McCartney or Lennon?

Use any criteria you wish.

In case you've forgotten who's who at this time of night:


Paul


John


My vote goes to McCartney. Now I must get in my steel-armor plated bunker to protect myself from the barrage that's coming my way :)

But they both wrote such brilliant music it almost seems wrong to compare them. When you think about it, the best thing abour each of them was the other. Their competition and friendship made some of the best music of all time.

If anyone is wondering, I was judging the two based on their work with the Beatles. I definitely consider Lennon to have the superior solo career (all of Imagine is farking brilliant), and I consider him the superior lyricist. But Paul is so damned good at arrangement and writing melodies, which is what's more important to me as both a listener and a musician. I consider them on equal footing when it comes to vocals and playing instruments (though Paul arguably had a wider variety).

The Lennon/McCartney collaborations were by far the best, though. Nothing comes close to that.

:thumbsup:

Embarrassingly bad comments in between songs ("This song's called 'Blackbird', 'cause, you know, we were hanging around with loads of birds back then, and some of them were black......." HIE-LARIOUS!).

It was like watching your dad dancing at a wedding - thinking he's cool, but utterly cringeworthy. The crowd wanted and expected to hear a reasonable number of popular Beatles tunes and instead got a mix of Wings, McCartney and lesser-known downbeat Beatles tunes. McCartney kept going on about how it was "Great to be hear at last", despite the fact that he could have played any year since the '60s, and he kept mispronouncing "Glastonbury" either deliberately (which sounded stupid) or by accident (which is worse).

I was HUGELY disappointed, although I should have realised that he lost any shred of credibility with Frog Chorus and, in fact, almost all his solo stuff.

However, I won't argue that he wasn't an incredibly talented musician and key member of the Beatles....he's just crap now and has vastly diminished his reputation through mediocre, commercial, soulless shite.

All you have to do is ask yourself if "Yesterday" could possibly have been written by the same person who wrote "Silly Love Songs."

FYI, the fake McCartney's name is William Campbell.

I buried Paul.

:smoke:
dbt
28IF

could write Another Day and Maybe I'm Amazed....

...but from everything I've heard, won't this poll be a complete mismatch, like it always seems to be?

Wasn't Lennon supposed to be the idealist/artiste and McCartney the businessman/pop star? What chance will McCartney have, especially here?

but McCartney was listening to Hendrix in London clubs before most folks knew who he was...

...to try and give him some credibility?

Not trying to be difficult (what do I know about the Beatles?), it's just that I've noticed some old folks rehash this argument over and over again even though the outcome never changes and is never in doubt: A completely one-sided victory for Lennon.

McCartney was seen as the light hearted type...


They were both great musicians...

When Paul McCartney goes, hardly anyone will notice.

How many other musicians were assassinated?

...it's because John Lennon was a much better person than Paul McCartney can ever hope to be.

Regarding your question, I guess you could include the shot rappers and that guitarist who was shot onstage last month as assassinations.

He's a vegan, a crusader against landmines, and does beaucoup charity concerts....

I haven't liked him since 1964.

In fact as a devotee of the Beatles I would suggest none of the Beatles lacked an ego....

The best case for a totally other directed and humble Beatle could be made for George Harrison...

But this thread asked us to choose between John and Paul. And I can't stand Paul McCartney.

Lennon wasn't an egomaniac? Of course he was! That's why the thing eventually fell apart, because both guys grew into such different musical directions that the differences couldn't survive the ego clashes.

When both were on the same page musically, the ego clashes were ameliorated. When they diverged, there was no mitigating the personality differences.

You can prefer Lennon, if you like. That's your right. But don't make your preference for the wrong reasons. Lennon was no saint to McCartney's sinner. They both had enormous egos, which is typical of artistic giants.

The Professor

...Paul McCartney has sucked for years, continues to suck to this day, and will suck for all eternity.

Like i said, we're all entitled to our own opinions. You think he sucks, and that's ok. But, the choice isn't between a noble idealist and a rampant egomaniac. It's a choice between two hugely ego driven guys. The choice is ours to make, but it's wise to choose with eyes open wide.
The Professor

Been open for years. And they've seen that Paul McCartney can't hold a candle to John Lennon.

The point still is that it's not because of one being an egomaniac and the other not. The reason you originally gave it my point. Lennon was just as great an egomaniac as Paul. It's what busted up the band!

You may not like Paul. You may admire John. But, the reason you originally gave can't be the real reason, since it wasn't true.
The Professor

Musical taste is purely subjective but to say Paul McCartney is not a great artist is silly...

Use any criteria you wish.

I'll use my criteria - you use yours. It doesn't change my opinion that John was more talented, more interesting, and a far better human being than Paul could ever HOPE to be.

exude.

As an artist, who's done all kinds of stuff in my life, it gets really old to watch people CONSTANTLY NEED TO APPEAR EDGY.\

Tomorrow I shall vote for John.

He practically did Band On The Run by himself....



People trash his solo stuff...


Maybe I'm Amazed and Another Day hold up pretty well...



Also, I like all the Beatles....

When he's not.

Maybe I'm Amazed, Got To Get You Into My Life,Birthday, Band On The Run, The Fool On The Hill, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band, Things We Said Today, Eleanor Rigby, Back In The USSR, Get Back,the entire B side of Abbey Road (almost) lacks talent...


