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

looking forward to hearing some deep cuts from Ringo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZN_8M4OpMo

Worst song ever, that one.

Oops! https://humanizingthevacuum.wordpress.com/2017/12/23/worst-songs-ever-ringo-starrs-the-no-no-song/

if you consider the solo work then during the Beatles' final years they recorded two full Beatles albums a year PLUS a bunch of additional stuff incl. George's lovely soundtrack & minimalist LP, 3-4 field recording/noise records, 2 albums worth of krautrock sessions (Ringo-John-Klaus-Yoko), Paul's lofi 4-track DIY album.

xpost

was gonna post Back of Boogaloo but is that a Ringo deep cut? are there such things? isn't every song of his a deep cut?

the weird thing for me is that while I find plenty of Macca's stuff pleasant, I'm hard-pressed to consider what I think his greatest solo songs are. a lot of his hits seem slight or just stupid, and the ones that I consider very good don't really measure up to the more canonical hits from John and George's early runs. I mean, sure "Band on the Run" or "Live and Let Die" are good but ... they aren't *that* great.

His biggest UK hit and a top ten here. I'd say not. But the only Ringo songs I hear on lite FM are "The No No Song" and "It Don't Come Easy."

the weird thing for me is that while I find plenty of Macca's stuff pleasant, I'm hard-pressed to consider what I think his greatest solo songs are.

since 2000:

queenie eye
this never happened before
your way
new
rinse the raindrops
english tea
dsnce tonight
appreciate
mr bellamy
only mama knows

also harrison's self-titled album is a triumph imo, especially blow away

"Blow Away" rivals anything by McCartney for sheer loveliness. Harrison could write a melody.

I'm no McCartney fan but I would rep pretty hard for "Another Day", "Uncle Albert" and even "Let 'em In". Maybe childhood nostalgia.

This’ll be high on my ballot. Written by George, performed by Beatles minus John plus Clapton:
https://youtu.be/TEJBItLnw5I

this will be a really fun poll to think about. i'm excited to revisit george harrison and see if i can find things to like beyond ATMP and LitMW.

I think Brainwashed is a real nice album.

DOES ANYONE ELSE REP FOR BLINDMAN THE B-SIDE OF BACK OFF BOOGALOO?

Ahem.. Definition of deep cut.

Ballot of 100 tracks? I'll end up going those apple jam tracks, I just know..

I mean, sure "Band on the Run" or "Live and Let Die" are good but ... they aren't *that* great.

personally don't really rate live & let die but it was v cool when all the fireworks went off in the chorus when I saw him live

this will be a really fun poll to think about. i'm excited to revisit george harrison and see if i can find things to like beyond ATMP and LitMW.

― obviously DLC (Karl Malone), Friday, May 11, 2018

I may be the only person on ILM who rates Cloud Nine.

Jeff Lynne-isms aside I am a big fan of the deep cuts like Fish On The Sand and If Just For Today.

Turns out Harrison and Lynne were a better artist-producer pair than any of Lynne's subsequent collaborations.

I may be the only person on ILM who rates Cloud Nine.
no way, it's got "When We Was Fab" and "Got My Mind Set on You"

That's def true - Lynne's strengths as a producer compensated for George's weaknesses as a performer. My only real stylistic complaint about that stuff is how boring/robotic the rhythms could get.

Xp

And while George is the only Beatle who might've credibly moonlighted as a pop producer, by 1987 he'd run out of ideas – Lynne was perfect for him.

Looks like I could end up with six tracks from Ram. We shall see.

brainwashed has some good cuts

100? I can maybe squeeze out 20. Either I'm not that big a fan, or I just haven't heard enough. (Just hits past '70 or '71.) Did double-check to see if George played on Badfinger's "Day After Day," and he did, so I can vote for that.

I'm looking forward to this

can we list George interviews about Paul after 1988

"Blow Away" rivals anything by McCartney for sheer loveliness. Harrison could write a melody.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Friday, May 11, 2018 12:54 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, that's a great song! The frustrating thing about Harrison is that he could come up with the goods, but after he'd exhausted most of his backlog on All Things Must Pass, he stopped doing it so much.

McCartney's post-Beatles catalogue gets the most play out of them all for me for a variety of reasons. Harrison's and Lennon's solo work settles into a bit of a trudge tempo-wise, thankfully McCartney's post-Beatles work avoids this.

