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In his latest book, "Paul McCartney: The Life", Philip Norman says that Paul McCartney is superior to John Lennon.
But in his earlier book, "John Lennon: The Life", Philip Norman says that John Lennon is superior to Paul McCartney".
Who is right, is Paul McCartney superior to John Lennon, or is it vice versa, i.e. is John Lennon really superior to Paul McCartney.
Does anyone out there have any opinions on this?
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Music is subjective ! I rarely compare artists or other people's musical tastes!
The ultimate connection is between a performer and its' audience!
Each is/was great, and each has/had his flaws.
Some of McCartney's work solo or with Wings is excellent, but he always leaves me thinking he is capable of greater things if he just puts his mind to it. Too many of his songs are trite, as though they were just dashed off because it was time for an album.
Lennon never gave me that impression. Though there are songs of his that I dislike, I don't think he ever compromised artistic integrity.
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the thing with McCartney is that he was always trying to be a bit experimental on his albums, trying new things, sometimes it worked, other times it didn't...
"McCartney II" is the classic example of that, he just got new equipment for his home studio and was basically trying to get the hang of the new latest and greatest
hardware so he experimented with sounds, loops, effects etc...
the problem with McCartney is no matter how hard he tries to experiment his 'sound' still comes through in the tracks, so it still sounds like McCartney,
the exception being the three Fireman albums which are almost totally electronic (simple but electronic)...
I agree with what you say though, he is/was capable of greater things but I think he had no one to push him to the limit or tell him was he was producing was 'trite',
whereas Lennon/George Martin were there to bounce off and tell him the truth, I mean, seriously, if you were working with McCartney (or any other legend) would you
tell them their ideas were crap?, probably not, because they are the musical legends/geniuses...
George Martin has been involved in several of his solo projects, and each time the sound is perfection, the songs are classy and the overall effort is there to see and hear...
Elvis Costello worked with McCartney on a few tracks in '89-ish, some of which appeared on Macca's "flowers in the dirt" album, others appeared on Costello's "spike" album,
McCartney said at the time, "Elvis and me sat across from eachother with acoustic guitars bouncing ideas backwards and forewards, it was good, just like the old days with John,we were egging eachother onwards and upwards, I realised then how much I missed that way of writing"
also, no one at EMI/Parlaphone said anything about the quality of the albums to Paul, why?, I suspect that they didn't care because when a new album by any artist gets released, sales of old ones generally spike for a few weeks also, so any lack of sales from the new ones would generate ales from old albums that normally wouldn't have been there...
with Lennon, his music was always brutally honest, sure he made some crap also, but he was always honest in his approach to music making...
and even when the songs sounded terrible his lyrics were always first class
and in the original post,
you cannot compare the two,
with had distinctive styles, Lennon the rough and ragged 'in your face' style of songs and McCartney, the composer of 'catchy pop songs' which were always destined
to become hits however simplistic they appeared to be.
comparing Lennon and McCartney to me is like comparing Springsteen to Prince, or Gibb Brothers to Bjork...totally different styles,
"BTO....Bachman,Turner,Overweight
They were big in the 70s....for five minutes,on a Saturday,after lunch..." - Me 2014.
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29-12-2016, 08:05
(This post was last modified: 29-12-2016, 08:09 by Jerome.)
According to George Martin's book about the music industry, McCartney was the one with the ideas. He stated in the book that John was not nearly as creative as Paul. Lennon fans will be horrified by that statement but it is simply a fact.
https://www.amazon.com/Making-Music-Writ...0688014666
'The purpose of life is a life of purpose' - Athena Orchard.
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30-12-2016, 02:31
(This post was last modified: 30-12-2016, 02:49 by SteveO.)
So what is your opinion, almost1972 ? McCartney or Lennon ? To be truthful from my perspective, The Beatles with Paul and John together are far superior to anything McCartney or Lennon did on their own ! I am talking about the full body or discography of their solo songs and albums, in their entirety. Neither one of them released a complete jewel in an album format as compared to The White album, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Abbey Road, Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour & Let It Be ! Macca had a lot more hits than John...he has a genius for the ultimate pop song ! John had the controversial political protest songs that turned off a lot of the public music consumers. I don't gauge an artist's success by the magnitude of their hits! The general music buyer is only interested in the flavour of the day and is consumed totally by pop music! I seem to go to The Beatles more than the solo albums...that's just me...music is subjective and is dictated by my mood. amost1972 Wrote:In his latest book, "Paul McCartney: The Life", Philip Norman says that Paul McCartney is superior to John Lennon.
But in his earlier book, "John Lennon: The Life", Philip Norman says that John Lennon is superior to Paul McCartney".
Who is right, is Paul McCartney superior to John Lennon, or is it vice versa, i.e. is John Lennon really superior to Paul McCartney.
Does anyone out there have any opinions on this?
The ultimate connection is between a performer and its' audience!
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If personal opinions is allowed - which indeed it has to be about - then I'd agree on PM having more hits, yes, but he also has been given more time to create them... May very well be that had he died or quit at the same time he'd still win on numbers... But JL is the winner for me... JL's top five or so easily beats PM's...
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