The Beatles' Solo Careers

I see Wings' Back To The Egg as McCartney's "new wave" record, myself. Double Fantasy is a strange one: Lennon's tracks are Lennon writing melodic songs in a typical Lennon style, where Yoko's tracks are far more contemporary.

re: the black album, or any particular compiling of solo material, it is also clear to me how different their production styles were. Unlike in Boyhood, I actually find the songs come off worse standing alongside each members' respective offerings. Where on the actual solo albums, pretty good songs start to seem great, Beatles fake-album compilations just sound like really mediocre Beatles albums. Nobody really seemed to push for greatness as a solo artist, rather they were just good songwriters living through the 70s, like all the other good songwriters. They just happened to be a lot more famous than most of the other songwriters (and as such, probably didn't feel as much a need to fit in w/the times).

This is NOT to say I don't like and listen to my fair share of solo Beatles stuff.

I feel like McCartney kind of touched on or slightly bumped up against some of those things in some ways: Much of McCartney and parts of Ram and Wild Life are pretty much "singer/songwriter folk," "Let Me Roll It" is hard rock enough, "Junior's Farm" is close to country rock, "Rock Show" is quite glam, etc. They're all filtered through his particular idiom, but they show some awareness of the genres, anyway.

John/Yoko(/Ringo on the early POB albums) presaged noise rock, krautrock, punk, no wave, Japanese psychedelic rock - all, for the most part, right towards the end of the Beatles. It's important to remember that they all had solo careers already going by the time they split up.

Paul pretty much invented DIY/twee/indie/lofi with his first couple of solo albums that were just him and his wife at a farm.

I think Shakey's looking for an excuse to post "Cheer Down" clip.

George invented the middling fifth solo album

of all the members, Paul definitely had the greatest drive to not only put out new stuff and tour, but remain current, or relevant or whatever. McCartney II is a great example of him doing this -- DIY, "punk" spirit, though in execution, pretty off the mark compared to what actual DIY and punk bands were doing. He's still like this too, churning out albums with state of the now production (or over production), working with different producers, doing huge tours.

Yeah, I personally can't get away with fake Beatle album compilations made up of their solo stuff, really. Partly because of the production differences (aside from Lennon and Harrison using Spector in the early '70s), but also because I tend to see those albums as standalone entities, really. The material on John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band was never going to grace a Beatles album, really. That was the point.

Also, Lennon and Harrison developed their own solo identities which weren't particularly Beatle-y. McCartney, on the other hand, seemed content to either try and re-make Abbey Road on his own as often as possible, or dash off some lo-fi doodlings which, although they have a charm, have production values that would never have graced a Beatle album in a million years.

Also, different than most pop artists, there was probably a lot of pressure on each member's solo career NOT to change up the formula too much. John working with Yoko (both in the 60s and 80s) is imo the riskiest artistic choice any of them made.

x-post

I've often thought about Paul's obsession – real or affected – in Wings and its massive mid decade success. By then of course the band's international fanbase included boys and girls too young to know the Beatles, so I set Wingsmusic against what else was going on in the charts rather than comparing it, invidiously or otherwise, to the Fabs.

whatever else Paul's music from 1970-1978, oddities like "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" aside, defines homegrown surreality, in which the banal gets creepy and almost sinister overtones. He wrote a song suite about and for a dying lamb! A song about a doorbell!

George invented the middling fifth solo album

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, October 23, 2014 5:13 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

George invented whining like he was an 80 year old guy about spiritualism over overlong, mid-tempo, weary, slide-guitared 7th-chord nightmares with all the enthusiasm of a lethargic slug. Some advert for your faith there, George. Of course there's some gems in his catalogue, like all solo Beatle catalogues, but by god do I get seriously confused when people name him their favourite solo Beatle.

the 1974-1976 period got remastered last month. Wonder if this will cause a spasm of interest for Extra Texture?

