"Underappreciated Genius."
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might need ice tea instead of hot tea in thailand if you've got ice tea there. my sis went up to manhattan last weekend and asked for ice tea with sugar and they acted like they'd never heard of it.
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SusyLuvsPaul:
might need ice tea instead of hot tea in thailand if you've got ice tea there. my sis went up to manhattan last weekend and asked for ice tea with sugar and they acted like they'd never heard of it.
It's quite cool where i am in Thailand... 25 c during the day, 12-16 c at night... Nice...
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BOYCIE:
I don't mean erratic in terms of musical diversity,i mean in terms of the quality of the music.There's a lot of great music but there's quite a bit of mediocre stuff in there too.I think in a career of nearly 40 years as a solo/Wings musician there's bound to be a few misfires in there.
I think you're biased by personal taste here. If you want a soft balad, he's got great ones, if you want a Led Zep look-alike he's got those, good ones...his albums of course don't contain solid hits, no musician puts out solid hit albums, they always have songs that can take a little longer to appreciate. He's had a lot more hits than average, and the "B" songs are often more wonderful on repeat listening that the hits. Not being a music expert, I don't know how to define a bad song, I just know I like almost all of his.
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Wendy2066:
BOYCIE:
I don't mean erratic in terms of musical diversity,i mean in terms of the quality of the music.There's a lot of great music but there's quite a bit of mediocre stuff in there too.I think in a career of nearly 40 years as a solo/Wings musician there's bound to be a few misfires in there.
I think you're biased by personal taste here. If you want a soft balad, he's got great ones, if you want a Led Zep look-alike he's got those, good ones...his albums of course don't contain solid hits, no musician puts out solid hit albums, they always have songs that can take a little longer to appreciate. He's had a lot more hits than average, and the "B" songs are often more wonderful on repeat listening that the hits. Not being a music expert, I don't know how to define a bad song, I just know I like almost all of his.
I don't think anyone's talking about hits or lack thereof. The unpleasant truth is that while Paul has done some great music, he's also done a fair amount of crap over the years. Sorry, but there's just nothing good to say about songs like "I Am Your Singer" or "Average Person."
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'clips of wings playing live at abbey road are fantastic'--can you find these on youtube? and the poster says they perform 'soily' and '1985' there, and other rare ones done live, and it all sends chills up his spine and is spellbinding and showcases 'paul at his best' and 'the best rock vocalist on the planet'
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I think the worst you could say about I Am Your Singer is some will find it boring. It's got a lovely flute-like section, his voice is nice...not a hit, but it's not a bad song. What's wrong with "Average Person?" It's peppy, interesting. I see I'm not alone in liking it
The ones I'm not keen on are the Western flavoured ones like "Brown-eyed Handsome Man, but that's personal taste becuase I don't like the genre much. Those songs you mentioned seem to me to be fine album fillers, what do you expect a whole album full of Band on the Run? No musician fills a whole album with hits, there are always quieter, experimental, different, sometimes actually bad, if you can get someone to define clearly what a bad song is. It's the same for any musician, with Paul having a higher percentage of hits per album, more albums per year I believe on average... -
Wendy2066:
BOYCIE:
I don't mean erratic in terms of musical diversity,i mean in terms of the quality of the music.There's a lot of great music but there's quite a bit of mediocre stuff in there too.I think in a career of nearly 40 years as a solo/Wings musician there's bound to be a few misfires in there.
I think you're biased by personal taste here. If you want a soft balad, he's got great ones, if you want a Led Zep look-alike he's got those, good ones...his albums of course don't contain solid hits, no musician puts out solid hit albums, they always have songs that can take a little longer to appreciate. He's had a lot more hits than average, and the "B" songs are often more wonderful on repeat listening that the hits. Not being a music expert, I don't know how to define a bad song, I just know I like almost all of his.
C'mon everyone is biased by personal taste.I've followed Paul for 36 years and it would be dishonest to say everything was great.Many of my favourite Paul moments are not the "Hits" and are his hidden jewels.Paul's best album for me is RAM and it contains one US hit and the rest is an eclectic and eccentric joy.Music like most art is subjective, so another persons masterpiece is another's mediocrity.I think in Paul's case a poor song tends to be the lyric more than the music for me.I think sometimes his lyrics aren't as finished as they could be,he's even admitted it.Who knows really why we love a song it's just a magic thing.
