The Beatles' Solo Careers Poll - Voting and General Discussion Thread

Morse Moose and the Grey Goose = omg the Animal Collective buzzing high-pitched synth running through this whole thing is so fucking irritating, what a horrible sound.

Paul could be actively irritating in a way the other Beatles' solo works never were (at their worst, they were boring and flaccid).

But this just makes me want to stab something, it's a sonic crime.

Temporary Secretary also quickly goes from cute novelty to actively irritating, although there it's the chirping refrain that really grates.

re: ringo's homage - i'd trust anybody itt's judgment more than mine as to what styles or performers ringo is going for on this record - i own a few classic country LPs but i don't really know the genre!

loving these classically shakey-esque track reviews. can't believe i got you to listen to "morse moose and the grey goose."

giving a thumbs up to beaucoups of blues. will keep these first two ringo albums in rotation and recommend any particular standout tracks if they come to me. moving on now to his "rock" albums which have always looked worrisomely "i had me own albums to do, peace and love" to me, but i could easily believe they have some gems. ringo opens with the lennon-penned "i'm the greatest," the silliness of which i've always appreciated, but it's like 10 BPM too slow or something, just kind of plodding. what happened to his instincts as a drummer (the thing he's actually the greatest at)? my fear has always been that these next few LPs are mostly like that, but we'll see....

i had me own albums to do, peace and love

lol this is probably a little too on the nose...

Put It There = this is pretty good, it's a sturdy melody and actually reminds me a bit of XTC (yes I know that's backwards) but that may be the late 80s production sheen of chorused guitars more than anything then else. I don't love the sound of it but with a slightly different arrangement/production style I can see it being quite affecting. Of course the song is then promptly ruined by the Hello/Goodbye callback coda.

I don't know! The song is way too brief to criticize (Paul produced it himself btw); I don't rate it.

No "Cut Me Some Slack" for Paul McCartney?

critics have been doing it since 1970

"Cut Me Some Slack" was (I believe) only performed live, that once? So I left it off, as I'm excluding live stuff.

if a studio version was released somewhere, feel free to vote for it.

Yeah there's not much I'd salvage from Ringo's s/t. Despite the inclusion of a song called "Step Lightly" and a bunch of great musicians, it mostly all sounds like they're on downers and out of ideas. Stunning to read that Rolling Stone found it the best solo Beatle record released by November 1973, and that only Goodbye Yellow Brick Road kept it from #1 in the US. "Photograph"'s status as a big hit has always sort of mystified me - it's again, doughy and sluggish, but if I imagine it a little faster, the boringness of the melody just looms larger. I mean it's okay but it's really the same thing the whole way through, four or five notes, dah dah dah dah DAH dah duh... say what you will about Paul but he would quit or fall asleep halfway through if you tried to get him to sing this. "It Don't Come Easy" at least has some big, ear-grabbing hooks and real Ringo-y drum fills but I think it'd be better without the horns piled all over it - doesn't really make you sound like a scrappy hard-time dues-payer when you're beaming it out from a Vegas stage. Rounding out the singles, "Oh My My" at least feels a good fit for Ringo's persona, but that's all I can really say about it.

"Early 1970" is the real keeper imo - limber, sincere, stripped down to the country-western sound that worked so well last time, and evidently Ringo is the kind of guy who writes better tunes and lyrics when there are things he's actually feeling and wants to get on record. I could put that on a ballot. "Sunshine Life For Me" has a momentary flash of interest when George's vocal line comes in towards the end. "You're Sixteen," though an icky choice of material, is what the whole album should have been - brighter, more uptempo, with Ringo singing at the top end of his register rather than the wooden bottom... he's done a standards album, a country album, okay, do the album of American Graffiti soundtrack covers. "Devil Woman" has a flash of a grittier, Stonesier energy or something but it's buried under the same good-time boogie horns as everything else.

the album version of Cut Me Some Slack was live-in-studio, no? so as valid as lots of early Beatles songs, and probably loads of '70s stuff

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_City:_Real_to_Reel

"Put It There" does not have a "Hello Goodbye" coda!!! That's the stupid music video version which I explicitly cautioned everyone not to listen to!

>:|

oh I love "Photograph" because of that melody (George's melody). I would've preferred a Harrison production to Perry's, but Ringo wanted commercial. I don't give a shit for "You're Sixteen" but "Oh My My" is fine.

