The Beatles' Solo Careers

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.