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

"Ballroom Dancing" a Ringo song in tone for sure, though he could never have sung it. "Get It" would have been a good fit for him.

Yeah, no way could Ringo have done that sudden leap in octave that McCartney does. I used to not think much of 'Get It', but it's sounding great this go-round.

too bad i don't like "How Many People?" I could've made a nice "How Many People"-"Too Many People" sequence on my ballot.

"What's That You're Doin'" is charming. I love when the two start improvising in the last two minutes over that chord change -- Wonder even lapsing into "She Loves You."

god "how many people" is dire. "what's that you're doing" is a real good time though.

listening back to some of the early lennon stuff, i really like the overall sound and his fired-up delivery, but mannnn i have just never really gotten on board with klaus voormann on bass - maybe his playing or the way he's recorded, i don't know. i recognize that the bass sound/approach is totally appropriate to what john and yoko are exploring, the droney relentless kind of thing discussed upthread (where even "well well well" which sounds about two minutes long in my head, is 5:00+)...... but i just can't help hearing it as annoyingly imprecise, with each of the nigh-monotonous notes hitting ringo's 1s and 3s like sandbags. i have to wonder if on some level john's musical credo for the POB incorporated a basically anti-mccartney theory of bass guitar, like a dating profile that's clearly a thinly-veiled screed against the last person dated. "looking for someone real authentic, NOT FANCY, who'll just stick with one note per chord and really thud it out ad nauseum! rock and roll, not some MUSIC HALL BULLSHIT FOR GRANNY OR JAZZ!!! must be chill cause i am too :)"

meanwhile "uncle albert" still blows my mind. they're so passionate about the hands across the water! the rising chords under the first "heads across the sky" is such a great sound too - similar to a few other patches on ram and thereabouts ("a love for you") and then he never really sounds like this again. love the sonic variety of wings albums but if paul's entire discography had the soundscape and the density of ideas as Ram i would not complain.

I'd live in Uncle Albert's world before the dude in "Well Well Well"s, but I ain't listening to a song about him, especially one with funny accents.

Klaus's bass style is his own. he had been playing bass for several years prior to POB, notably on all Manfred Mann's hit singles. he didn't have a rock n roll background but a jazz one. fwiw i dont see Lennon dictating what everybody plays in that instance, Dr. C may be jumping to conclusions a bit there.

i mean he produced Trio's "Da Da Da". a droney German krautrock thing is kinda his thing.

idk i think Klaus' minimalist playing fits the quieter songs quite well. love his chordal work on "Hold On." but yeah, i get where Doc C is coming from on the rock-ier tracks on the album. I've always loved "Well, Well, Well," though, with that nasty guitar figure

John's guitar on the Ono Band albums is almost unique enough to make me prefer him to George's.

i mean don't forget his solo on "walking on thin ice"

adam, well, it was idle musing - not saying john definitely stood over KV's shoulder and told him to play a certain way, but just that i hear a certain non-tightness and definitely non-melodicism in his playing choices on e.g. "well well well" and "power to the people." and that adds up to reminding me of other people going solo and enthusiastically embracing things that would never have flown in their old group. as much, I'd say, as paul's bass on his solo records does. so much business on the bass, mixed so loud - few non-bass-playing band leaders would have ever given it the thumbs up.

but a lot of what i'm hearing in POB is in the way it's recorded too, and the way the drums are recorded. it's rock, it's energetic rock, but it's very very far away from the kind of rock the beatles started out with, or even something like "paperback writer" or for that matter "come together," "yer blues," and "i want you." then at the same time, i think "power to the people" kind of screams out to have paul singing the verse. it would have been a much better song with the full beatles lineup imo....

that's a funny thought about Power to the People, I can totally hear Paul doing his Little Richard soul shouter thing over it. Of course, it is also a song he would never sing.

I've never been bothered by Klaus' bass playing, never really thought about it. It's certainly not as inventive or melodic as Paul but it does what a bass is supposed to do in the context of the tunes, imo.

"the pound is sinking" is outstanding

“wanderlust” is incredibly lovely as well. this record seems stranded between at least three identities but the introverted orchestral pop part is great

He's trying, and the strain shows, but it's a fine album. You're otm about those two. Throw in "Somebody Who Cares."