Paul pretty much invented DIY/twee/indie/lofi with his first couple of solo albums that were just him and his wife at a farm.

I'm sure others could provide numerous other counter-examples, but The Madcap Laughs by Syd Barrett was released ahead of McCartney's first solo album (and recorded almost two years earlier).

Is there a word for that phenomenon where people think the Beatles invented everyfuckingthing?

Yeah, but one of those two was an LSD-imbibing headcase and the other was Syd Barrett.

He wrote a song suite about and for a dying lamb! A song about a doorbell!

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, October 23, 2014 5:23 PM (5 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

A song about his wife's clit, produced by Hugh "when did you write your last number one?" Padgham!

Come to think of it, the middle part of 'Loup' sounds like early '70s Floyd.

the 1974-1976 period got remastered last month. Wonder if this will cause a spasm of interest for Extra Texture?

― guess that bundt gettin eaten (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, October 23, 2014 5:26 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't mind 'You' or 'This Guitar (Can't Keep From Crying)' but... man, I must have listened to the album several times over the years and I'm struggling to recall anything about side 2 right now.

I've rambled enough about solo McCartney on other threads, gotta say I basically like all the solo careers, at least the Seventies stuff, and am a dyed-in-the-wool Paul fan up through Run Devil Run with some bumps along the road. The interesting question in play for me on this thread is how "current" they tried to stay, and I agree, these records seem to be off in their own pocket universes, just kinda making what they feel like making. That's a function of being rich and famous enough that you can do that, and moreover if the albums just seem disproportionately tossed-off and humble and non-"event," that too is because when you are an ex-Beatle, you can do that, and perhaps want to do that. The lack of "currentness" though is maybe trickier to pin down; I wonder how much of it is age and suburban living or whatever, combined with not wanting to get mobbed all the time - did these guys keep going to shows much? Seeing new bands as anything other than a "hey, it's been a while, we should go see what the kids are interested in?" They weren't part of a "scene" anymore, there was nobody they had to keep up with, nobody whose licks they might hear one night and try to incorporate the next. This just kinda happens, I think.

it's always seemed to me that paul's songwriting changed drastically when he went solo in a way that none of the others did. a lot of his solo stuff has this daffy, distracted, stoner vibe that i don't hear in any of his earlier work. even "ram" seems kind of unhinged and self-indulgent (not meant as a criticism, i love that album, but there doesn't seem like a better word) in a way that no beatles album ever was. whereas, for all lennon's chafing at the supposed restraints of being a beatle, the guy who wrote "dear prudence" and "happiness is a warm gun" isn't really that different than the guy who wrote "mother" and "working class hero." paul really seemed to leap at the chance to do everything himself and indulge his every single wacky whim.

Madcap Laughs was recorded in Abbey Road studios! I mean actually recording in your farm house or whatever.

Also haven't read anywhere that Syd's intentions were to do some homemade DIY thing so much as trying to keep it together enough to play a song the same way through twice.

I think the wacky stoner thing is already there in the Beatles, though - Ob-La-Di, WDWDIITR, Maxwell's, or Lovely Rita for that matter. It's just that for a solo act, the albums could consist entirely or mostly of that, and that maybe gives the individual tracks a different 'feel' in turn. I do get you though that, e.g. there's no Beatles album where "Monkberry Moon Delight" or "Loup" exactly makes sense, and it's these cuts that never turn up on imaginary Beatles-stayed-together tracklists...

I think Paul just wanted to relax and have some fun after The Beatles, really. I mean, being in the Beatles sounded pretty fucking intense. I think he was just enjoying himself because he felt that the pressure was off. In reality, though, maybe it wasn't... I mean, people were still expecting their solo albums to measure up to the quality of the latter-period Beatle records.

By comparison, Lennon's early solo records are intense and lacking in fun or humour. Harrison's records for the most part sound like he couldn't be arsed and sound joyless.

Plastic Ono Band and Imagine have a lot of fun and humor.

Where!?

