lennon is always getting praised but some people forget that he lost interest in the beatles after the revolver album was released and it was paul who was the driving force behind some of the greatest albums ever released.

so yes, i prefer lennon's output but i dont think anyone can deny mccartneys genius as well.

At this point in the process of losing my Beatles virginity, I'm preferring Lennon as well, but Paul DID write some timeless compositions that thought outside his stereotyped "cutesy" box: "Eleanor Rigby", "Got To Get You Into My Life", "Blackbird", "Helter Skelter", and many more....

Chaos And Creation In The Backyard is a terrific little album, too.

Musical genius? Yes. Marital genius? No.

Greets:

The man's a genius... like stevie wonder... he has the ability to work on his own... The man was like one of the first artists to make a complete solo album (he played everything himself on McCartney 1).

If you want a classic studio album... listen to band on the run or Ram...
if you want a classic live album check out wings across america.
if you want an eclectic/electronica... check out Back to the Egg.

Just heard the UK version of Flowers in the Dirt... vintage McCartney.

r/f

Yes he's a 20 th century's musical genius( yesterday, martha my dear, sergent pepper, black bird, for no one, ..) , with John he has changed Music' s History.

No question hes brilliant (Im always hesitant to use the term genius, for anyone). I have all his solo albums, and i can honestly say I prefer his solo output to lennons, however I do believe that he has a poor quality control function, and will quite happily put a song on his album because his kids love it, or because it was named after one of his dogs, rather than asking the question is this song good enough. This is largely because he produced himself after he left the beatles. Apparently while recording Cahos & Creation Nigel Godrich told him on many occasiobns certain songs weren't good, or up to scratch, and I think he needs that no bullshit attitude (exactly the kind of attitude Lennon had with him)

Ultimately I hate the divisive instinct of people to say one has to be greater than the other. Why cant we say both produced varying levels of solo work, but ultimately they produced most of their best work with each other. Im not talking about song writing together (they barely did that after 1965), but they always had each other to reign themselves in.

I often rant about this subject because most of the people who say they prefer lennon do so with extremely limited knowledge of their solo work, and have generally succombed to the media myth that Lennon was the genius, and Macca wrote the schmaltzy ballads. Not true. Scratch the surface, and Paul was the most varied and experimental Beatle throughout.

He's a giant songwriter; and an icon...but I wouldn't place the genius tag on him...But I think Lennon and McCartney were a genius tandem...

blackbob asked:

Yes he is

And I have all his post Beatles output too ( I hate it when people repeat opinions they've heard before when in fact they could hardly list 5 of his songs )

CrozzaUK said:

i would agree with the quality control after he left the beatles...in the beatles ,all 4 of them had to like a song or it didnt go on an album, with one or two exceptions, and i think this was very important reason why the beatles output was so good.....mccartney is a songwriting genius, on a par with lennon easily...i prefered lennons harder edge but mccartney was brilliant, no doubt about that.

Yes. Paul is a genuis. He's written some great tunes w/ and w/out The Beatles and he's another one of my favorite multi-instrumentalists.

Isn't he who invented/pionereed filler tracks on albums?

And sorry about Eurovision

CrozzaUK said:

I think this is exactly right. I think that John and Paul are more or less equals, however Paul was more versatile both stylistically and in terms of proficiency at different levels of music making (playing instruments namely), and he was definitely the creatively dominant member of the group (for better or worse) in the latter half of their career. In terms of the amount of incredible songs they each were responsible for, I'd call it even. In terms of post-beatles solo work, McCartney was much more consistent (and prolific), but Macca could never make anything close to Plastic Ono Band in terms of raw emotion and power

Oh and yes I do consider Macca a musical genius, more so than John Lennon. John Lennon was more of a genius who happened to use music as his means of expression, I think Macca's genius had the more actual innate "musical" inclination
[Edited 5/19/06 4:49am]

Musical genius? Absolutely! No question about that. Paul has made some amazing music over the years with and without the Beatles. He's done it with style and class too.

