I must admit, I don’t understand people who stan for John on the strength of Imagine. I think it’s the worst thing any Beatle wrote post-breakup.
Ebony and Ivory is sentimental pap. Imagine somehow manages to be worse.
All Things Must Pass for the Win! Agree what everybody else said about it.
I’m actually a fan of the Ringo Shit, too, but quality-wise probably not up to Macca. But its fun.
John can piss up a rope.
Well then…I’ll go with Pete or Stuart.
Same for me. John’s stuff is exquisite (mostly), but there isn’t that much of it. The Double Fantasy album is a gem, and “Whatever Gets You Through the Night” and “Imagine” are terrific. But anything involving or about Yoko … no thanks.
Paul was much more prolific, which means that he’ll have more bad stuff, but also a lot more good stuff. And we see that, with the Band on the Run album. Plus, I also quite like Venus and Mars and Speed of Sound, though the latter does have a few tunes that I feel are a little too poppy—that is, I agree with your mention of “Silly Love Songs.” And what was up with “Cook of the House” by Linda? She wanted a song, so Paul knocked one out in five minutes?
Anyway, overall, it’s got to be Paul for me.
Biggest hit song of all 214 songs they recorded was Hey Jude. Written by Paul and he played most of the instruments too. Number 1 for 9 weeks, it dominated the top 100 lists for 1968. And singing it along with 70,000 other people made it a highlight of his concert. I still turn up the radio for the last 3 minutes and sing along with it.
George’s work is really the only post-Beatles work I listen to.
McCartney has done some fabulous work, real Beatles-level stuff after the breakup. He has also done some dreck. I’d say the good greatly outweighs the bad.
So, if you answer the question broadly, balancing the entire catalog, you’d get a different response (I think) than if you answered it surgically—i.e., whose very best was the very best.
I’ll also take this opportunity to recommend Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. It’s a masterpiece, start to finish. McCartney is still capable of superlative work. He just doesn’t have hits anymore.
Pretty much the same reasoning for me. Others follow along this line. Paul was prolific, which includes a lot of bad along with the good, but the good total is higher. Of course John didn’t have as much time to work as Paul, and Paul is still at it, but it’s not a hypothetical, we have choose based on their actual output.
Pete’s ‘Now I Can Drum Like I Want’ album was killer.
Agreed. I’ve always thought it’s insipid, sounds like something a 12 year old would write in their diary.
Hmmm - I voted for John - head and shoulders above the others IMO, so I was surprised that he’s currently running third. I’m separating the artist from the work - from all I’ve read, I think I would have loathed him as a person. George and Ringo - well, Ringo I would love to go out to the pub with; George I would have liked to be friends with. (All based on what I’ve heard/seen/read, of course.)
j
Aside: we once cycled through Cranleigh in Surrey. Odd place - enormous properties, so spaced out that it doesn’t really feel like a village. You know, I said to Mrs T, I bet a Rolling Stone lives here.
I was wrong - it was Ringo. Cranleigh - Wikipedia
IIRC, George also had an assholish side to him … e.g. having his mistresses moving in (guest house) and co-living along with his wife is not exactly classy.
Well, Ringo may not have ever been a singer-songwriter with some guitar on his knee or plinking away at some piano while trying to croon, but he gathered together over decades many other musicians under his tent, his revue.
The Levon Helm of The Beatles, but without some or even many of the abilities of Levon, in terms of songwriting, singing, drumming style, and bandleading. Some of the spirit, I’d say, though, post-“big band,” when it came to trying to create and maintain a revolving crew of top-drawer musicians.
He was an entertainer, and he knows it…and he succeeded where the would-be artistes of his former group failed.
You raise an interesting point. I might have voted differently if “narrating Thomas The Tank Engine” fell within the scope of the OP.
j
Well…hmmm…it’s probably entertaining…to a certain audience!
John Lennon
despite being retired for half the decade