"Hold On John" is self-motivation as self-parody. There's so much fun assembling these grooves that hearing those records and putting on Harrison's mid seventies is like stepping out of a shower and getting doused in ink.

"Crippled Inside" is jaunty enough to be kinda darkly fun. "Oh Yoko!" is fun.

Lennon's drop in quality between 1970 and 1973 has always been unsettling to me. I'm guessing narcissism and various addictions were the main culprits.

xxpost:

Well yeah, it's a bit of a given that it's less of a snoozefest/more engaging than the likes of Extra Texture, but I'd still be hard pressed to call it a fun record.

xp he still had his moments. here's one. proper Deep Cut. clearly an influence on Bowie's Young Americans (especially 'Win' and 'Right') which obvs he was ON and was recorded 2 months after this was

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfkNJV128-w

Cookie!

ha I look away for an hour and look what happens

Walls and Bridges has its highlights... '#9 Dream' is my favourite thing Lennon ever did solo, but 'What You Got' is incredibly underrated IMO.

John/Yoko(/Ringo on the early POB albums) presaged noise rock, krautrock, punk, no wave, Japanese psychedelic rock

kinda agree w this as long as you tilt the balance towards Yoko's solo work (which is its own thing v distinct from the Beatles imo). the albums with John's name on the title don't really go those places.

oh man totally forgot the Lennon-Bowie collabs. Lennon came to Elton and Bowie a bit late it seems.

these records seem to be off in their own pocket universes, just kinda making what they feel like making. That's a function of being rich and famous enough that you can do that, and moreover if the albums just seem disproportionately tossed-off and humble and non-"event," that too is because when you are an ex-Beatle, you can do that, and perhaps want to do that. The lack of "currentness" though is maybe trickier to pin down; I wonder how much of it is age and suburban living or whatever, combined with not wanting to get mobbed all the time - did these guys keep going to shows much? Seeing new bands as anything other than a "hey, it's been a while, we should go see what the kids are interested in?" They weren't part of a "scene" anymore, there was nobody they had to keep up with, nobody whose licks they might hear one night and try to incorporate the next. This just kinda happens, I think.

yeah this is how I see it too

also agree that the vastly different production styles make any kind of fakes post-breakup compilation album *really* jarring. I'm sure in some ways this is by design, none of them wanted to really do what the others were doing and this was the 70s was their first real opportunity to take advantage of that.

I think Paul just wanted to relax and have some fun after The Beatles, really. I mean, being in the Beatles sounded pretty fucking intense.

And the intensity was so much more than "We've gotta top that last insane masterwork!" I mean, a significant chunk of western youth culture was looking towards the Beatles ("THEY'LL tell us what to do!") and everyone was riding this massive cultural shift. I think Ian MacDonald made this point, that it seemed like the Beatles knew what was happening/what was about to happen/what should happen.

So after all that, yeah, Paul probably just wanted to chill and get baked on his pot farm and dash off some fun, inconsequential sketches.

xpost:

Yeah, and the musicians used too... 1970 is probably the most extreme year: ranging from a whole cast of people on All Things Must Pass to just Paul on his lonesome (and occasionally with Linda) on McCartney.

having slogged through McCartney, Ram, Band on the Run, Redrose Speedway, Venus and Mars and Speed of Sound yesterday Macca's tossed off semi-nonsensical approach to lyrics *really* begins to grate in large quantities. There are things I love on all those albums but his dedication to vapidity is some kind of force of nature.

