Re: Paul McCartney's solo career > John Lennon's solo career (and george's and ringo'
Too much to cover in one thread.. to many subjects..
They were better together, one reason is the contrast, four lead vocalists, two great
vocalists, three hall of fame songwriters, the perfect producer, Band on The Run or Imagine are great albums, but maintaining the same level of interest, in pop music is
hard with just one singer or writer, Being able to bop from Lennon's "Come Together" to Harrisons "Something" to McCartney's (primarily) Abbey Road Medley.... is the sort of thing no one guy could ever do.
As stand alone songs, Band on The Run. Imagine, My Sweet Lord, are all just as good as Beatle songs, and just as succesful... but in terms of a whole album... There was more filler for one thing... "bip Bop" "Lazy Dynamite" "I dont wanna be a soldier Mama"
and second... let me put it this way... lets just take one year, hypothetically where they all had an album out... lets say 1973 for the sake of discussion
If you took, Band On The Run, Live and Let Die, Jet, My Love from McCartney, and Mind Games, I'm The Greatest, Out The Blue from Lennon, and Photograph from Ringo,and oh Give Me love and Dont let me wait too long, from Harrison.... now you are starting to talk about an album...of biblical proportions... the contrast, the quality of the writing.,. the different lead singers...
no one guy could ever do that...to recreate the beatle sound.... you need multiple lead singers...going from Psychadelia... to baroque, to country and western to hard rock to tin pan alley..
McCartney has tried recreating that sort of album on his own.. with Venus and Mars and Back To the Egg and Tug of War.. and FLowers in the Dirt..
and though McCartney is great, prolific, a melodic genius, and (until recently) a great singer...
No one guy can switch styles, vocals and contrast like the Beatles could... and Paul cant write a whole album of lyrics to match the combined work of all three writers..
lastly.... no one stands up to a Beatle in the studio, and says hey that song stinks forget it...but when they were together...they were more effective at editing each other.
They all did great solo work.. and still do..
I say lets get the last "new" Beatle tracks out of the vaults... the Beatles reunion tracks that haven't been released they are
NOW AND THEN (which is finished) + ALL FOR LOVE (not another Lennon demo, a McCartney/Harrison original)