Paul McCartney

STN

sou'wester
I think he's caused me more unhappiness than any other musician ever, and that includes the bloke who stole my girlfriend when i was 20.
 

hint

party record with a siren
Paul McCartney is incredible. I give him 2 thumbs up 4 life.

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Keep drinking the haterade. :p
 

mms

sometimes
why is he so great though hint?
his latest pr thing seems to be claiming to have invented anything important for the beatles, all of which is surely bullshit, esp given all the evidence. He's the david irving of popular music, him and that girl that did ' i wish i was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair'
 
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crackerjack

Well-known member
wot Hint sez. Saw him at the Roundhouse last year and the man's a legend.

Until you've participated in a Hey Jude karoake led by Sir Mac himself your life is shit. :p
 

hint

party record with a siren
why is he so great though hint?
his latest pr thing seems to be claiming to have invented anything important for the beatles, all of which is surely bullshit, esp given all the evidence. He's the david irving of popular music

Well... I'm not sure what evidence you're reading.

Latest thing I read is Geoff Emerick's book, which puts McCartney right at the centre of the majority of the interesting stuff that the Beatles ever did in the studio. He was way more into the engineering and theory aspects of studio work. He didn't necessarily "invent" anything, but he found out what was possible, what the people at the cutting edge were doing, and brought it to everyone's attention.

Lennon is portrayed more as the type to say "I want to sound like I'm singing underwater", then leaving it up to everyone else to work out how to actually make that happen. Ringo sat in the corner reading comics until it was time to drum. George Harrisson is (perhaps unfairly) portrayed as just not being good enough to keep up, especially in the early days.

A lot of the great Beatles moments that people automatically credit to Lennon (because he's seen as being more "edgy") or Harrison (because people assume all the good guitar bits are his) are actually Paul's work. The lead guitar on "Taxman", for example. Take the lead guitar and bass out of "Taxman" and it's worth fuck all... with them, it's A BANGER. Those chord stabs!

Even if the basslines weren't so next level, just the tone of the bass from the Beatles recordings of that period is enough to make him noteworthy. He would stay late, after everyone had clocked off, and just play and play until the bass sounded right - the rhythm, the dynamics, the tone.

On a purely musical level, he's one of the best bassists ever in rock music. Even phenomenally lame shit like "Silly Love Songs" has a bassline that far more energy, melody and invention than the vast majority out there. His bass playing in The Beatles is perhaps the secret ingredient - the element that copyists really don't "get".

He is a great singer.

He has written so many great songs. I won't bother to list them, because there is no cure for McCartney hating.
 
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mms

sometimes
i don't believe all these claims of his though as everything seems to be to the contrary, then you get stuff like i invented electro i was the avant guarde one, no biography can dispute the facts about who was the most dedicated avant guardist or the most spiritual one or whatever. The other gents were making the records, they're not there to stake their own claims, and ringo is obviously too old and sour to reply.

but at the end of the day it comes down to paul mcartney being once great ( sure ) but fuck off now.

i don't like his voice though.
 

STN

sou'wester
I must confess that I don't really like the Beatles that much. I'm not proud of it like some people are but there it is.

I think most of the ones I really like are Paulless but I could be wrong (it's more the yes okay go away factor, as mms says, anyway):

Baby You're a Rich Man
Blackbird
Hello Goodbye (i'd guess this is him)
I Want You (She's So Heavy)
Taxman (I'll give him that)
Michelle (is this him too?)
Norwegian Wood
Oh Darling

Edit: okay not Paulless but not him in the main.
 

empty mirror

remember the jackalope
I love Paul's contribution to the Beatles' sound, grandmother-music tin-pan alley pastiche or not. And I think his post-Beatles output, though mixed, is waaaay under-rated. RAM is an awesome record. I mean, c'mon, on McCartney II, he plays all the instruments, recorded the album at home (or some facsimile), and absolutely kills it with off-kilter songs like "Temporary Secretary" (a song that presages bands like DEVO). Without McCartney's early post-Beatle output, there'd be no Beta Band or Lone Pigeon, or like uh... wot?!!!

(as an aside, there's a character in Infinite Jest that plays this bootleg Linda McCartney CD while he mangles debtors----essentially Linda McCartney's vocal tracks on Wings albums, minus all the other instruments and vocals; it is supposed to sound eery, sad and horrible; i wonder if it exists, and if it doesn't, it must be invented)
 
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