Yeah "Blow Away" is definitely a great Harrison number. I'm actually pretty fond of everything on Best of Dark Horse 1976-1989 - introduced me to "Here Comes the Moon," "Crackerbox Palace," "Gone Troppo"... That plus All Things Must Pass and a few things from Living in the Material World ("Give Me Love," "Don't Let Me Wait Too Long") might be all the solo George I really need.

There are a few McCartney deep cuts that I want to rep for and about which I've never seen a lot of talk. They all sound to me like expressions of the depth of his musical background and all in what are fairly mysterious ways for me. "C Moon" is probably the most talked about, and with plenty of good reason. "Single Pigeon," from Red Rose Speedway, is my favorite of the bunch and will quite likely be top ten for me. It's short and quiet, but there's some dark, possibly British, old world thing to it. Also want to mention "San Ferry Anne" from Wings at the Speed of Sound, another short and quiet one with an outstanding arrangement with horns, and "The Pound Is Sinking" from Tug of War, a somewhat over-the-top sectional composition in the vein of "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" and probably just as good.

The three tracks from Gone Troppo that made that Best of Dark Horse comp are all good, but it's missing the best one!

I'm actually pretty fond of everything on Best of Dark Horse 1976-1989

I am too -- I bought it on release and was surprised it wasn't more of a steady seller (it's deleted, I think). I even dig the new songs ("Poor Little Girl," "Cockamamie Business").

I like how it includes album tracks ("Cloud Nine," "Life Itself," "That's the Way It Goes").

Did you ever hear the version of "That's the Way It Goes" that Joe Brown does on Concert for George? It's super nice.

baffled by the lyrics of 'C Moon', i ran across this annotation on genius

C Moon means ‘cool’. If you make a ‘C’ and a ‘Moon’ with your fingers, and put them together, you get a circle, essentially the opposite of a ‘square’, meaning uncool. So, she is C-moon, or ‘cool’ to me(the protagonist of the song.

it's an accomplishment for mccartney that this interpretations makes just as much sense as anything else, but that the song is still so fun to listen to.

Well yeah, hence the lyric "it will be L7" ...

'Single Pigeon' is a lovely tune - one of my favourites on Red Rose Speedway, which I'd put down there with my least favourite McCartney albums.

thirding the love for "single pigeon," which you'd think would have gotten more attention after miguel dropped "drugs." "san ferry anne" is a good album track too, dunno if it'd make my ballot ("warm and beautiful" might).

er the miguel song is "Do You..." obv

i saw aldous harding cover "single pigeon" last year and she introduced it by calling it her favorite song of all time. i was delighted to discover it -- such a simple, quiet, gorgeous song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUkzPr_ap9E

I'm going to allow any non-Beatles track that features the appearance of at least Beatle. This means collaborative things like the Traveling Wilburys, Yoko Ono tracks that John plays on, Nilsson's Pussycats, "Badge" by Cream, McCartney + randos collabs etc. are all eligible.

how do ppl feel about the eligibility of the Yoko Ono tracks from Milk And Honey? my understanding is that they were mostly recorded a few years after Lennon's death, so technically don't feature the 'appearance' of any Beatles, but they're part of a collaborative project with Lennon, so I'd be inclined to include them - certainly if stuff like Fly and Approximately Infinite Universe is also going to be eligible?

I was thinking maybe having a collaborative spotify listening playlist would be practical?

https://open.spotify.com/user/betamaxdk/playlist/61os6iMh4h0qY70BawKB5U

oh yeah and I started off by adding Great Day from Flaming Pie, as good an album as Macca ever recorded

'Calico Skies' would be an easy pick from that album for me.

Before I send in my ballot, can someone link to a list of records the Beatles guested on? I've tried various search terms and I'm not getting anything except the reverse, guest appearances on Beatles records.

Nice idea niels!

So long as we're on Flaming Pie, I added "Beautiful Night," which is a little cheeseball but was probably my favorite song on that album when it came out.

(what's the etiquette for this kind of thing? any appropriate limit of 'x tracks per person per album' or whatever? i could sit and add fifty tracks in the next twenty minutes but don't want to blot out the community vibe!)