It's amazing to think how many consecutive top tens he enjoyed through 1974 -- more than the other three!

hahaha oops sorry

xp

Some of the best tracks on the last McCartney album, New, are toward the end. "I Can Bet," "Road," "Get Me Out of Here," and the hidden track ("Scared").

"I Can Bet" is good! I could tell in seconds that he was drumming.

"Put it There" (about Paul's father) randomly came on Spotify a few weeks after my dad passed away and cut me to the bone.

By the way, has anyone listened to the original demos of McCartney & Costello from the Flowers in the Dirt reissue? Worth checking out if just to hear how Paul melds his background vocals to EC's. There's points where I can't tell him & Costello apart at all. Also, the lack of 80s production on the raw rehearsals does wonders for the material.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocgZO-Vm-3A

Here's some more underrated McCartney gems in addition to Doc Casino's excellent list:

Little Lamb Dragonfly
Mama's Little Girl
Beware My Love
Daytime Nighttime Suffering
So Glad To See You Here
One Of These Days
The Pound Is Sinking
Good Times Coming/Feel The Sun
Back On My Feet
All of the McCartney/McManus demos-
Golden Earth Girl
From A Lover To A Friend
All of Chaos and Creation
Mr. Bellamy

Jet (Band on the Run)
Take It Away (Tug of War)
Arrow Through Me (Back to the Egg)
Eat at Home (Ram)
No More Lonely Nights (Give My Regards to Broad Street)
Every Night (McCartney)
Say Say Say (Pipes of Peace)
Press (Press to Play)
We Got Married (Flowers in the Dirt)
Sally G (B-side of “Junior’s Farm”)
Letting Go (Venus and Mars)
Figure of Eight (Flowers in the Dirt)
Heart of the Country (Ram)
Mrs. Vanderbilt (Band on the Run)
Ever Present Past (Memory Almost Full)
Listen to What the Man Said (Venus and Mars)
My Brave Face (Flowers in the Dirt)
Another Day (single)
Secret Friend (McCartney II, Special Edition)
This One (Flowers in the Dirt)
Wanderlust (Tug of War)
Hi Hi Hi (single)
Goodnight Tonight/Daytime Nighttime Suffering (single)
No Other Baby (Run Devil Run)
Country Dreamer (B-side of “Helen Wheels”)
One of These Days (McCartney II)

I expect no one to love this scrappy non-hit rocker, but I always have:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVA7qFurE7I

Here's another demo w/Costello I need to rep for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNJl2IdW7Vc

This curio has not yet been accounted for (and I may vote for it). Bonus track from recent Pipes of Peace reissue.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDoaZdoWwjA

i listened to Band on the Run today, loved "Jet" but "Bluebird" was hard to stomach.

"Jet" is so fucking great. SUF FUR RUH GETTE! JET!

"Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five," tho

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yrop_GZsp-U

OTM

Alfred's list is closest to the type of list that I'd put together. There's one or two that I'd remove, and a lot more that I'd include, but it's a far better representation of what McCartney is good at compared to the likes of 'Mumbo' and 'Morse Moose' etc.

I'd rank Red Rose Speedway as easily one of the weaker albums in the McCartney discography. The best three Wings albums are Band on the Run, Venus and Mars and Back to the Egg.

'Bluebird' is a great song - one of my favourites, that.

Lovers That Never Were is lovely! Paul often better when tempered by some opposing force/with someone to impress.

I like the McManus demos but some of the lyrics (or even, like, the title "the lovers that never were") are too Costello-y for me. Paul, of course, is terrific on them - he's great at working with pompous windbags

That's why Paul stopped working with Costello - he didn't want to make an "Elvis Costello" album. (His words)

'The Lovers That Never Were' is without doubt a '90s McCartney classic for me. The Off the Ground version of course.

there's something eerie and almost sinister about One Of These Days. I don't know if it's intentional, and it would probably would have had a different vibe if it had ended up Tug Of War or Pipes Of Peace, but the production on McCartney II is so hollowed out and spectral sounding it gives the impression of hopelessness, that this day when he looks around and sees what's right and breathes fresh air ever after etc is never going to happen?