McCartney and POB always seemed like flip sides of the same coin to me. Lets both go back to the most basic rock n' roll sound we can and vent. Both are emotionally raw in very different ways too. McCartney is trying to pick up the pieces of a shattered post Beatles life and John's trying to exorcise his demons.

and the musicians used too

yeah this is huge - it's not like all their albums were strictly solo affairs (a la Paul), it's impossible to tell how/what the other Beatles would have contributed to the others' works. I can kinda guess about Ram (always thought Macca used Linda as a sub for Lennon when it came to vocal harmonies) but what would Paul have done on "Imagine" - insert some even more cloying middle eight?

lol how is "McCartney" emotionally raw? Maybe I'm Amazed is standard Paul sap, etc. (not knockin it btw altho I prefer the Faces version)

Every Night, Man We Was Lonely, Junk lol

There's an outtake called Suicide!

and Maybe I'm Amazed? What's wrong with that? I'd like to know.

but what would Paul have done on "Imagine" - insert some even more cloying middle eight?

― Οὖτις, Thursday, October 23, 2014 7:20 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I can't picture McCartney's bass style on it, even!

As for McCartney's lyrics, I think he did make a little more of an effort with them from the late '80s onwards. If not from Flowers In The Dirt onwards, then certainly Flaming Pie onwards.

I gotta rep for Back To The Egg as well. It just sounds much more crisp and lively than London Town or Speed of Sound plus has much better songs- Getting Closer, Arrow Through Me, Old Siam, So Glad To See You, To You. And Daytime Nighttime Suffering as a bonus track which is a top ten solo Paul song.

Of course it has it's share of filler but so does every Paul record...

McCartney II is his best solo album by far! Totally brilliant.

Remove 'With A Little Luck' from side two and what do you have left?

uh MORSE MOOSE AND THE GREY GOOSE you philistine duh

also "name and address" is fun

Oh fucking hell, I forgot how batshit 'Morse Moose and The Grey Goose' is! Great intro, then disco groove, then he shoehorns a sea shanty in the middle. Yeah, I'll agree, this is another highlight.

I really dig on The Alternate London Town and don't find much else in the solo-Beatles catalog to admire.

Save Nilsson.

LOL @ xelab

I haven't heard any McCartney besides I, II and Ram. Got "All the Best" when I was a kid just off my discovering the Beatles kick and it was a massive letdown and I've been weary since then.

weird there's not been a proper Paul 'Best Of..' in 30 years. unless one counts Wingspan i suppose.

McCartney has said the mid/late 70s were one of the happiest times of his life. He could get the train up to London, walk from Charing Cross to his record company's offices in Soho, entirely unmolested. The John was shot, and his life was turned on its head again.

the john always had a sweeter end of the deal

All the Best is splendid car fare.

Ha, All the Best was my McCartney gateway drug! But I was young and well before my Beatles discovery period.

listened to Lennon's "Rock and Roll" last night - what a weird album. It's not bad exactly, but it's funny he would do the exact thing he seemed to resent Paul for even suggesting just a few years earlier. In a funny way it does bear some similarity to the 50s-obsessed wing of glam (Gary Glitter etc.) altho without the camp or the muscle. Oddly nothing really rocks all that hard. I can't help but think Spector would've given it more power had he gotten the final say over it, but John seemed to increasingly favor limp, sort of washed out sonics as the decade wore on, like he didn't really appreciate the low end of a solid rhythm section.

tbf it's entirely likely Lennon wouldn't have made this album at all if it wasn't for the lawsuit

one weird thing i remember reading about that album is that spector is the one who suggested he cover "just because" -- which john, a lifelong elvis fan, had never heard. i definitely feel like most of the energy goes out of his solo work post-71, but part of that might be down to poor production -- i used to have the lennon anthology and i remember there was some good stuff on that.

The sessions tapes are a treat though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmI-MdAxs0k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSO8Z-qrPtQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pVnXgiG0bk

lol "remember the solo, that's the bit where I don't talk"

spector is the one who suggested he cover "just because" -- which john, a lifelong elvis fan, had never heard

Wait, I'm confused, what is this story? The "Just Because" on Rock and Roll is the Lloyd Price song, not the Elvis/Stanley Brothers/Frankie Yankovic etc.one, and there's no way Lennon had never heard Lloyd Price. Or did Elvis ever cover the Lloyd Price song?

