILVER HAMMER

    WHEN I'M SIXTY FOUR

    ETC!!!

    good examples.

    dont get me wrong, he had his strong points as well... oh darling, helter skelter. but when you're also writing songs for the album that are even more lame and cheesy than ringo's songs, you're really bringing your overall cool down.
  • Jerzdevil
    Jerzdevil Posts: 59
    By the time Abbey Road rolled around, George Harrison was writing the best Beatles songs.
    I believe the children are our future... unless we stop them now...
  • Jeremy1012
    Jeremy1012 Posts: 7,170
    soulsinging wrote:
    good examples.

    dont get me wrong, he had his strong points as well... oh darling, helter skelter. but when you're also writing songs for the album that are even more lame and cheesy than ringo's songs, you're really bringing your overall cool down.
    Exactly :) As far as I'm concerned, Macca's ballads were great. Let it Be is beautiful. Problem is, he was more concerned with his twee, whimsical pop ditties and he couldn't pull them off. Lennon and even Ringo were better at that. I would take Octopus' Garden over half of McCartney's later output anyday.
    "I remember one night at Muzdalifa with nothing but the sky overhead, I lay awake amid sleeping Muslim brothers and I learned that pilgrims from every land — every colour, and class, and rank; high officials and the beggar alike — all snored in the same language"
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Jerzdevil wrote:
    By the time Abbey Road rolled around, George Harrison was writing the best Beatles songs.

    Nah, he's overrated. I prefer Octopus's Garden to Something. :D
  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    Jeremy1012 wrote:
    Exactly :) As far as I'm concerned, Macca's ballads were great. Let it Be is beautiful. Problem is, he was more concerned with his twee, whimsical pop ditties and he couldn't pull them off. Lennon and even Ringo were better at that. I would take Octopus' Garden over half of McCartney's later output anyday.

    same here. i'd also take 'dont pass me by' over ob la di.
  • FinsburyParkCarrots
    FinsburyParkCarrots Seattle, WA Posts: 12,223
    Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da was a bit of cod-calypso just as rock steady, bluebeat and ska were starting to break into the mainstream in British music. I think Paul was trying to pay homage to Caribbean music, but he fucked up.
  • soulsinging
    soulsinging Posts: 13,202
    FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:
    Obla Di Obla Da was a bit of cod-calypso just as rock steady, bluebeat and ska were starting to break into the mainstream in British music. I think Paul was trying to pay homage to Caribbean music, but he fucked up.

    the point is, he seemed to be fucking up a lot in the later days, about 50% of his songs failed in execution and came off as incredibly cheesy and saccharine. even ringo's songs were better. by the end, paul was as much a parody as elvis in vegas. you could almost see him in a sequined suit on a vegas stage grinning with a line of dancers behind him as he put on a family friendly show sponsored by disney.
  • Jeremy1012
    Jeremy1012 Posts: 7,170
    FinsburyParkCarrots wrote:
    Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da was a bit of cod-calypso just as rock steady, bluebeat and ska were starting to break into the mainstream in British music. I think Paul was trying to pay homage to Caribbean music, but he fucked up.
    That was Paul's problem. He was too earnest with his musical knowledge. No one wants too hear whiteboy scouse calypso music. He lost the fucking plot in about 1966 and never regained it. He is tragic.
    "I remember one night at Muzdalifa with nothing but the sky overhead, I lay awake amid sleeping Muslim brothers and I learned that pilgrims from every land — every colour, and class, and rank; high officials and the beggar alike — all snored in the same language"

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