3 ms·
This piece aged fairly well. Confession: despite being a rabid Beatles fan for 20 years, I only really listened to John Lennon’s first solo album this week. I
by Tycho 9y ago
This piece aged fairly well.
Confession: despite being a rabid Beatles fan for 20 years, I only really listened to John Lennon’s first solo album this week. I think I dismissed it partly because it has a silly name (Plastic Ono Band). It is fantastic.
The thing about The Beatles is that their catalogue underwrites our cultural obsession with ‘albums’, which is a ridiculous standard to impose on everything else. Much fairer to judge songwriters on their accumulation of worthy tracks spread over many years and projects, even if they never come together in one perfect album. Beatles solo careers are prime victims of this unfortunate standard.
- mgkimsal 9y ago> Beatles solo careers are prime victims of this unfortunate standard. Quite true. Each Beatle's solo albums always had 2-3 good to great songs. This is pretty much what each would bring to a Beatles album too, but collectively, that would give them 6-10 really great tracks per album. They never could possibly deliver entire albums of greatness (or even "really good"ness) year after year individually. Put another way, each Beatles album could be looked at as a 'best of' each member at that point in time. A "greatest hits" collection every 6 months or so, really. But no one person would be able to keep that pace (even they couldn't, eventually).
- Tycho 9y agoWe could have had at least five more years of classic Beatles albums if they hadn’t split up in 1970, just based of what songs they went on to write. And probably longer owing to the creative atmosphere and competitiveness within the group setting.