"What're they gonna do, play jazz with Jethro Tull?"

"I'm gonna be a 90 year old guru"

:(

i definitely feel like most of the energy goes out of his solo work post-71, but part of that might be down to poor production -- i used to have the lennon anthology and i remember there was some good stuff on that.

― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Friday, October 24, 2014 5:09 PM (45 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Lennon was kinda the opposite to McCartney in the sense that McCartney, whenever he brought a song into the studio, would have very specific ideas about all the parts and what kind of treatment to give the song in the studio (which legendarily used to wind the rest of The Beatles and members of Wings up), whereas Lennon was a little more collaborative in this respect... in his solo work he'd have the chord sequence and melody and get the musicians he was working with to play around with it until they honed it into something that Lennon was happy with. In The Beatles, I actually think McCartney used to take a very active role in arranging Lennon's songs, which help give those Beatles album a type of consistency.

McCartney has this thing for working out every single aspect of his songs: chord structure, melody, production, arrangement, all the parts... whereas with Lennon's solo stuff the arrangements and playing are only as interesting as what the musicians he's working with come up with.

Wait, I'm confused, what is this story? The "Just Because" on Rock and Roll is the Lloyd Price song, not the Elvis/Stanley Brothers/Frankie Yankovic etc.one, and there's no way Lennon had never heard Lloyd Price. Or did Elvis ever cover the Lloyd Price song?

ah, you're right -- it's been so long since i heard the lennon album that i actually didn't remember it wasn't the elvis song he was covering. i can't find the story i'm thinking of but from this lennon quote it sounds more like he probably had heard the song but didn't "know" it well, which isn't too surprising since he often couldn't remember the words to his own songs:

"At the end of making that record, I was finishing up a track that Phil Spector had made me sing called 'Just Because,' which I really didn't know -- all the rest I'd done as a teenager, so I knew them backward -- and I couldn't get the hang of it. At the end of that record -- I was mixing it just next door to this very studio -- I started spieling and saying, 'And so we say farewell from the Record Plant,' and a little thing in the back of my mind said, 'Are you really saying farewell?' I hadn't thought of it then. I was still separated from Yoko and still hadn't had the baby, but somewhere in the back was a voice that was saying, 'Are you saying farewell to the whole game?'

thought this was a fun interview w/ mccartney when i read it, he talks a lot about his time on the farm in scotland after the beatles broke up, making "ram," and beards: http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/8854-paul-mccartney/

Pitchfork: When you went to the nearby town in Scotland, were people unfazed by the fact that Paul McCartney was in their grocery store?

PM: Yeah, a little bit. People get used to it when you live locally, because you go to into the pub with them, or you go to dinner with your local solicitor, or you hang with a couple of guys working on the farm. You gradually get to know other people, and they become very protective of you. The only people who would bother us would be the tourists, but it was never a real problem.

Also, you gotta remember, I had a big black beard, and not everyone recognized me as a Beatle. When we went to New York, I'd go to Harlem or wherever and I had this beard and an old thrift-shop jacket on, like a Vietnam vet-- I used to joke with people, like, "I look the guy who might mug you." People didn't want to look me in the eye. It was quite a good cover at the time.

One of the things about beards is that, when men reach a certain age, they'd like to see if they can grow one. It's a phenomenon I understand very well. So I thought, "I'm gonna be in Scotland, there's nobody to see me if I fail." After you get over the itchy face, you go, "Oh, I don't have to shave, that's cool." And then you move into the philosophical thing-- people say, "Oh, you look weird, you have a beard." And you say, "No, actually, it's weird to shave." Having a beard is natural. When you think about it, shaving it off is quite weird. (laughs)

oh sod off, Paul. yer boring ass pot sketches never came close to something like POB. wings is execrable, everything. McCartney II is ace but it doesn't have, you know, "Mother." or "God." Or "I Found Out." and on and on...

