Paul McCartney

JordyWordy

Byrnzie wrote:

I'm not saying he isn't a talented musician. I'm just saying that I don't care.
Phil Collins is also a talented musician. So were Status Quo.

If you dont like him,fair enough. you dont need to slate all the responses that favour him. But downplaying his career to the extent you are is laughable.


Again, majorly ridiculous comparison.

Jimi Hendrix was a great musician. David Gilmour is a great musician. Roger Waters, Leonard Cohen, Eric Clapton, David Bowie, etc.

McCartney wrote some of the most famous songs of all time; Blackbird, Let It Be, Hey Jude, etc..... Phil Collins & Status Quo did not write songs of that calibre & importance.

Byrnzie

Each to their own, I suppose.

Jeremy1012

I despise Paul McCartney with an almost frightening intensity and rage.

My reasons are numerous and I'd hate to bore you all with the details so I'll address one that Dunk brought up. McCartney's assertion that he was into Karlheinz Stockhausen to make him seem like some kind of avant-garde innovator is hilarious. I've listened to Stockhausen, I've appreciated Stockhausen. If I were to enter a studio and tell everyone in the room to bang every instrument and surface, record it for 14 minutes and then engulf it in reverb, before stowing it away for 40 years with a nice name like "Carnival of Light" and then brought it out and told everyone how experimental I was and how I was the only person in pop listening to Stockhausen and Cage, you'd all think I was a terrible cunt and you know it. Stockhausen was a composer, not a pop star who liked to make noises.

DewieCox

Without McCartney, John Lennon wouldn't have known when to stop, with the weirdness.

I agree, alot of McCartney's solo/post Beatles work is garbage, relatively. The same can be said for just about any band or musician that is making new music past the age of 40.

Macca's legacy was sewn into the fabric of the universe, with the Beatles, and no amount of "bad" music is gonna cut those threads.

digster

Jeremy1012 wrote:

My reasons are numerous and I'd hate to bore you all with the details so I'll address one that Dunk brought up. McCartney's assertion that he was into Karlheinz Stockhausen to make him seem like some kind of avant-garde innovator is hilarious. I've listened to Stockhausen, I've appreciated Stockhausen. If I were to enter a studio and tell everyone in the room to bang every instrument and surface, record it for 14 minutes and then engulf it in reverb, before stowing it away for 40 years with a nice name like "Carnival of Light" and then brought it out and told everyone how experimental I was and how I was the only person in pop listening to Stockhausen and Cage, you'd all think I was a terrible cunt and you know it. Stockhausen was a composer, not a pop star who liked to make noises.

Wouldn't that be a problem with the Beatles as a whole, as opposed to McCartney on his own? I mean, John Lennon was right there alongside him with most of the avant-garde experimentation.

fada

McCartney basically ran the Beatles after Brian Esptein died. Pepper, Magical mystery tour were all his ideas. Lennon had a hit of singles in a row but McCartney was king from 67 on while Lennon was in a drugged out haze and Harrison was chomping at the bit to express himself.

I like his solo output but he missed a george or John to get more rockier material out of him. Possibly the greatest ever writer of a love ballad

Jeremy1012

digster wrote:

Wouldn't that be a problem with the Beatles as a whole, as opposed to McCartney on his own? I mean, John Lennon was right there alongside him with most of the avant-garde experimentation.

Uh huh but Lennon wasn't going around talking about how innovative and avant-garde he was, I'm sure he knew damn well his Two Virgins type albums were pure shite. McCartney thinks he's a genius. He's not, he wrote some good pop songs over 40 yeard ago. He's actually preparing to release a song that was neither good enough for release at the time, nor was it good enough for inclusion on their odds-and-sods Anthologies, because the other members deemed it to be self-indulgent crap. Now he thinks it's worthy of release because it will, in his own words, show how experimental he has always been.

He's so far up his own arse it's unreal.

fada

Who put the tape loops on "Tomorrow Never knows"? He deserved credit surely for that

Wilds

DewieCox wrote:

Without McCartney, John Lennon wouldn't have known when to stop, with the weirdness.

I agree, alot of McCartney's solo/post Beatles work is garbage, relatively. The same can be said for just about any band or musician that is making new music past the age of 40.

Macca's legacy was sewn into the fabric of the universe, with the Beatles, and no amount of "bad" music is gonna cut those threads.

I saw Paul play a couple years ago. The show was amazing. What a Beatles show might have been like if they ever decided to play post 1966 or whatever date the studio stole them away for ever.