We should all lack talent like that in our various endeavors...

Talent-wise, McCartney is burnt out.

stirring up the pot like that.

I voted for John because for the first three years or so he basically was 75% of what made the Beatles compositions great, but Paul contributed a great deal as a musician, and emerged as an outstanding songwriter as well. Love 'em all, and I'll probably cry when Paul dies, and when Ringo goes, just as I did when John and George left us.

I like rock music. The Beatles were a pop band.

But if I had to choose I'd go with Paul since he seemed like a much more genuine person both in his convictions and things like his marriage to Linda. Lennon always struck me as the epitome of a famous huckster, selling one thing to his legion of fans and practicing another in his day to day life.

I was debating rock or pop.

As far as the Beatles earlier more rock material the same type of stuff was done better by Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, etc. Amongst the field of rock bands I think they paled in comparison. Even to their peers like The Stones and The Kinks. Those bands were rock bands first and foremost. The stuff that I think the Beatles were actually GOOD at was pop music.

Again, not a matter of good and bad just a matter of what they get their credit for doing.

I really don't think Sgt. Peppers, the White Album, and Abbey Road can be dismissed as merely "pop" music...


Maybe they made great rock music that was always popular...


I wish I had the picture of Mick Jagger sitting in on one of the Sgt. Pepper sessions... He's sitting on the floor looking at McCartney as a student looks at his teacher....

I think what the Beatles were good at was marketing and putting a more palatable face on things and taking things which other people were doing underground and making it popular. There's nothing wrong with that but it doesn't make them innovators or even edgy.

Tomorrow Never Knows, She Said She Said, Revolution?? Pop to me is this Britney Spears/Jessica Simpson shit. The Beatles might have been pop when they started, certainly not as they progressed...though I will grant you that some McCartney Beatle stuff could be considered pop, definitely solo...greatest rock group ever IMHO...

I'm the sheik of araby.

at night when you're asleep. Into your bed I'll creep...

Nasty, short-tempered, intolerant mofo with a chip on his shoulder that weighed eighty pounds. Just as soon kick yer ass as look atcha.

McCartney was a candy-ass lightweight, just the all-time Goody Two Shoes.

Puttem together and what did you get? MAGIC. Forty damn years later, and people still talk about The Beatles!

:smoke:
dbt

and this question is hard for me. While I believe that Lennon is truly the better musician, with more earth-shattering talent than McCartney, I have to be honest. There are McCartney ballads that make me weak in the knees. So, I voted for McCartney.

Yoko Ono gets relentlessly bashed for breaking up the Beatles. But I think she's done more to preserve the legacy than the other survivors. Plus, weird or not, she is a gifted avant garde artist.

Linda McCartney was just plain bad. No talent whatsoever. I remember an audio clip going around from Paul's tour in 1990 of Hay Jude with Linda's part singled out and her singing was horrendous! I mean we're talking Ashlee Simpson bad!

She constantly told John the other Beatles suck and they were nothing without him...

The Beatles had a symbiotic relationship... The whole was greater than the sum of the original parts...


Without Lennon nobody would have heard of McCartney and vice versa...


And folks are talented in different areas...


You should check out the Linda McCartney's photography...

First of all, to the people who are bringing up the fact that Paul sucks now--it's not his fault he didn't freakin' die. The same thing happens to a lot of artists (the first generation Romantics got old and sold out, the second generation Romantics died while they were still cool).
Plus, the disparagement or acclaim that gets heaped on their respective solo stuff is ill-justified. If you take any solo McCartney song--say, "Listen to What the Man Said" for example--and have him write it a few years earlier and put the exact same song on Sgt. Pepper, everyone would say it was brilliant. Conversely, take some universally admired McCartney Beatles track--say, "Fool on the Hill--and put it on one of his solo albums and everyone would say it sucked. As for Lennon, a lot of his solo stuff gets by on being personal--he's talking about himself, and we care because we love him, but if you had some guy you didn't already know and like singing, say, "Isolation," you'd say it was cheesy.
I voted for John, but it does piss me off when people completely shit on Paul. He is clearly the most musically gifted individual who's ever been involved in rock (as in, would have been a great composer if he'd been born into an affluent family back in the day; you will respond that his attempts as classical sucked, but that was an old dog trying to learn new tricks--if he'd been steeped in classical from birth, it would have been a different story).
As for the "good lyrics" argument being hands-down Lennon, it's not as one-sided as people say. I think Paul's lyrics to "Eleanor Rigby," for example, are as good as anything of Lennon's. Paul just gets automatic points off from most people for being narrative instead of abstract, which isn't fair.

listen to Another Day....


It's a femininst anthem....

I couldn't have put it better myself.

As for the "Pop/Rock" debate, if you had seen the Beatles in their German-Strip-Clubs-Leather-Pants days, you'd have said they rocked harder than anyone before or since (certainly they did if you think about it in terms of "rocking exponentially harder than anything anyone had done up to that point"). They just had so many other great ideas that they got bored with rockin' out, and where would music or the world be if they hadn't?

They were both Irish - 1st generation.

Used to call Liverpool the Capital of Ireland


John for me - Greaser, rocker

I like them all.

The four of them came from backgrounds which without their love of rock 'n roll would've easily found themselves in the British class system of manual work and a pension. But they brought themselves to the upper class with their music and changed the world.

They each had their faults and their good sides.