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Wendy2066:
I think the worst you could say about I Am Your Singer is some will find it boring. It's got a lovely flute-like section, his voice is nice...not a hit, but it's not a bad song. What's wrong with "Average Person?" It's peppy, interesting. I see I'm not alone in liking it
The ones I'm not keen on are the Western flavoured ones like "Brown-eyed Handsome Man, but that's personal taste becuase I don't like the genre much. Those songs you mentioned seem to me to be fine album fillers, what do you expect a whole album full of Band on the Run? No musician fills a whole album with hits, there are always quieter, experimental, different, sometimes actually bad, if you can get someone to define clearly what a bad song is. It's the same for any musician, with Paul having a higher percentage of hits per album, more albums per year I believe on average...Historically, there are quite a few musicians who have filled their albums with hits. Usually accidentally.
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Dustbin Lid:
Wendy2066:
I think the worst you could say about I Am Your Singer is some will find it boring. It's got a lovely flute-like section, his voice is nice...not a hit, but it's not a bad song. What's wrong with "Average Person?" It's peppy, interesting. I see I'm not alone in liking it
The ones I'm not keen on are the Western flavoured ones like "Brown-eyed Handsome Man, but that's personal taste becuase I don't like the genre much. Those songs you mentioned seem to me to be fine album fillers, what do you expect a whole album full of Band on the Run? No musician fills a whole album with hits, there are always quieter, experimental, different, sometimes actually bad, if you can get someone to define clearly what a bad song is. It's the same for any musician, with Paul having a higher percentage of hits per album, more albums per year I believe on average...Historically, there are quite a few musicians who have filled their albums with hits. Usually accidentally.
Yeah but not EVERY album. It may happen, accidentally usually as you say, once in an act's career but it's rare that it happens every time they release an album, especially if they release alot of them. I think the point was that you aren't generally going to find acts with all their albums filled with hits or "songs you like". I figure that is the reason that many people have the "3 song rule" where they have to like at least three songs before they buy the whole album - a) it means the album is probably good quality and will have other songs they like and b) even if it doesn't, at least with the three it has enough to make the purchase almost worthwhile. Because yeah, it is kind of expected that there will be quite a bit of "filler", stuff that some people might like but isn't really likely to be a hit and some that are just not all that good.
The unpleasant truth is that while Paul has done some great music, he's also done a fair amount of crap over the years. Sorry, but there's just nothing good to say about songs like "I Am Your Singer" or "Average Person."
All the person said was that they liked nearly all of Paul's songs. One person's crap is another person's treasure so to speak. So what if he's made some crap songs(which almost ALL rock and pop songwriter/musicians do--that includes his fellow Beatles), it doesn't negate the great ones. Each song is an individual thing, if it's good, it's good.
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As popular as Paul is now, I do agree that he could be considered an under-appreciated genius. A lot of his post-Beatles work in the 70's and 80's is mocked by people as being mediocre at best, but I still enjoy listening to all of it. Joe
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Heaven_On_Sunday:
As popular as Paul is now, I do agree that he could be considered an under-appreciated genius. A lot of his post-Beatles work in the 70's and 80's is mocked by people as being mediocre at best, but I still enjoy listening to all of it. Joe
Yeah I swear if I read one more ignoramus say "After the Beatles all Paul did was make soft music", I will scream(gonna be doing alot of screaming). Fine, I don't care if they don't like Paul's post Beatles stuff, to each their own. But it is just plain factually FALSE that Paul didn't rock. Paul had plenty of rockers(and John had plenty of non-rockers). Paul made a lot of songs heavy of guitar, fast of beat, loud of voice. "Spin it On"(from Back to the Egg) may not be much of a song(though I have to admit, I love it but I can see where the lyric and vocal distortion would make people dislike it) but there is no denying it has one heck of a heavy guitar riff, just as one late 70's but perhaps lesser known example. That's a rock song, even if you happen to hate it. So in that sense I think he's underappreciated. A lot of people look down on him under false pretenses.