A lot of the reviews of McCartney II (both positive and negative) talk about it as sounding like a seines preliminary sketches that he didn't turn into fully formed songs, but imo One Of These Days is more like the reverse, a ghostly remnant - like someone has constructed their life around this dream and everything has been hollowed out and enervated over time so that all that's left is this forlorn dream - especially the way it stops and then starts up again after a moment of complete silence, like the thought process he's singing about has become some entirely mechanical and there is nothing else. The processing on McCartney's voice makes the bit where he sings "fresh air evhuuu-ahhhh-fter" sound like a death rattle! idk, if you asked him I get the impression that McCartney would say that the song is meant to be optimistic and that the stillness is supposed to suggest tranquility and meditation rather than devitalization, but it sounds so grim to me

Still on Pipes of Peace, "So Bad" is... so good (sorry) !
Arguably his best falsetto ever.
Such a beautiful, classic, Smokey-like slowjam (and it made sense that Smokey covered it).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psiVMVu_kGI

soref, i agree totally.

fwiw turrican, i never said my selections were the best showcase of what mccartney is capable of, just a sampling of things i get a kick of, off the albums that strapped-for-time voters will probably not sit and sift through. some of em will make my ballot, but they'll be down below "jet" and such, as i was trying to make clear...

I read somewhere that "Jet" was the song Paul played in the Lagos studio to convince Fela he wasn't ripping off his music. "No really, we're not stealing from you! Listen!" "Jet! wooo-oooo-oooo! Jet!" Fela paused for a second and said, "Yeah, you are definitely not stealing from me. OK, see you later."

Jet was entirely recorded by George Martin at AIR after the Lagos sessions.

speaking of BOTR, I've long wondered how much lead guitar McCartney plays on that album as opposed to Denny Laine? I assume Laine was closer to a strummer, and I know he handled the keyboard parts that Linda couldn't play or McCartney wouldn't play.

Really? Huh. Wish I could remember what song it was that he played for Fela.

xp

or I guess maybe by Emerick at AIR? anyway

added most tracks mentioned itt to the collaborative playlist
https://open.spotify.com/user/betamaxdk/playlist/61os6iMh4h0qY70BawKB5U

not much Lennon on it, maybe his cuts are too obvious? added #9 Dream which is gorgeous and weirdly proto-Ariel Pink

Ok, so I made these a while back - imaginary LPs from Abbey Road up to 1981 (I planned to continue up to the present day but didn't for whatever reason) - I am positive that nobody will 100% agree with my choices, but thought I might as well share / get some feedback on them.
was there a blog with fake news to go with these? rings a bell

George's voice which even on a good day isn't a beautiful instrument to listen to
hate to admit it but listening through these George's voice indeed isn't that great

Plastic Ono Band is a great album, not a bad song really (okay mayyybe Working Class Hero) my choice cuts apart from Mother which will surely place are Love and Well Well Well

u crazy, Working Class Hero is top ten easy

bravo niels, collabo playlist looking much more robust. though very short on john as we've had our attention focused elsewhere. hmmm. well i'm gonna continue with my ringo adventure for now but maybe i'll swing back to john before revisiting paul...

xposts

POB, Ram, and All Things Must Pass are kind of my starting points for this whole exercise (as i'm sure for some other people here? maybe i'm wrong about that). it's really hard to cut more than a handful of songs from any of them

secret fave on POB (though "Mother" floors me more than any of 'em) is "I Found Out" - I like John pissed off and reveling in what an angry young man he can be and how many enemies he's realizing he has. "Gimme Some Truth" is in that same vein, ditto "Crippled Inside" even though the sonic attack has been reined in in favor of a jaunty, old-timey boogie. Love all those.

Not that I don't buy positive-activist John too! "Give Peace a Chance" is something really special IMHO, maybe wore it out when I first got my hands on the John Lennon Collection on cassette... but the refrain is so good, and the lo-fi "live in some administrative room we're occupying" sound in the recording, where the assembled chanters sound numerous but by no means unstoppable, give it this incredible hope-against-all-odds vibe. Maybe a weird connection to the hollow sadness haunting "One Of These Days" - of course I'm hearing it in the hindsight of knowing that peace has not been given its chance, but more than most of the anti-war songs of this period, it still comes through fresh and alive with the sound of genuinely optimistic young people reclaiming their naivete as strength, and believing that it really might just be as easy as giving peace a chance.

A few Lennon songs I'll probably vote for that I don't think have been mentioned yet:

Bless You
Nobody Told Me
Watching the Wheels
Jealous Guy
Oh Yoko!
I Don't Wanna Face It
One Day (At a Time)
Oh My Love
Give Me Some Truth
Hold On
I Found Out
Isolation
Remember
Look at Me
God
Power to the People
Remember Love

Instant Karma should be v high on any lennon list imo