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

after some thought i guess i'm okay with not vote-splitting either of those songs. but if you're considering either for your vote, and you don't know the live ones, check 'em out, maybe it boosts them up a slot or two!

What do you dislike about McCartney enough to flush whole chunks of his music down the toilet?

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn)

I think Paul is truly smug and holds his audience in contempt (see multiple references itt to half-assedness at best). At best, it comes across to me as all wink-winky and self-conscious and knowing, which is not a vibe I dig. Plus his worst moments in the Beatles are so so bad that it leaves me profoundly uninterested in investigating into the 80's (esp after enduring the omnipresence of his work in the early 80s). also, I don't really like pop music per se as I'm sure you know, although the nature of subjectivity means that I do end up liking some (partly due to ILM dialectics), and those are pretty much the Wings songs. Music-hall ripoffs and random bedroom experiments and mainstream 80's pop and "rock artist gone classical" generally don't appeal to me.

I also really really like a lot of the work that the other three have done! Being in the 30's is a compliment! There's just less of his stuff.

But it's also totally personal and related to living in the hippie capital of the universe for decades and seeing the worst aspects of Beatles worship. Part of the dislike is undoubtedly subjective and irrational and unfair, for sure, and I happily cop to that.

I promise to skim the Spotify stuff from the 70's I haven't heard. Brad pointed me towards "1985" which is def up there.

coulda used more editing, sorry

oh I also shoulda clarified that I'm only up to 60 or so, very open to additions

The half-assedness comes through in the material more than the smugness, which is evident in interviews and Beatle reunions.

...?!?

that's not what racism means fwiw

I’ve come to the conclusion that Macca is the funkiest and most versatile Beatle but also the weirdest and most inscrutable, always hiding behind schmaltz or nonsense or charm, which makes him seem like he’s not all there. Like, of all of them he seems the least like a real person in his work, he’s like a strange caricature.

well put

There's something Reagan-esque about Paul's use of amiability as a squid ink.

McCartney is like that asshole who, when you've broken the workshop up into groups to discuss something, takes it upon himself to report back to the workshop and just says all the stuff that he thinks instead of what the group discussed. This is an unusually specific simile but it came to me fully formed. I do respect a lot of his music though.

I did not vote for it since I don't think of it as a McCartney song but I am very happy that this poll has introduced me to Linda's "The Light Comes From Within", she's a good singer too

McCartney's dichotomy btwn the FMWTA kayfabe and his more curious interests have diminished him as an artist ever since he started reclaiming his mojo with the McManus collabs. Back To Form Back To Basics Best Since '76 followed by failed attempts to release Carnival Of Light, followed by Back To Form, Four Stars followed by absolutely anonymous ambient techno project, followed by Back To Form 4 ⭐️ followed by sampladelic dub Beatles album but put out on a new minilabel, followed by Back Form 4 ⭐️ followed by a classical record on a classical ghetto label, followed by Just Me And Some Mates Playing Some Rock & Roll Y'Know, Four Stars followed by a weird & creative but totally accessible remix project that could have spawned a few chart singles or straight up been a hits compilation (like Love!) except thathe starts another new label for it and only presses 500 copies on double vinyl.

that's not what racism means fwiw

it's possible I was joking

(it's also possible that most racism is unexamined cultural imperialism)

paul does have a lot of comeback records, but i’d say his output has been really solid and artistically investigative since chaos. it was mentioned upthread that he settled into a sort of classism with tug of war/flowers/flaming pie s is but, idk, memory almost full i liked pretty much the whole way through and it almost never reminded me of a previous mccartney record. i can’t decide if electric arguments is any good at all but it’s the least in-character “traditional” songwriting exercise he’d done since press.

No one at the office yet, so I'm assembling my ballot. Forty-six songs and counting.

sent my ballot. still haven't heard new but i couldn't imagine finding room for any tracks from it

an arbitrary rule i imposed on my ballot was "no covers," otherwise "if not for you," run devil run, and "you're sixteen" would've figured into it

it has that abrasively aggressive compression so typical of many contemporary records, kept me at a distance

are you talking about memory almost full, bc yeah it's v flat and loud

keep onnnnnnnn
sleepin in a big barn bed!

pure mccartney is a v solid wide-ranging comp

hope some of you voted for "Hope of Deliverance."

xp memory always full has the same thing yeah

dunno if it's been mentioned upthread but lol that FourFiveSeconds has 458 million streams on spotify, Band on the Run (#2 for Macca) has 41 million :P

paul should really fire whoever mastered the last two records

hope some of you voted for "Hope of Deliverance."

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 31, 2018 6:51 AM (seventeen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i think i voted for something off of every paul album except off the ground and new, sorry alfred :(

well, OTG is pretty spiritless for the most part

FMWTA kayfabe

? I know what kayfabe is but what is FMWTA

pretty sure i've picked my #1, now to rank all 80 or so other tracks...

get those ballots in kids!

sent!

this was already so fun, thank you shakey

results will be interesting

still have no idea what to do about images, I guess I can just do youtubez

find an image of George hoovering some coke

part of the problem is that this is such a wide swathe of material there's no real unifying set of graphic images or style that's appropriate across all the entries, since they span a sizeable range of eras, artists, etc.

can't go wrong with photos

I might just go with sleeve images from discogs idk

remember that you can't embed discogs images here

? I know what kayfabe is but what is FMWTA

sadly, results cannot be sorted by decade

if you know a bit of graphics design maybe you could use the iconic shots from the white album to show whose song it is and just put text on top and then when more than one fab is on the song you could superimpose the pictures so that for instance Ringo's face is behind John's

best I can come up with

images are a lot of work, ok to skip them imo

agree with this too

18 ballots in so far, not nearly enough!

so far there's not a single song that's made every ballot

shh!

waiting until the last minute as usual, you'll get mine tomorrow

so far there's not a single song that's made every ballot

and there never will be!

i'll have mine tonight! i only made it to 70 or so but i'm trying to do some extra listening to get to a clean 77

^^ a worthy goal

ha haaa:

Sylvia Patterson: Were you aware, back in the ’80s, of the full title that Smash Hits used to give you?

Paul McCartney: Wacky? Thumbs aloft? Macca… Wacky Thumbs Aloft?

SP: “Fab Macca Wacky Thumbs Aloft.”

PM: Is that the full thing? You learned it! I loved that, Thumbs Aloft. And funnily enough it was coined by the guy at the time who looked a bit like me. Mark, the editor. So I thought there was something deep and psychological going on there.

I aimed for 77 but tapped out at 72 or so :(