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Heaven_On_Sunday:
As popular as Paul is now, I do agree that he could be considered an under-appreciated genius. A lot of his post-Beatles work in the 70's and 80's is mocked by people as being mediocre at best, but I still enjoy listening to all of it. Joe
I think it's more the eighties people complain about the 70's was Wings era, and certainly had lots of rockers! I'm trying to figure out why I never bought a Paul album in the eighties when I was buying Elton, Queen, Foreigner, Chris de Burgh, Manfred Man, REO Speedwagon (yeah, I know, but I still sort of like it). I did have Band on the Run and the Beatles blue edge collection I rotated in plenty. My teen/early twenty funds were limited, I didn't buy everything I would have loved to play, but I don't remember hearing Paul on the weekly count-down and thinking "I've got to get the album that's on." Yet as I re-discover Paul's music and explore the albums, I keep finding more songs I really loved on the radio. For some reason it didn't click in. For "big" live shows I saw Chris de Burgh in Ottawa, "Beatle Mania," a show with a cover band and film footage of the era. The best I can come up with is my age of wanting rockier stuff was the same time he was sort of hiding away, mourning, and ticked off about the jail thing, another band break-up...the music he was driven to make in the eighties was more positive messages, environmenta, and him being a good boy, giving anti-racist messages etc. The songs were deep, beautiful, had complexity, but were more mellow than "URGENT, URGENT...EMERGENCY!...). The wings material was just as rocking, but it wasn't on the current hits on the radio, since it had done that when I was younger, when I didn't have as much control over the radio. (I can still hear my Dad..."Why is there acoustical garbage on the radio...") But now I'm about the age Paul was when he wrote the music he wrote in the eighties, and I love it! Plus if anyone in the house were to complain about what I'm listening to, too bad! So to tie this all back in to recognising Paul's genius, I think it has to happen at the right age, and only if the person is exposed to it. I'm betting most people who know Paul's name don't know he does large scale classical works. I love both rock and classical, is that common these days? I think his genius really shines through in the complex orchestral compositions.
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The problem with artists like Paul that have such an extensive library of albums is that people often don't know what they'll like or where to start, so they'll judge his entire catalog on whatever they happen to listen to first. Unfortunately, it seems that most people gave Paul's music a shot, didn't care for whatever it was that they listened to, and didn't bother trying any other albums. For example, although I don't particularly enjoy his "Press to Play" album, I would no sooner say a bad word about Paul than I would my own father. Whenever I come in contact with an artist I'm truly interested in learning about with such a large music catalog, I always make sure to sample a bit of everything, and it pays off nearly every time. Joe
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Heaven_On_Sunday:
The problem with artists like Paul that have such an extensive library of albums is that people often don't know what they'll like or where to start, so they'll judge his entire catalog on whatever they happen to listen to first... Joe
I think you're right. Of course that only matters re young people, who didn't grow up with the Beatles or Wings. There are tons and tons of McCartney fans! First Beatles fans, then Wings fans, which of course over-lapped, but there were new fans who only really knew and loved Wings, at least at first. Both those groups had definite "brands" so people mostly knew what they were getting if they bought an album (with the exception of Back to the Egg, which was different, quieter, like he was crying to do at the time but didn't really know it until the jarring end of Wings). We should probably separate the issues of Paul's popularity from his recognition as a real genius. I don't think many would argue his popularity, depite the branding problems that go with his changing styles. That can prevents new and young fans from getting into his stuff, but there are still many many boomers alive and driving the economy still. The genius question is harder to answer, it isn't measured by numers of tickets sold.
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Heaven_On_Sunday:
The problem with artists like Paul that have such an extensive library of albums is that people often don't know what they'll like or where to start, so they'll judge his entire catalog on whatever they happen to listen to first. Unfortunately, it seems that most people gave Paul's music a shot, didn't care for whatever it was that they listened to, and didn't bother trying any other albums. For example, although I don't particularly enjoy his "Press to Play" album, I would no sooner say a bad word about Paul than I would my own father. Whenever I come in contact with an artist I'm truly interested in learning about with such a large music catalog, I always make sure to sample a bit of everything, and it pays off nearly every time. Joe
I give my Father as much stick as i give Paul on here at times if he deserves it. As for your first point you're are probably right, i think the first thing you listen to either catches you and leads you in or it's off putting.Helen Wheels was the first song that caught my ear when i was 9 and i was hooked.36 years on and i'm still here.
