The Smiley Smile Message Board

I'm sure Paul had more hits and had more of a mainstream sound but who would you say had a better career from 1970-1980? As far as a body of work not just singles.
I know many people rank praise Lennon more than Sir Paul ..As far as Beatles songs go i always favored Lennon's contributions over Paul's.. but when i checked out the solo years i preferred Paul's work.

I also looked throught my Beatles catalogue and found out that 3/4 good songs were John's, just my preference I guess. I think Plastic Ono Band is a masterpiece on terms of creating such powerful songs with strong messages while minimizing production (ironic that Spector was in on this one right?) His mid 70's music is slightly lacking perhaps? but he showed he was still a master of music when he did Double Fantasy.

Wings was a good band, but John Lennon had messages in his music, Paul had tunes with no messages.
To put it this way, John Lennon was a person of massive interest and had he not been killed he would most likely entered politics and perhaps become Prime Minister of the UK (yes i just asked for a personal message ban me now)  ;D

Paul was none of this. He was a successful musician and fantastic songwriter, but does not have the same meaning to people the way John did (and still does!)

I think it goes both ways. I remember listening to a couple of interviews with John Lennon and the jounalists were giving him a hard time. So he was ridiculed for his political involvement too.

It depends on my mood - Macca solo records up until, IDK, McCartney II are inexplicably great. They shouldn't be, but they're extremely well-written, well-produced songs about absolutely nothing. And that vapidness gets to me some times, but if you're a guy who doesn't pay mind to lyrics so much I can see the appeal. Amazing melodies, arrangements, production, etc.

Lennon, on the other hand, has Songs about Things. I guess Macca doesn't have a Plastic Ono Band in his canon, but then Macca also doesn't have a record which misses the mark so far as Sometime In New York City. Or records which sound so bad as Double Fantasy (songwritings passable, but I prefer the demos from around that time). Or are as boring as Mind Games. Lennon is more about peaks and troughs - Macca doesn't have records as good as Walls & Bridges, Imagine or POB, but in the 70's (the only way this is fair) he doesn't sink as low as Lennon did.

McCartney, very easily. Who gives a poop if songs have messages or not? Don't bore us, get to the chorus.

Macca.

TBH, I think the reason that the Sometime In New York City album is such a stinker, is because the message became more important than the music. The fact that "The Luck Of The Irish" may be just about the single most patronising protest song ever written doesn't help much either.

That and the production is so ass it makes it essentially unlistenable. It sounds fucking terrible.

Well, yes there is that too.
None of the post Imagine Lennon albums have got great production on them. Walls & Bridges in particular has some fantastic songs on it, but is horribly overproduced. I do tend to prefer the demo versions of many of the later Lennon material to the finished versions.

I'm fond of Walls and Bridges sound, but then I like that 70's LA thing. Crack session dudes and so on. It's slick, but it is inexplicable catnip to me.


In terms of production.... Mind Games sounds boring (apart from the title track, which is magic) Walls and Bridges sounds cool, Rock and Roll sounds amazing, and Double Fantasy sounds way 80's. But then, even the 'Stripped Down' version makes me just want to listen to the original mix, so I guess that's not my problem with it I think the problem with the mix is that it ain't 'overdone', it's rather too much on effects and things. The actual arrangements are fine.

What you COULD do (it's just an option I'm presenting you with) is stop trying to rank everything that ever happened in the history of pop music, and stop trying to put it all in little boxes with a lid on it.........

and just listen to Paul McCartney, AND John Lennon's albums. 

Yeah............................YEAH!

stop telling me what i COULD do

Imagine

I have been obsessed with The Beatles since I was about three years old, and they have remained my favourite band since - so, nearly thirty years now. I only say that in order to say that the great thing about the band and its members solo work is that they really allow you to change your mind. So when I was a kid I was a huge fan of Paul's stuff in The Beatles but in my teenage years, I was more drawn to John. By my late teenage years I was obsessed with John's Beatle stuff and his solo stuff. I had largely written off Macca. In my 20s, I re-gained my appreciation for Paul's Beatle work and this led me to re-investigate his solo material - and, for many albums, listen to it for the first time.

Since my late 20s, I have been preferring Paul's solo stuff. There is a lot of variety there. I think too that John seemed to be more self-conscious about being a serious artist and, consequently, there isn't that much "play" on his albums. In that sense, I go against the generalization that John was riskier than Paul. It seems to me that Paul was taking greater risks with songs like "Oo You," "Ram On," "Monkberry Moon Delight," "Mary Had A Little Lamb," "Single Pigeon," etc. In fact, and quite surprisingly, the John album that I dig the most right now is Mind Games. Not saying it's the best one - but I find that I can re-listen to POB, Imagine, or W&B too often. I recognize that the songs on Imagine are fantastic but despite how great they are, I can get bored with them after awhile. And I really have to be in the right mood to get into POB and W&B (again, that's probably why they were such big albums for me in high school...). At the moment, I can still re-listen to Paul's stuff all the time.

But who knows? Ask me again in ten years and I may have a completely different story.

Stop telling me what i COULD do

:smash

Oh hey, welcome to my world.

I was wondering to any of you guys remember this song ? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdUbkUpUzH8

Yeah, that's a great song. Love the bass.

I prefer Lennon, but I will say this: McCartney was (is) a far better producer.

the bass is the only part john admitted that he liked :/ such a bitter yet talented man.

Imho of course kust going by the seventies John had three good albums (POB, Imagine, Walls) to Paul's six (McCartney, Ram, Band On The Run, Venus, Over America, Back To The Egg). I would rate John a lot higher if I never had the displeasure of hearing Yoko sing.

