Music: What do you think about McCartney's post-Beatles career?

[Elvis P]

Discuss.

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[FloJack]

Huge Beatles fan.

I used to think it blew but as I’ve gotten older some songs have really grown on me. The first 2 albums are pretty great, Ram in particular. The song Ram On is an underrated piece of beauty. Or perhaps it’s rated fine as I have no idea how it’s viewed outside of my head.

 

[kihei]

A lot of dreck in there but also some really great music. Though Wings was a much maligned band, I saw them at Maple Leaf Gardens and they put on a hell of a rock show, among the best I have ever seen. His other line-ups have been professional and talented, but basically hired hands with no personality of their own to add to the mix. However, there is an abundance of good stuff and some gorgeous ballads on parts of McCartney's first six albums or so, and I think that Flaming Pie is probably the most underrated album that any ex-Beatle ever put out. Throughout his career, no one since maybe Schubert has possessed a greater melodic gift than Paul.

 

[Pizza!Pizza!]

Flaming Pie was amazing. Honestly I think The Beatles were overrated and I like a lot of McCartney's solo stuff better.

 

[nameless1]

I find McCarthy's solo career to be great as well, and he showed that he made great contributions to the sound of The Beatles. It is strangely that it is not talked about more, because musically, I find it pretty much equal to his Beatles days.

 

[Elvis P]

"Maybe I'm amazed at the way you love me all the time
Maybe I'm afraid of the way I love you
Maybe I'm amazed at the the way you pulled me out of time
And hung me on a line" McCartney

The best of McCartney's post-Beatles career is underrated. My top 6 Wings songs are Band on the run, Jet, Listen to what the man said, Live and let die, Maybe I'm Amazed, and My love. 2018's Egypt Station is a great album that made many 2018 top ten lists and received 4/5 stars from The Guardian, NME, The Observer, and Rolling Stone.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Hell, I don't think much of his Beatles song where he's the lead artist. In short, I think he's terrible. Smarmy with a bubblegum voice that I find so dorky and grating. One of my most disliked popular artist.

 

[Hammettf2b]

Love me some McCartney. Nothing will live up to the Beatles imo but hes great solo nonetheless.

 

[kihei]

Three lovely ballads by Paul:

 

[Jumptheshark]

I think he tried really hard to come off as being the creative genius of the band. While Harrison dropped several albums of pent up stuff and Ringo tossed stuff out willy nilly. Both John and Paul went toe to toe releasing albums nearly every year for the fist 5 or so years after the band broke up and both showed what they brought to the band. Paul was pop while John was going more existentialism to a point or artistic. I think Paul will forever be chasing JL's Imagine.

The difference between John and Paul, Paul's best stuff as a solo artist for the most part (in my opinion) is when he worked in collaboration with others. With WINGS Denny Laine replaced John Lennon in bouncing ideas off of seeing if they were any good and while Laine did not get the credit, even Paul admitted much of the stuff during wings that were really good is when him and Laine were bounce of the walls sometimes with each other (he said in a fun way)

Since he stopped working with Laine I think Paul's solo stuff has taken a bit of it. Not saying Laine was great but he served well as a collaborator

 

[Shareefruck]

Wings is awful, in my opinion-- I actually dislike his first two solo albums, and alot of it is dreck after that, although I thought Flaming Pie was pretty decent. His solo output is significantly weaker than Harrison and Lennon's, in my view, and while his physical talents, knack for writing memorable crowd-pleasing hits, and supporting role contribution to individual Beatles songs/albums are undeniable, I find a lot of his actual writing credits, songs, and sensibilities pretty overrated in general (I would not consider songs like Yesterday, Hey Jude, Get Back, and Let It Be to be anywhere close to the band's best, personally, although I think something like Here, There, and Everywhere is an exception that's up there). He has a very high quantity of solid songs, but the ones that I consider masterful and essential in The Beatles discography are nearly all Lennon/Harrison tracks, and the ones that feel like cheesy/overbearing/melodramatic or half-hearted missteps are usually McCartneys.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

I think he tried really hard to come off as being the creative genius of the band. While Harrison dropped several albums of pent up stuff and Ringo tossed stuff out willy nilly. Both John and Paul went toe to toe releasing albums nearly every year for the fist 5 or so years after the band broke up and both showed what they brought to the band. Paul was pop while John was going more existentialism to a point or artistic. I think Paul will forever be chasing JL's Imagine.

The difference between John and Paul, Paul's best stuff as a solo artist for the most part (in my opinion) is when he worked in collaboration with others. With WINGS Denny Laine replaced John Lennon in bouncing ideas off of seeing if they were any good and while Laine did not get the credit, even Paul admitted much of the stuff during wings that were really good is when him and Laine were bounce of the walls sometimes with each other (he said in a fun way)

Since he stopped working with Laine I think Paul's solo stuff has taken a bit of it. Not saying Laine was great but he served well as a collaborator

While I don't think there is a comparison to be made between Lennon and McCartney (the latter is not in the same realm as the former, although I think there are quite a few who surpass Lennon in popular music) I think Imagine is an absolutely awful song. Twee garbage.