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Bruce M.:
Sorry, but there's just nothing good to say about songs like "I Am Your Singer" or "Average Person."
Aww, "I Am Your Singer" is a good song! Well, to me, anyway. *points at signature* Anyway, I've been thinking about this topic a lot lately, especially after watching GENYC and reminiscing about my Coachella experience this year. I think some non-fans believe Paul's solo career is bland mush without bothering to do much research to back up their beliefs. Not every song/album he has done in his post-Beatles years are great, but much of his work is excellent. He receives too little credit for what he's done in his solo years and it's a damn shame; his work is far more varied than the usual radio favorites like "Band On the Run", "Silly Love Songs", and "Wonderful Christmastime." I wish non-fans would be patient and take the time to dig through his song catalog. There are sooo many hidden gems in Paul's career that are worth looking for. I must say the having the Internet helps a great deal, BTW; I was reluctant to get into Paul's solo work at first, but I became a full-fledged fan after sifting through his lesser-known works on the MPL online catalog and YouTube. I also appreciate musicians out there who recognize Paul's musical contributions and talent and actually speak up about it. People who automatically generalize Paul's solo years as "garbage" are so full of crap themselves; they just haven't got a clue.
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Wow, I see this thread is still going strong. Happy New Year everybody! I was just reading through it and there are a lot of very good comments here. Unfortunately I can't seem to find the Jim Cuddy interview on the CBC website that Wendy2066 was talking about. I guess I'll try a YouTube search.
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KenMac:
So says Toronto based Canadian songwriter Jim Cuddy of the band "Blue Rodeo". I saw the quote from him in the Toronto Star on Saturday in which he was interviewed and was asked: "Who most influenced you as a musician?" His answer: "Paul McCartney. I still feel that he?s one of the most underappreciated geniuses in music." I know I'm preaching to the choir here but I strongly agree with Jim about that. If it wasn't for Paul (along with John, George and Ringo of course) I never would have become a musician.
Another recent example of McCartney not being appreciated was that in Rolling Stone's top 100 albums of the decade, CHAOS did not make the list.
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I don't care what anyone says, Paul McCartney does not get the real true credit he deserves!! I am a child of the 70s, and I remember without a doubt that almost every single album McCartney released back in the day was mauled, hammered, and crucified by the vast majority of critics! Not only his music, but also his wife and his lifestyle! After the Beatles, Paul McCartney was hung by the freaking throat, and that is no exageration, according to the vast majority of critics he just couldn't do anything right musically. Even to this very day Band On The Run is considered by most critics and very many fans to be his best post Beatles album. I think it's one of them, but it's certainly not the only one. His post Beatles material does not and probably never will get the real credit it deserves. Many people say that his post Beatles music contains songs that are just as good or better than some Beatle songs, well have those songs ever received that kind of credit? Even on this website you have many people who make a case against him performing more of his post Beatles music, they would never do that with the Beatles even if he performed the most obscure Beatle song he could find, which he has done! At the freaking Grammy awards, Kid Rock gets to do a mini concert, whereas Paul McCartney the most legendary rockstar on the freaking planet gets to perform one song, one freaking song? The man should of been allowed to do at least three or four songs! So yes without a doubt, Paul McCartney is underappreciated!
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Well, I was delighted when I was packing to go home from Christmas that my Mom came and told me grinning that Paul McCartney was coming on the radio. She was listening to her usual classical music program on CBC radio, they had said he was coming up. Then they played Ecce Cor meum after introducing it by saying one of the Beatles had composed this oratorio etc. etc. It was a good intro, and with enough exposure like that people will clue in. I missed the playing of it, with leaving, but I put the Ecce DVD on last night again. I love the making-of documentary on there. If people watch that and the one for Standing Stone and other things like the making of Chaos and Creation they should be able to realise what a genius he is. Maybe it's only a matter of time before he gets the general recognition he deserves. Usually that only happens to artists once they're dead, so I think he's actually doing pretty well.