I quoted DewieCox to highlight his point that Lennon did not know when to stop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VH3cZb8XZek

dunkman

Byrnzie wrote:

So your argument rests on the following:



Sorry, but you haven't built up much of a case here.

I dont need to build a case... music history has built the case... its cool to diss McCartney... as Jeremy90210 will no doubt prove by posting a post about how McCartney should be dismissed because he was into avant-garde electronica when he shouldnt have been.

byrnzie wrote:

I care that people regard him as some sort of untouchable and that the light shines out of his ass.

I just don't see it myself.

you like punk musicians... you like authors... you think Hunter S Thompson can do no wrong... but if someone says otherwise you'd defend him would you not? thats all I'm doing.. i listen to some of his basslines, melodies, lyrics from the sixties and they are still fucking awesome... your disdain for him is for what reason? because people like him? because he didnt do anything of worth since 1971? who gives a fuck... he was one of the 4 (arguably one of the 2) most important people in popular musical culture.

Jeremy1012

dunkman wrote:

I dont need to build a case... music history has built the case... its cool to diss McCartney... as Jeremy90210 will no doubt prove by posting a post about how McCartney should be dismissed because he was into avant-garde electronica when he shouldnt have been.

I didn't say he shouldn't have been into it, I said that he thought he was a genius and innovator of it and it annoys me because most of his experimental excursions were shite and he was at his absolute best when he writing absolutely genius pop songs when they were a "boy band".

He can listen to whatever music he wants to, I'm just entitled to express my disdain for how he implemented it into his own work.

dunkman

Jeremy1012 wrote:

I despise Paul McCartney with an almost frightening intensity and rage.

My reasons are numerous and I'd hate to bore you all with the details so I'll address one that Dunk brought up. McCartney's assertion that he was into Karlheinz Stockhausen to make him seem like some kind of avant-garde innovator is hilarious. I've listened to Stockhausen, I've appreciated Stockhausen. If I were to enter a studio and tell everyone in the room to bang every instrument and surface, record it for 14 minutes and then engulf it in reverb, before stowing it away for 40 years with a nice name like "Carnival of Light" and then brought it out and told everyone how experimental I was and how I was the only person in pop listening to Stockhausen and Cage, you'd all think I was a terrible cunt and you know it. Stockhausen was a composer, not a pop star who liked to make noises.

its not his assertion... its been documented well before his own biography noted his interest in Stockhausen. George Martin mentions it in a very early Beatles book i have that documents the making of Sgt Peppers... Paul never blew it up as his thing... it was what he was in to.

he didnt 'stow it away' .. he has tried to release it on various occasions only to be refused by the Harrison estate... John was very much into the making of it... but its a piece that was made in response to a request by a painter friend of Pauls... he didnt do it so he could create an aura of intrigue around it... it was a piece that was meant to be heard... its been left in the vault for various reasons... but wanting the world to know he was some avant-garde composer isnt one of them... he was in the Beatles... he probably doesnt need much more credit.

Jeremy1012

dunkman wrote:

its not his assertion... its been documented well before his own biography noted his interest in Stockhausen. George Martin mentions it in a very early Beatles book i have that documents the making of Sgt Peppers... Paul never blew it up as his thing... it was what he was in to.

I'm not disputing that he was into it. My point is that he talks about it now, and has done in the past, in a manner intended to show how innovative he was back when everyone else was just making pop music. He mentioned Stockhausen and Cage in relation to Carnival of Light recently.

All I am getting at is that if McCartney now recorded a hip-hop album because he has been listening to NWA and Biggie Smalls, it would almost certainly be an embarrassing, hashed together pastiche, much like almost ALL of his "innovative" experimental songs with the Beatles were, and everyone would tell him to fuck off. I don't see why this is any different.

"The piece was inspired, McCartney says, by the works of composers John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. In his book Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, author Mark Lewisohn - who was played the track in 1987 - describes 'distorted, hypnotic drum and organ sounds, a distorted lead guitar, the sound of a church organ, various effects (water gargling was one) and, perhaps most intimidating of all, Lennon and McCartney screaming and bawling random phrases including "Are you all right?" and '"Barcelona!".'"

Now I find a lot of Stockhausen's stuff to be of debatable worth in terms of listening but in 1950 it was impressive from an innovative point if nothing else. I wonder just what possible reason McCartney can have for releasing anything that can be described in the way above other than just to see whether Beatles fans really will buy and listen to whatever is sold to them.

