When you’re 84 and one of THE most respected musicians/arrangers/producers of the past 100 years, you get to say whatever you want. And he does! Nothing cute or coy - he just calls ‘em like he sees ‘em.
Michael Jackson stole songwriting credit from sidemen
The Beatles sucked as musicians, and Q had to get someone to sub for Ringo
Jimi Hendrix wussed out playing with jazz cats
Cyndi Lauper tried to influence We Are the World and Q had none of it
He’s a bit extreme - Paul and Ringo evolved into great rock/pop musicians, but no, they would never be able to play at Quincy Jones’ / Miles Davis’ level - but he’s Quincy Jones and can back up his shit.
He’s going to be celebrated a lot as he reaches his 85 birthday. We’ll be hearing more from Mr. Jones.
This crossed my mind more than once. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him interviewed before so all I know of him is his brilliant career and it’s hard to get a sense of it just from print. It was enjoyable to read though, motherfuckers
Slags off Beatles, praises Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith…he is full of shit. Slags off Paul’s bass playing, which Jaco Pastorius himself acknowledged as one of his biggest influences…which virtually every serious musician and music listener rates as superlative…there’s a word for what Quincy Jones is being. Actually, there’s a lot of words for it, but I think the most up-to-date is “edgelord.”
Some of his assertions are a little sketchy, but I did like the line about how Marlon Brando would fuck a mailbox. Maybe he needs more vitamin B like his mother did.
If the transcript I read was correct or whatever, it was funny how he talked major shit about all these people, insulting Jimmy Hendrix guitar playing for crying out loud, and then when Bill Cosby gets brought up all the sudden he clams up and can’t go there.
I’ll grant that my only exposure to Sheeran was a few years ago when I heard his song that begins with the lyrical abortion “when your legs don’t work like they used to before.” I never went out of my way to seek him out after that. The regular FB posts that I see slagging him off from serious British musicians on FB whose judgment I trust, are enough to deter me from voluntarily listening to him.
If you have any examples of his work you think I should hear, I’ll seriously try to listen with an open mind.
I Googled “youtube Ed Sheeran loop” and this was the first link. Please note that he lays down the entire track, live, using a looper to set up “drum” “bass” and other fill tracks. And the song is solidly-crafted. He’s a real-deal talent.
Waiting until someone is dead to talk critically about them seems awfully coy to me. I haven’t followed Jones’s career; did he make any of these points when the people who are now gone were still with us?
Quincy saying Paul and Ringo couldn’t cut it from a jazz cat’s perspective is rude but not unreasonable. Acknowledging Paul’s HUGE influence as a rock bassist, to put some context on it, would have been nice. Telling the story about fooling Ringo is simply bitchy.
As for Cyndi Lauper, I have posted here in the past about how my old bandmate produced one of her albums. He said she was extremely difficult with a lot of high drama and passive aggressiveness. So what Quincy had to say was not surprising at all.
And Michael bought the Beatles’ catalog out from under Paul McCartney, so its not like he is some saint.
It’s a mish mash, and his judgments on musical abilities sounds like he’s an arrogant old jazzcat, but the stories sound like he’s embellishing known stuff. I’d be interested in hearing what Greg P has say about his songwriting credit, for instance. I have Googled but not found anything.
Alright, the guy has some chops. And he’s still young. Maybe he can mature to a new and unique style someday.
FWIW, I really am not into the “sensitive guy crooning love songs with guitar” genre. Does Ed Sheeran have tracks where he collaborates with a good drummer and bassist and locks into a real groove with them through some interesting chord progressions? Is he capable of playing that way? I’m not asking this rhetorically like to try to just shit all over his style; it’s his style; he’s admittedly good at it; but aside from that one thing you shared (which seems to be mostly a pastiche of rap and Estuary-English half-singing, accompanied by admittedly decent guitar chops), everything else I’ve seen of him gives off vibes of early-2000s John Mayer. Except even John Mayer’s breakout hit, No Such Thing, was an upbeat number that grabbed hold of your ears with a gripping tension-and-release Maj7-Major guitar strum before you even heard Mayer’s voice come in, joined by a hard-hitting drummer and bassist who immediately lock into a solid groove. Those, to me, are the elements of a good pop song.
I’m willing to look at Sheeran again in ~5 years when hopefully he’s matured into a harder-hitting style.
