Beatle vs. Beatle

can't we, like, talk about momus or something?

Yeah, or what's your favourite Can bootleg? ;)

Who/what is Momus.....and why do/should we care?

I only like Destiny's Child and Momus now. Please ignore all my previous posts. That was before I was pop/un-pop.

Okay you guys, I give up.

How 'bout a compromise: Ringo vs. Momus?

This qn (nothing personal Blake!!) epitomises the Beatles Problem. On their records - the things you actually buy and play - everything is given dual credit, so answering this qn already requires you to be reacting at-a-distance to the music, i.e. thinking well who did this one, going and looking in Ian MacDonald etc. Whereas in fact the band got it right - the Beatles make more impact on you the listener, and are more fun, if you genuinely don't care who does what, if you take it as a pop unit. I've hardly read any Beatles criticism which doesn't just end up as amateurish history-writing and pop psychology based around the Two Great Men: it's not *wrong* but ultimately it's the critic erasing their own reactions to the living music.

Whoo-hoo! A response! Thank you Tom!

I agree: the music is more fun if you don't worry too much about who did what.

I've always wondered, especially on the mid-period records (say, rubber soul - mystery tour) if there actually was some collaboration. The common wisdom is that there are "John" songs and "Paul" songs. Did they actually work together occasionally (other than just trading verses on "A Day in the Life" e.g.), as indicated by the everpresent "Lennon/McCartney" credit? I would like to think that they were together on a few things.

I guess I should go to www.beatlefreak.com/messageboard or something to post these kinds of questions. But I'd like to hear stuff from others, like myself, who are interested in the Beatles and OTHER music as well (as opposed to the "Beatles = the only music that matters ever" view)

As far as I recall, from being a sad Beatles fan for a year or two, there was very little collaboration after the first few albums (which were mostly covers anyway), and the basic way to tell who wrote the song was who the singer was (with a few notable exceptions - e.g. some of the tracks Ringo and George sang). On collaborations like 'A Day In the Life' Lennon and McCartney each sing the section they wrote (it being basically two inferior songs stuck together to make one good one).

Weren't there a couple o' songs that one wrote and the other sang? Or maybe one wrote lyrics and the other the music? Seems like I read something along those lines re: Penny Lane...

Oh... and I agree with your review of "A Day in the Life" (two inferior songs stuck together). The song works, though. I guess the same thing is sort of true for the second half of Abbey Road. Just a bunch of okay songs strung together, but it adds up to maybe the greatest album side ever.

"Brilliant!" -Nigel, from Nigel's "Wald Wald Wuld"

Perfect complements. I've heard stuff about how John's melody lines are simplistic where Paul runs circles around him with his melodic sense, and how Paul was the true experimenter while John just walked the walk. But Tom (as always, as will ever be, amen) is correct. The Beatles are best appreciated as a unit, and the contributions of both George & Ringo (possibly the best worst drummer ever) can't be underestimated. They were a group, and their music was of the moment, and no 4 folks can ever reproduce that Beatles Thing.

The musical quality of some of the Beatles' most renowned stuff can be overestimated, though. If you're feeling crabby. Or feel like taking the piss out of _Sgt. Pepper's_ for the umpteenth time.

Seeing Paul McCartney playing a New Years gig @ a pub with David Gilmour depressed me. It shouldn't, but it did. Damn Pink Floyd fuckers.

Oh, and I'm a Momus fan, too. I was just being cheeky 'bout the fact that a few current artists seem to get mentioned here a bunch (massive attack, radiohead, sugababes, and my bloody valentine seem to top the list)

But what if my favourite Beatle was George? Invariably, the one sitar-drenched proto-spacerock song on every album is always his. I mean... "It's All Too Much" - how can I disregard that song?

You can tell a lot about what a person is like by who they pick as their favourite Beatle. I used to use it as a personality index. It's not about just Paul vs. John, it's about all four of them, and the way their personalities integrate into the whole. I was a John for a long, long time. But I've decided I'm more a George now.

Every I day I lose more of what little faith I have in The Beatles. Just a couple of weeks ago saw them do a live-rendition of Twist & Shout, Lennon singing with a face like he's taking a shit, McCartney doing his stupid wobbly head move, the shite suits, the crap haircuts...and I thought: blimey, this is utterly, utterly Crap! Why did people buy into this shit and more importantly why did I? Never ever happens with The Stones (runs to airport, books ticket to Bora Bora, never to return to ILM)

I thin kGeorge Martin is the most overlooked Beatle, and withou t him they were pretty much crap.

Stuart Sutcliffe - the perfect Beatle! Way more cooler, deeper, *tragic* than Lennon, and he never got the chance to grow a shitty beard.

As a teen I was a Lennon nut, so much so that now I'm bored with the bloke - and 'they've' just re-named Liverpool airport after him. Good grief!

I dunno, a tie between Macca and moanin' George. Ringo was just shit wasn't he? Let's face it.

From all that I've read and heard, the Beatles were much more collaborative than many think. Or at least you can't divide up Paul's songs and John's songs by who sings what, because there were many cases where Paul wrote bits for John to sing and vice versa. I would say that I enjoy Wings/Paul solo more than Lennon's solo material if that's any indication. But then again, that stuff has little to do with the Beatles.