But just my opinion of course. Now you can call me a snob and make digs about me being pretentious :rolleyes:

jamie uk

Methinks the watch word once again for the 'alternative, too cool for school punk rockers' is......popularity breeds contempt :rolleyes:

As our Scots contingent points out....Mcartney was in the Beatles...that's enough

dunkman

Jeremy1012 wrote:

I didn't say he shouldn't have been into it, I said that he thought he was a genius and innovator of it and it annoys me because most of his experimental excursions were shite and he was at his absolute best when he writing absolutely genius pop songs when they were a "boy band".

He can listen to whatever music he wants to, I'm just entitled to express my disdain for how he implemented it into his own work.

nonsense.

" I said that he thought he was a genius and innovator of it "

find me one quote where McCartney even alludes to this.

his experimental excursions are the sounds behind Tomorrow Never kNows amongst others.

Jeremy1012

jamie uk wrote:

Methinks the watch word once again for the 'alternative, too cool for school pumnk rockers' is......popularity breeds contempt :rolleys:

As our Scots contingent points out....Mcartney was in the Beatles...that's enough

Yeah, and there's nothing so valuable in our appreciation of music as having sacred cows who can't be criticised is there?

dunkman

Jeremy1012 wrote:

I'm not disputing that he was into it. My point is that he talks about it now, and has done in the past, in a manner intended to show how innovative he was back when everyone else was just making pop music. He mentioned Stockhausen and Cage in relation to Carnival of Light recently.

All I am getting at is that if McCartney now recorded a hip-hop album because he has been listening to NWA and Biggie Smalls, it would almost certainly be an embarrassing, hashed together pastiche, much like almost ALL of his "innovative" experimental songs with the Beatles were, and everyone would tell him to fuck off. I don't see why this is any different.

"The piece was inspired, McCartney says, by the works of composers John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen. In his book Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, author Mark Lewisohn - who was played the track in 1987 - describes 'distorted, hypnotic drum and organ sounds, a distorted lead guitar, the sound of a church organ, various effects (water gargling was one) and, perhaps most intimidating of all, Lennon and McCartney screaming and bawling random phrases including "Are you all right?" and '"Barcelona!".'"

Now I find a lot of Stockhausen's stuff to be of debatable worth in terms of listening but in 1950 it was impressive from an innovative point if nothing else. I wonder just what possible reason McCartney can have for releasing anything that can be described in the way above other than just to see whether Beatles fans really will buy and listen to whatever is sold to them.

But just my opinion of course. Now you can call me a snob and make digs about me being pretentious :rolleyes:

bit in bold... for the same reason Lennon wanted people to hear No.9.. he is fucking minted... he wanted to release it many times in the past... but George vetoed it... but now he wants people to hear it.. he's an artist... he thrives on people appreciating his art... wouldnt you want a hidden Rothko painting that has been under a sheet to be displayed after 40 years on the shelves? artists need that appreciation...


i totally disagree with your points that he only talks about it to show people he was into it... i've read many books (revolution in the head being the best) about the music scene back then and Paul was very much into all this stuff and never publivly promoted it... after 30 years isnt he entitled to display his own inspirations... so Stockhausen did it in the 1950's? so fucking what... thats like saying all blues music is null and void as Robert Johnson did it in the 20's. :rolleyes:

Jeremy1012

dunkman wrote:

nonsense.

" I said that he thought he was a genius and innovator of it "

find me one quote where McCartney even alludes to this.

his experimental excursions are the sounds behind Tomorrow Never kNows amongst others.

I would compile a playlist of shoddy self-indulgent crap that McCartney put on the later Beatles records to stand as a "quote" indicating this but I know you'll disagree with me so there's not much point. Put it this way, either McCartney likes making crap experimental music and knows it's crap and doesn't care or he thinks it's not crap. If it's the latter then it supports my view, if it's the former then fair play to him if he enjoys it. Doesn't mean I have to stop thinking he's a tedious arse though, I'm sure he doesn't care about my little opinion.

dunkman

Jeremy1012 wrote:

Yeah, and there's nothing so valuable in our appreciation of music as having sacred cows who can't be criticised is there?

you can criticise, as can i, but acknowledging his creative input into the beatles would be a good start... then we can tear into him or Obl-De-Obli-Da...

i'll leave the final word to it for Finsy who is much better at being all wordy n shit for you

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).

Evacuation Rules

You can always tell wanna-be's apart from real music fans when they diss Paul McCartney.