Don't forget that the second half of the 70's saw no record releases from John. So if you are comparing albums you have to be guided by a 1970 - 1974 standard. So while you have POB, Imagine, and Walls from John that would only give you McCartney, Ram, and Band on the Run. Nose to nose, these two were. I do think McCartney II is a better (and far more adventurous) album than Double Fantasy though.

I thought about mentioning this but I also noticed that, even percentage wise, McCartney still scores higher for Mike, than Lennon.

If I were to rate only their voices, John would come out ahead - but not by a huge margin, because they were both supremely talented singers. Their vocal blend was so close, I would've sworn they were siblings. I find myself going back to the early Beatles songs and picking out John's parts, then Paul's....both parts being so strong, either one could be the lead, I don't know the technical terms for it, but that is something special, best vocal harmonies in rock or pop music, along with the Everlys and Beach Boys. After the Beatles? Unfortunately, much of John's work demanded that you share his views on society, politics, religion, etc, to enjoy his music. Although I can recognize some brilliance, for example, in the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band music, much of what he has to say I disagree with. I don't believe ALL religion is bullshit, I don't worship Yoko, and I find a lot of John's political ideaololy suspect. Paul, on the other hand, doesn't want to hit me over the head with such divisive issues, he just wants to entertain with music. A lot of people hated his early solo stuff like McCartney and Ram back in the day, but I suspect a lot of that was just fans being angry at Paul for his percieved role in breaking up the Beatles. There are plenty of moments of melodic and musical brilliance on both albums. The Wings albums get generally lukewarm reviews, but there is very little of their stuff that I dislike. Wildlife has it's less that inspired moments, but it is the first album by a new group still learning each other. If viewed that way instead of as "the latest musical pronouncement from that genius McCartney", it's quite charming. Red Rose Speedway has some filler like Loop (1st Indian on the Moon), but is generally solid, much more professional sounding that Wildlife. And there is so much variety on their albums. Can you think of anyone else (Beatles excluded) that could go from old timey, vaudeville (You Gave Me the Answer) to hard rock (Rock Show, Medicine Jar) on the same album (Venus and Mars)? I like John's songs on Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey, but never been much of a Yoko fan.

Honestly I think Paul has only made three to five good albums since John passed away but in the seventies he still tried to make music with a degree of quality and ingewnuity.  I would be a bigger Lennon fan, as I love the best of his stuff 1961 forward, but Yoko ruins it for me many times.

I don't know if it's even been that many. I haven't really liked an album of Paul's since the Tug of War/Pipes of Peace era. Enjoyed the Broad Street soundtrack, but that was mostly remakes, hated Press to Play, Flowers in the Dirt was half a good album, Off the Ground had maybe one decent song - Hope of Deliverance. I enjoyed some of Run Devil Run...but after that, I stopped caring. I suspect John would've made some good music in the 80's/90's, but we'll never know. Okay, how about those other two, Harrison and Starr(key)? I find I like George's albums the best of the ex-Beatles, but he never varied his sound much. I have to give credit to Paul, at least in the Wings years, every album had a sound of its own.

Flaming Pie is the only later one I think matches his seventies work completely.

Ringo's done some decent music but I think he rarely rises above being cute. It works for him, but his aren't records I play often. George I think had better standards than the rest. I find his solo work, with rare exception, to be the most interesting and individual. His voice over a whole album can get samey, but what he did was still of a high quality.

IMO, McCartney did a trilogy of excellent/ great albums in the last 10 years, with Chaos and Creation, Memory Almost Full and The Fireman - Electric Arguments. He's also got another CD's worth of non-album tracks and B-sides from the last 10 years that are of a similar quality to these albums. While a bit different sonically from his 70's era, imo they are of similar quality.

Lennon's post 1980 music is one of the great unanswered questions of pop music. His living in New York makes me think he might have pursued a more New Wave style for a bit, and then maybe even explored early hip hop, as a form of protest music, or even got into the avante garde Knitting Factory jazz/ classical/ metal thing a la John Zorn. But in the end, I think he would have gone back to what he did best, beautifully crafted pop/rock with often personal lyrics.

I suspect the Beatles would have reformed at some point in the 80's or 90s, with George an equal writing partner with the other two, but the general critical reception would have not been as good, even though I think there would have been some great songs. The Beatles moment as a group was truly the 60s imo.

Oh, and Ringo is imo underrated as a solo artist, especially in the early 70s and over his last several albums. He's no Lennon, but he's made some nice records in his time, that deserve a bit more recognition imo.

Yes, I think McCartney said in a recent Rolling Stone interview that it was the expectation that new work, no matter how good, just wouldn't match up to the old, that was in part responsible for their not regrouping -- best to leave the legacy as it was.  That's sullying of the legacy certainly happened with the Stones and our Beach Boys, though both have done what they had to do to restore it.

the stones f***ed up after the tattoo you album..and the beach boys f***ed up after the smile massacre lol

Have you heard the original Somewhere in England? Some really great tracks got dumped - Sat Singing, Tears of the World, Flying Hour. I think Gone Troppo is a wonderful little gem of an album, nice melodies, George sounds happy....not commercial, but happy. Extra Texture is more of a dark feeling album, but nicely crafted.

Yeah I have the LP boot with the original cover. Flying Hour in particular was a huge loss to the finished LP.

Agreed. I don't have many boots, but the day I saw that one in a shop, I had to buy it.

Probably Lennon. His albums and singles were always more memorable.