Exclamation Moint wrote:
I'll prattle on more about the Beatles...
I think without question McCartney was the best pure musician of the group. He was a revolutionary bass player, a solid drummer, and pretty good on piano. He could even deliver a great solo like he did on Taxman. To really overgeneralize, John wrote the great hooks and Paul had the gift for melody, but both had tremendous skill in these areas. After 1962-1963 most of their songs were solo efforts that were changed via collaboration, not co-written songs.
I've never liked Harrison's guitar abilities (some of the early solos are downright atrocious, he fell back on his weird slide style too heavily later), Lennon had some moments of brilliance as a rhythm guitar but was merely competent overall, but Ringo is very much underrated as a drummer.... I said it earlier in the thread but his work on Revolver and its singles was fantastic.
Being a raging control freak/penis gave Paul that bad rap. John and George (especially) hated his guts when the band broke up. As the story goes, Ringo was the 1st to bail on the Beatles during the White Album sessions (which is why Paul drums on the White Album's first 2 tracks), George during the Get Back sessions (went home and wrote Wah-Wah), and John immediately after the release of Abbey Road (though he'd checked out earlier in 1969). But Paul was the one who made the public announcement in April 1970, and did pull a dick move by releasing his solo album at the same time as the Let it Be abortion.
The legacies of Paul, John and Yoko hinge upon how much you choose to believe Albert Goldman's take down of Lennon in that infamous biography. Lennon is called no less than a drug addict/closet homosexual/murderer/violent sociopath/absentee father/Oepidus complex-addled/below-average guitar player and songwriter. Goldman shits upon any number of John's masterpieces such as Imagine (not one of my faves, but I'm in the vast minority there). Yoko is called a master manipulator on a level that would make Rasputin blush and Paul emerges as the hero who kept the Beatles viable after Brian Epstein's death. There is at least a grain of truth in all of these labels, though. The book was denounced by the surviving members of the Beatles' *family* (Lennon was dead), even Paul.
It sucks though that John wound up peaking in 1970-1971 (Plastic Ono Band/Imagine) and George the same (All Things Must Pass). Though they had occasional hits - even #1 singles - but neither did comparable work after that point. Paul has had a long, extremely uneven but commercially successful solo career. Ringo had a few hits, most of which were charity songs donated to him by the others (with the exception of It Don't Come Easy, the best song he ever wrote).
I segued into SHARK somewhere in those ramblings!
I agree with most of your sentiments though I enjoy Harrison's guitar work. Also, I think George Martin is criminally undervalued when people talk about The Beatles. Had he not come along who knows what type of band the lads would have turned into. Now that I'm a little older, I'm more of the opinion John was just madly in love just as McCartney was with Linda. And I'm quite sure the death of Brian Epstein had to have a huge affect on the group.
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