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

my beatle super fan bud has informed me that GH did not play slide on any beatle record… the opening phrase of "something" isn't slide, just sounds like it; JL played lap steel part on "For you blue." It was the Delaney & Bonnie tour which found the former giving GH pointers as such, and he was off to the races.

I too think Living in Mat world is pretty neat; don't like "gimme peace" but like the grandeur without the wall of sound. his shit had a lot of weird chords, time signatures and structures. His singing is awful on Dark Horse.

^ whut

the slide revelation baffled me. dark horse singing is awful because he was sick with the flu - see also pussy cats by nilsson

It may have been better received if George had held off until his voice was back to full strength. George never really had the most pleasant of voices to listen to to begin with, but the croakiness makes the experience far worse.

btw playlist watch - we've got two "take it away"s and two "no more lonely nights"es. happy to hear either of those twice back to back, mind you...

Could they not put off vocal tracking for a month? Always seems a weird excuse for bad vocals.

Dark Horse is bad because the songs are undistinguished too.

ET is awful.

Oh hey Brad glad you like Getting Closer, I adore it and most ppl either haven't heard it or don't like it on the offchance they have

excited to dive into tug of war shortly

MY SALAMANDER

everyone knew this would happen but i'm excited to report i love paul mccartney

I'm curious to know what you make of TOW. The reviews of the reissue didn't do it justice.

his shit had a lot of weird chords, time signatures and structures.

Yeah, some of Harrison's chord progressions are quite interesting in a "I didn't expect it to go there" sort of way. Also the meter shifts on things like 'Run of the Mill' and 'Beautiful Girl' (a huge favourite of mine, btw)

yeah seems like they had to finish it in time for the disastrous tour. also at the peak of his drinking & snorting…

also Tom Scott's playing = the sound of the fuckin' 70s.

mccartney ii is more interesting than good but i did vote for three songs from it ("coming up," "waterfalls," and "summer's day song") and i'm considering voting for "blue sway"

it = dark horse album

"oh yoko!" may end up top 20 for me
one of the most contagiously joyful love songs

btw playlist watch
thx, fixed it

Tug of War at the time was probably the first time McCartney had deliberately set out to make some kind of "blockbuster" record in a very long time - it's all there: being reunited with George Martin, Ringo is on it, along with Stevie Wonder, Carl Perkins etc.

It seems strange to say this now, but McCartney never avoided The Beatles as much as he did during the Wings period, and Tug of War marks the start of him re-embracing all that.

yeah seems like they had to finish it in time for the disastrous tour. also at the peak of his drinking & snorting…

The weird thing is, Dark Horse didn't come out until they'd already played 33 of the 45 shows on the tour. And it's not like a George Harrison tour would've tanked if he didn't have a new record out.

(And on fourteen of the dates, he was playing two shows a day, not doing his voice any favors.)

Its sister record, Pipes of Peace, which is essentially the Tug of War offcuts, really should have been a series of singles or an EP of the best stuff. McCartney's worst album of the '80s, IMO - not counting Broad Street, of course. A handful of decent tracks, but a lot of filler. Even the hardcore rank it quite low.

i've been wondering about pipes of peace. my mom owned it when i was a kid. "say say say" will.... probably be on my ballot

say say say totally rules

'Say Say Say' and the title track are brilliant... I don't mind 'So Bad' or the other Jackson collab either.

I can't wait for Brad to get to Press to Play and Flowers in the Dirt...

Tug of War is so boring. Flowers isnt

i'm not a "girl is mine" fan, though i might like it better if it weren't surrounded by 8 of the best pop songs of all time.

Say Say Say is very good though

I was thinking about 'The Man', but I don't mind 'The Girl is Mine' either. It does stick out like a sore thumb on Thriller, mind!

I've got Tug of War on now and I'm reminded immediately of how much I fucking love love love 'Take It Away' ... the harmonies and the horn lines at the end, but also "you never can know who is listening to you"...

i like "take it away" a lot

also v surprised by how good "what's that you're doing" is

re: George's slide It seemed to appear fully realized on ATMP

a lot of the slide on that album is by well-established country slide guitar god Pete Drake. he had a novelty hit with proto auto tune "I'm Just a Guitar (Everybody Picks in Me)"

Oh fuck, I'd forgotten 'Ballroom Dancing' was on this. If I remember, Harrison is on record as saying he liked this one. I always felt like this was a bit of a Ringo-type song.

'The Pound is Sinking' = still amazing.

"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