"dress me up as a robber" is so bizarre

ack "ebony and ivory"

Marcello on "Here Today":

It is extremely difficult to be even minimally objective about “Here Today”; buried at the end of side one, coming in at less than two-and-a-half minutes in length, it was quite consciously the first McCartney song since “Yesterday” to make use of a string quartet – first violinist Jack Rothstein had previously worked with the Beatles (he crops up in the string sections of “Within You, Without You” and “I Am The Walrus”) – and there is the clear urge to converse with a ghost, taking down the fourth wall for Lennon’s benefit. He wonders aloud what John would think of this song, concludes that he’d probably laugh at it, and thinks about the times they thought they knew – but the balance of “Didn’t understand a thing” and “Never understood a thing” makes you wonder how much they really had in common in the first place. Twice he says “I love you” – something he never seems to have said to Lennon while he was alive – and then reaches the most peculiar of conclusions: “For you were in my song.”

I am not sure what the real Lennon would have made of his ending up as a walk-on player in somebody else’s song, and in spite of the knowledge that McCartney palpably means what he’s singing – even if he doesn’t understand it fully – this air of presupposition may help explain why “Here Today” – though still regularly performed by McCartney on stage – has never become a standard, inspired a thousand cover versions, is scarcely ever heard, and why it doesn’t move me nearly as much as “Walking On Thin Ice” or Roxy Music’s version of “Jealous Guy” or – perhaps best and most shattering of all – Teena Marie’s “Revolution.” It seems too wary, in the sense that it feels like McCartney doing something because somebody told him that it would be a good thing to do and that he ought to do it. Whereas I sense that in his gut McCartney views his own hard work and perseverance as tribute enough; and there is, in any case, a far superior Lennon tribute elsewhere on the record.

one of my favorite things marcello's ever written is the mccartney ii post http://nobilliards.blogspot.com/2013/01/paul-mccartney-mccartney-ii.html

there's very little going on in pipes of peace after the first two tracks

It's dead.

there are some cool things happening with the arrangements but the songs are just not even written

damn, the credits for press to play

wtf is this record

idk exactly why paul hired hugh padgham but "talk more talk" feels like it's been invaded by a bunch of lost ideas from the third peter gabriel record

or like mccartney trying to write a song from the big chair

Songs I like: Stranglehold, Good Times Coming/Feel the Sun (more the latter), However Absurd, PREEESSSSS

paul mccartney is such a fuckin weirdo

Brad, stop making me change from Sun-El to Paul.

who is this record for? i don't understand why it was made. (i'm into it)

"press" is everything you built it up to be alfred. i'm not sure how to describe it. it has reminded me several times of both new order and heart in motion

your first time?!? *envious*

"press" is gonna win this poll

"pretty little head" is over and i feel like my gabriel comparison isn't so exaggerated. also this album doesn't make any SENSE. like what happened at the end of "pretty little head"? i don't know.

There are so many ballads on the recent albums that are better than "Here Today." He is a better writer now than he was then.

"pretty little head" is over and i feel like my gabriel comparison isn't so exaggerated. also this album doesn't make any SENSE. like what happened at the end of "pretty little head"? i don't know.

― flamenco blorf (BradNelson),

Not that I care about intentions, but Hugh Padgham has said Paul had no clue what he wanted, only that he had to make an album. Same experience with Bowie the year before.

lol i nearly called pipes of peace paul's tonight

HILLMEN
HILLMEN

Paul McCartney - Penny Lane
John Lennon - Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds

George Harrison - Sheik of Araby

All Those Years Ago >>>>>>>>>>>>> Here Today

I can't find the post now, but I think on another thread someone suggested that Press To Play = McCartney II, but with all the weird little songs produced in the style of mid 80s blockbuster pop smashes rather than lo-fi demos, which seems accurate?

it's a little sad that he never really did anything as odd and freewheeling as this again, at least under his own name. Starting with Flowers In The Dirt he kind of slips into a kind of careful, respectable elder statesman zone (I like Flowers In The Dirt in though) (and I guess you could argue that the careful, respectable elder statesman stuff starts with Tug Of War and him working with George Martin and self-consciously trying to sound like 'classic' Paul McCartney?)

Write Away should have been on Press To Play instead of just being a b-side, I think this is maybe the most Jazz FM he ever went?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsRdM8iBHh0

"Spies Like Us" sucks, doesn't it?

"Spies Like Us" sucks, doesn't it?

The second Fireman album - Rushes - is good. Used to listen to it a lot on shrooms in the early 2000s, though always needed to skip an unbearably jarring third track.

The third Fireman album - though widely lauded at the time - is sadly dire, as I recall Lex pointed out in a review at the time.

"Spies Like Us" sucks, doesn't it?

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, May 25, 2018 3:45 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it's p bad afaict

"write away" is good though!

I can't find the post now, but I think on another thread someone suggested that Press To Play = McCartney II, but with all the weird little songs produced in the style of mid 80s blockbuster pop smashes rather than lo-fi demos, which seems accurate?

whoever this was is otm

it's not a perfect record by any means but i'm thrilled that it exists