"Lovely Linda" is gorgeous and coulda been a White Album toss-off. "Momma Miss America" is a really nice thick groove.

"Mother" and "God" are important but I hardly ever want to listen to the mmore than once in a good while.

xpost My reaction to "All the Best" was colored by immediately following my discovery of the Beatles canon, which I was directly comparing it to. I looked at the track listing and it's actually really good and I like most of the songs, but some of that soft rock stuff ("My Love", "With a Little Luck") was just too weak and wussy for a teenaged me who thought "Happiness is a Warm Gun" was the best rock song ever (which I still maybe kinda do).

and for many years it was the only place to find "NO More Lonely Nights."

Hah. That was probably the moment I wrote him off.

Ringo begged off playing on the Beatles re-recordings on the Broad Street soundtrack: "Paul, we already did these songs, remember?"

his best eighties song after "Press."

whereas with Lennon's solo stuff the arrangements and playing are only as interesting as what the musicians he's working with come up with

yeah this is definitely true, borne out by the superiority of his material with Voorman/Ringo/Keltner and Spector. Those guys all really brought strong, well thought-out supporting ideas to the table. Elephant's Memory might have been fine for Yoko's solo material, where something more conventional works as a good counterpoint to her very unconventional writing, but they were shit backing up Lennon imo. And after that it's p much downhill apart from Pussy Cats, which benefits (again) from Ringo, Keltner, Voorman, Kortchmar, Nillson etc.

god I love Pussy Cats

Yeah, I definitely have 'No More Lonely Nights' as being up there with the best of McCartney's '80s material. I have more than a soft spot for 'Once Upon A Long Ago' and 'Only Love Remains', too.

People give Broad Street a rough time. It's a good film. Sentimental for it, maybe. But I revisited it last month and it's just a bit of fun, y'know?

Macca solo beard had nothing on George:

http://media.tumblr.com/453734071c6593abc64c2701a643c1e6/tumblr_inline_mt1rqxZrDw1qz4rgp.jpg

http://the-beardles.tumblr.com/

Paul McCartney is such a strange conundrum. How many other folks have written both several of the best songs of all time and several of the worst?

In the excellent "Tune In," Lewisohn recounts Ringo being made to shave before he formally joined the Beatles. Ringo: ahead of the curve.

beards are horrible

you're horrible

lol kj but i like beards

ringo's the only beatle where the beard seems really natural. paul looks like he forgot to shave, george looks like he's in his howard hughes phase, and john looks like he's about to pull off his fake beard and laugh at you.

Ringo obv. also kept the beard.

His hair migrated.

whereas with Lennon's solo stuff the arrangements and playing are only as interesting as what the musicians he's working with come up with

yeah this is definitely true, borne out by the superiority of his material with Voorman/Ringo/Keltner and Spector. Those guys all really brought strong, well thought-out supporting ideas to the table. Elephant's Memory might have been fine for Yoko's solo material, where something more conventional works as a good counterpoint to her very unconventional writing, but they were shit backing up Lennon imo. And after that it's p much downhill apart from Pussy Cats, which benefits (again) from Ringo, Keltner, Voorman, Kortchmar, Nillson etc.

god I love Pussy Cats

This is all super duper otm. Listening to Pussy Cats for the first time right now and its much better than I thought it would be!

No More Lonely Nights is mainly great because of Gilmour IMo. still .. great like.

"Bring on the Lucie" is such an underrated song, recorded sort of poorly though.

"No More LOnely Nights" has that descending vocal melody before Gilmour's last solo -- peak Paul.

I've always thought RAM would sit very comfortably next to 90s/00s indie pop. Not sure if that is McCartney "anticipating" that sound so much as his influence exerting itself on a new generation, but...

his best eighties song after "Press."

"Take It Away" is so good, though...

Would be cool to hear his current band do it.

I hate Paul's drippy shit and God knows I don't know any deep cuts (aside from "Temporary Secretary"?), but he's Paul goddammit.