Great musician? Yes? genius.....ah NO.

I really hope that he and Nigel Godrich keep working together for many albums - McCartney suffers from the Prince-like ailment of thinking that being a musical mastermind means that everything he does is beyond reproach, and he needs someone like Nigel saying "no, that's crap". With that kind of assistance (that Lennon also provided, as CrozzaUK said), I'd say his music is some of the best around. Without it, he's very hit and miss (and yes, I own all his solo albums too).

royfolker said:

Stevie is 100% better

royfolker said:

You are right.....if you are asleep.

very much so, but as long as he's alive, it won't be recognized as much.
I'd rather him live a full happy life, than worry about him being a musical genius.

His music affected me, thats all that matters to me.

screw u others.

Hey Bublebath:

I think Stevie has great admiration for Paul!
Paul is on A Time 2 Love!
Stevie & Paul & John Lennon all performed 2gether in 1974 (A Toot and a Snort in 74).
When you compare Steve's 70's work to his 80's & 90's work, your gonna see changes and different musical styles... it's no difference for Paul.
Paul has more released material than Steve more like Prince (mabey too much!)
I hear stevie has a hugh vault 2!!! not sure how many songs though!
But what's cool is both artists do the music because they can don't worry so much about charts or legends. They don't worry about genre... they are driven to make music period. Will people like every song is another matter.

You gotta respect both Men!

Hands UP! who heard Whats That Your Doing??? (Paul & Stevie) --> Really funky!

r/f

Yeah, definately.

He's made more decent albums than people give him credit for.

Not to discount what he did, because he wrote some of the all time great pop songs, but I'd have to say no.

His style of innovation was more of a look backwards. Towards Beethoven, Tin Pan Alley, Little Richard, etc. He made rock music richer, but I don't think he moved it forward.

Lennon was a true innovator, if slightly less "musical." Walrus, Lucy, Revolution 9, Tomorrow Never Knows, Happiness is a Warm Gun don't really follow any blueprints.

Yesterday, Eleaor Rigby, For No One, When I'm Sixty Four are great songs, but they are following in a tradition set years before. I don't believe they create something truly new, except that they were sounds that hadn't been heard in rock music. In fact, they aren't really rock music, they're something that already happened.

NDRU said:

I'll agree with most of this, but Paul did write "Helter Skelter", and it seemed like it was more punk than anything in that era.. and before "punk" was a genre.

I'm not gonna base that on one song, but that song does kickass

Sdldawn said:

I agree with y'all.

NDRU said:

The thing is with some of these songs, it was Paul who introduced John to the idea of using tape loops and creating soundscapes. I agree Walrus and happiness is a Warm gun are truly outstanding compositions though. I also agree Paul used to feed off the past, his knowledge of music etc, but thats not to say he didnt try and move things forward. Penny Lane wasn't really like anything before it, same with Paperback Writer.

Although I'm not much of a beatles fan, I think Paul not John was The Beatles, and that George Harrison was way more experimental than either of them. But Ringo was and is and always will be crap.

We're examining whether or not the word genius applies yet again.

If you say "yes," you'll get the inevitable, "What exactly makes him a genius?" If you say "no," no matter how much you love him (as I do), you'll get, "Oh yeah? Why not!?"

NDRU said:

Actually Tomorrow never Knows, probably the most innovative recording the Beatles ever made was actually mostly the work of Paul. The actual melody and lyrics are John's, but the whole soundscape/collage was mostly Paul's work, he recorded and mixed the tape loops and that horrifying bird caw sound is actually Paul's laughing sped up and backwards

jacktheimprovident said:

Correct.. I was thinking about this last night and was gonna post something about it. but yes, Paul was the workb ehind Tomorrow Never Knows, and that was the light that sparked the rest of the records with experimental ideas.

Ok...

couldn't you say that STG Peppers LHCB... is a "RAP" song???

So Paul is the first vanilla rapper... Right???

This sound like innovation/innovator to me...

r/f