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

100 song ballot really useful for when i inevitably put every non-apple jam all things must pass song on my ballot

I have 2 100 song ballots so far

That was me – I listed "Blow Away" 99 times.

correction - one of those ballots was actually only 99 tracks cuz voter voted for one song twice

nice try, voter ;)

"jealous guy" is a very good song

side two of imagine is really well balanced, feels like a tour through lennon's best modes

feel like plugging this, Yoko's best piano ballad imo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8k4lN3Kd28

that's good. never heard that before.

that song is amazing

i'll be voting for it and "death of samantha" and prob several other approximately infinite universe songs

my man

I'm up to 40 songs on my ballot of stuff I unreservedly love.

next I guess I'll add some Paul songs

i absolutely adore the "Give Peace a Chance" b-side "Remember Love". this should have been on the White Album.

― Hazy Maze Cave (Adam Bruneau), Sunday, May 13, 2018 6:23 PM (one week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

"remember love" is awesome

Totaled the points I had for songs from particular albums and ended up with these at the top:

All Things Must Pass - 700 pts. (nine songs)
Ram - 523 pts. (eight songs)
Mind Games - 353 points (five songs)
Chaos and Creation in the Backyard - 327 points (five songs)
Memory Almost Full - 322 points (five songs)

"remember love" is awesome

― flamenco drop (BradNelson), Monday, May 21, 2018 1:00 PM (five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh i would also like to enthusiastically rep for another ono b-side, "listen, the snow is falling"

'Don't Worry Kyoko' is fucking awesome.

Think I'm gonna give Flowers in the Dirt another listen...

never a bad idea. "my brave face" and "put it there" are locks for my ballot, and maybe "we got married," "this one," "that day is done," and one of the bonus tracks. if it was an all-macca poll, two of the bonus tracks. great material in that period. we've just recently had it out over the production so need to really rehash but i, personally, wish all those songs had gotten a more "rootsy"/"natural" sound - if nothing else i think they'd be much better-known and better-liked. OTOH i like that he wasn't content to say "okay, i'm forty, it's time to settle down and just make classic 'beatle sound' albums with george martin from now on."

but i also feel like mccartney himself hasn't ever really owned how good these songs are. he seems really content in interviews and clips to talk about the stuff where there was clearly a positive critical/commercial consensus, "oh yeah, i thought, a band on the run, hmm, now THAT's interesting..." and rarely comes out and says "man i'm really proud of 'flowers,' i wrote some great songs for that, "this one" came to me like a flash of lightning at 3 AM and i hope people getting into my music check that one out" or whatever. he has anecdotes for the famous songs and he never talks about this album or 'back to the egg' or whatever. whereas someone like john or george i think had no problem hyping up whatever they thought was really good (and, often unfairly, slagging off stuff they were momentarily down on).

I have deeeeeep affection for Flowers. "We Got Married," "My Brave Face, "This One" will make my ballot.

good George deep cut
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXY7HbQulJA

Yeah, I've often found it a bit disappointing that whenever McCartney is interviewed, it usually ends up going over the same old ground - his post-Beatles career spans over 40 years and I really wish he'd talk about that stuff more.

maybe he just doesn't remember at this point

like, people want to talk about something he spent an afternoon on high out of gourd 30 years ago? sounds like that would take more effort than re-hashing practiced responses he's been trotting out on a daily basis in intervening period.

I doubt that. It was cool to see his responses to things like Ram becoming more popular in recent years.

i had never heard it before but uh i guess surprising no one here i kinda love the ultimate soft rock hits collection that is george harrison's self-titled record

newspapertaxis1
2 weeks ago
If you ever feel lonely or depressed......Please listen to "Love comes to Everyone"..........Soooooooooooo Beautiful!!!!

otm

Harrison’s Don’t Let Mw Wait Too Long sounds like a lost Big Star track.

otm

and chris bell's "i am the cosmos" sounds like ATMP

Ehhh i wouldnt go that far

i had never heard it before but uh i guess surprising no one here i kinda love the ultimate soft rock hits collection that is george harrison's self-titled record

― flamenco drop (BradNelson),

"Your Love is Forever"!

xpost hmm, the instrumental breakdown esp. sounds a lot like harrison, but i guess ymmv. just read that it was mixed by Geoff Emerick at George Martin's studio, too!

there is a *lot* of Beatles (and Harrison in particular) in Bell's stuff but the sound of "I Am the Cosmos" is not the Spector Holy Mtn of Sound on ATMP, it is much rawer and ramshackle and more limited in scope. Which is no fault of his own, Bell didn't have the resources George did.

i guess this is a little challopsy in the beatles solo careers poll thread, but i kind of wish they never ever would have met up with phil spector

and i suppose paul would agree with me, at least

oh god "awaiting on you all" is the best song anyone ever made let alone a beatle

yes how dare he show up and produce/mix/shape the two best solo Beatle albums

xp

yeah i mean it's possible to acknowledge that those albums are good and also note the possibility of those same songs/albums turning out very good in a different way with a different producer.

I can't imagine who that would be tbh

some funny Lennon anecdotes about Spector:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vqX_BoUULY

I mean in 1970 there's really no other producers in George and Phil's league in the rock world - maybe Brian Wilson, but he obviously wasn't going to be getting a lot of work done with the Beatles at that point lol

from what I understand Spector didn't really have much to do w/POB, right?

he mixed it!

his influence is pretty apparent on some tracks (like the echodrums on 'Well Well Well')

couldn't imagine all things must pass without the spectoral shimmer

as far as which other producers would be better, i dunno, but there had to have been other producers who wouldn't have covered all the tracks in reverb and strings. again, i love POB and ATMP and Imagine and Spector's sound is very much a part of those records, but i don't think everything would have fallen apart if someone else was in the room. to believe that they only would have been good with Spector's touch is to elevate him above all his peers in a way that i don't think he necessarily deserves

"awaiting on you all" is the best song anyone ever made let alone a beatle

I had it #5 overall on my ballot, first of nine songs from the album.

I gave Venus and Mars another couple spins over the weekend and imo it's not a fantastic album by any means. As usual for every tune that's appealing it's almost immediately offset by something that's gratingly awful. "Magneto and Titanium Man" is going on the low end of my ballot, "You Gave Me the Answer" can go die in a fire, "Listen to What the Man Said" is a pretty good single but then it's marred by that shitty saxophone noodling. "Rock Show" is so boneheadedly literal I can't really appreciate it.

xp

"Awaiting On You All" would be my number one, but for a certain song that I know other people aren't going to vote for/actively hate

"You Gave Me the Answer" is incredible.