As for people who say that Geore Martin was everything to the Beatles, I say gimme a break. He was their producer when they didn't know jackshit about recording (i.e. their early days). There's nothing special about those recordings. They were competent but not stupendous. As they progressed into the uber-studio era, they had more money and time (and fame!) than Jesus. There are many producers, if given access to that state of the art equiptment, who would produce good recordings on the level of George Martin. After all, the great songs were still there and a lot of the studio-ized ideas (tapes loops, mellotron, etc.) were the band's own. A lot of people make a big toodoo about the fact that Sgt. Pepper's was done on a 4 track. This is very misleading. It was done using 2 state of the art Studer 4 tracks and multiple reels of tape so that tracks were bounced back and forth between. There are MANY tracks per song, not just 4. Their setup had nothing to do with the Tascam Porta-4 you can but at the music store for $100. Not to mention the fact that the board they were using was a custom one that today would cost well over $1 million to build. And the mics...

And Ringo as shit!?! I suggest you open up your ears and listen, fool. Put on "Ticket to Ride" and rethink your position.

"Many producers": not in the UK there weren't.

Ringo was the perfect drummer for the Beatles. Bernard Purdie went thru a phase, in the mid-60s in the States, of saying to fellow jazzers and soul sessionmen, "That's ME, y'know. They had some lame English whiteboy who was no good: so they hired me to play in the studio." (Not an actually quote: but he really did try and claim credit... So on the blindfold test principle, Mr Starkey passes the mustard...)

yeah, why do people always say ringo is bad? can someone please point out a ringo shit performance, cause I don't hear it.

Bernard Purdie is STILL saying that...I remember reading an article about him making those claims at a drum convention a couple of years ago. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't, all I know is that I listen to music with Bernard Purdie playing drums a lot more than I listen to the Beatles.

didn't they kick out Pete Best because he was the best looking? or wasn't because he was worse than Ringo at the drums?

I think John has better solo work, so John was the better Beatle.

Wings...ugh.

Ringo's (perhaps only) contribution to the art of drums - that amazing 'staggered' beat in "Ticket to Ride", speed it up just a leetle and you've got Steven Morris . (Think "Transmission, the entire post-punk delayed-snare thang)

Who said anything about Ringo being shit at drumming? Not me. Ringo was just shit. Is all. Untill Thomas the Tank Engine came along; *thennnn* he was in his element. Funny little tyke.

This 'who's better, who's best' argument doesn't go anywhere does it though? 'cept round and round and round.

Early Fab days: John the better ie leader Beatle.

Mid Fab days: Paul & John equals in a tug of war/power struggle = their best work.

Late Fab days: Paul has the whip hand due to John being increasingly distracted by drugzz and Yoko. George is off with his guitar-wankery mates, somehow = his best work. Ringo, as ever, just SITS THERE, picking his nose, waiting to be told what to do.

The records are stil great, but I'm just so *bored* with the constant raking an re-raking over the bands ashes. Every minutiae has been examined under the microscope a dozen times or more.

Hells bells. Just put on 'Help!' at top whack and fuhgeddaboutit.

If you read Hunter Davies' official biography, there's a whole section on John and Paul sitting together writing the songs for Sgt. Pepper, and I believe a lot of early songs were bashed out together on tour e.g. she loves you - ten minutes in a hotel room somewhere. and all that studio experimentation was together, which must have been when they wrote the songs, right? BTW, 'All Things Must Pass' = clearly best fabs solo album by a long stretch, even if including wanky 'apple jam'.

Did everyone go through about two years of worshipping them and then realising they weren't the best thing ever?

Bill

Oh come on, with out George Martin they would have been just another Rolling Drones.

No, I'm not coming on.

Ringo drumming? What about the fill between verse and chorus in L.S.D?

bum bum bum bum Lucy in the skiiiy with diamonds...

Whether it's understated genius, lazyness, or just crap drumming I'm not sure... Well actually I am but I'll keep that to myself.

PLEASE Come on. Its warm in here. I have biscuits!

Someone asked if we'd all gone through two years of worshipping them and then realized there were greener pastures elsewhere.

I've found that I worshipped them, and then lost interest like many others. But as I continued my exploration into the world of music, I was amazed at how often it all came back to them. And no, I'm not talking about bands like Badfinger, Oasis and Supergrass that deliberately tried to imitate the band. I mean those elements of popular production and songwriting that we take for granted today, but really didn't exist before the Fabs. One example: Modern rock drumming as we know it. Rock drumming before Ringo was quite basic; sure there were a few good players but they were essentially interchangable. And the vast majority of drumming was totally austere. Then the beatles came along and made the drums an interesting and important element of the music in it's own right, fine tuning the part in every song. And drummers have been taking a queue from him ever since. Of course, he had his contemporaries like Ginger Baker and Mitch Mitchell. But they were very much coming from a jazz tradition; I think Ringo was one of the first to use a distinctly rock style of drumming.