 

[K Fleur]

Imagine is an instant skip.

Lennon should have spent less time imagining and more time trying not to be a terrible person.

 

[Shareefruck]

While I don't think there is a comparison to be made between Lennon and McCartney (the latter is not in the same realm as the former, although I think there are quite a few who surpass Lennon in popular music) I think Imagine is an absolutely awful song. Twee garbage.

Agreed (although I think more highly of him overall than you do). In fact, I feel like Imagine is a case where Lennon was guilty of doing the type of thing that I usually don't like about McCartney-- I sort of view it as his own annoying version of Yesterday.

What I find frustrating about public perception of Lennon is that he's most well known by people these days for the side of him that seems least relevant and representative of who he appeared to be and what made him great. The last thing we should be thinking of Lennon as is some Ghandi-like peace-loving figure or some ideal moral figure to model yourself after. He's great because of his ability to express his toxic/lost-child-like insecurities and complexes in a heartfelt, borderline tragic yet empathetic and relateable way, in my opinion. His peace-advocacy period feels more like some weird, somewhat disingenuous/desperate, cry-for-attention early-life-crisis phase he was going through than anything else.

 

[wedge]

It think it's really good. Band On The Run is one of my favorite albums ever.
There are many misteps, though... Wild Life is absolutely horrible, I hate Wings at the speed of sound, London Town is meh... When you look at his hits, it's impressive.. maybe I'm amazed, my love, band on the run, jet, listen to what the man said, live and let die, etc... but when you look at all his albums over the years, many of them are sub-par... then he'll come out with an amazing album like Tug of War... many duds then... Flowers in the dirt.. the horrible Off The Ground followed by the amazing Flaming Pie... his career has really been up and down but when he does a concert and you get to hear his songs, you reallize he's got an amazing career besides the Beatles.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I guess I stand alone in here. Big Beatles fan, and even though I like Lennon and Harrison better, I still like Paul quite a bit. I think his first two solo albums were great (McCartney & Ram), but it's similar to the Harrison situation with All Things Must Pass - quite a bit of Beatles material and their façon de faire overrode these first albums (something Paul said influenced Flaming Pie a lot too, having just worked on the Anthology Beatles albums). After that, it was downhill for everybody, with only Lennon maintaining some of their past brilliance, at times. Harrison needed the Wilburys to really thrive afterwards.

Still, songs like Junk, Monkberry Moon Delight, Mull of Kintyre are pure delight to me. As for his contribution to the Beatles, I am too guilty of liking the John and George songs a lot better, and rare are the Paul songs to show up in my favorites. Helter Skelter and For No One being the exceptions. But again, the second-tier Beatles songs are full of good Paul songs - Blackbird, The Fool on the Hill, and many more...

That being said, the most under-appreciated post-Beatles work, and also by far the most interesting, is Harrison's Wonderwall Music, one of my favorite albums of all time, better than pretty much every Beatles albums IMO.

sorry first link was no good

 

[Gordon Lightfoot]

I don't know a ton of it. Ram is pretty good, though not great. I just appreciate that he wrote "Junk", which has one of my favorite melodies of all time.

 

[MoreOrr]

I was a huge McCartney & Wings fan. His solo career after Wings, so-so.

 

[peate]

It peaked with Band on the run and stayed pretty even keel since. Good but not great, without John.

 

[Eisen]

No different than the other Beatles solo. They are all not that good. Together they were great.

 

[Mimsy]

I most gravitate toward McCartney II, Flaming Pie, and (surprisingly) Memory Almost Full. Otherwise, I'm content with a hits package of my own creation. It's not often I seek out his solo work, but I like knowing it's there. Listening to his generic band perform Beatles songs does nothing for me.

Paul has some entirely forgettable albums, but if you're willing to separate wheat from chaff, there are gem songs, some of which wouldn't be out of place on a Beatles album. Some of his 80s material sticks with me because it was my era of heavy radio/music video consumption (e.g., "Take it Away"). McCartney released a crappy movie at the time called "No More Lonely Nights", significant to me because it was the first footage post-Beatles I'd seen of him performing Beatles songs.

I'll never not credit McCartney for his bass guitar work. He belongs among the pioneers. There are more technically proficient players, but his melodic work was pretty revolutionary. My favorite lines of his are all from Beatles songs, but solo work like "Silly Love Songs" has good riffs.

 

[cupcrazyman]

It peaked with Band on the run and stayed pretty even keel since. Good but not great, without John.

John couldn't sing to save his life but his harmony with the Paul & the others seemed to work & the rest is history.