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Post by Kapitan on Apr 20, 2022 11:30:59 GMT
Five voters ( jk I'm including your 10; let me know if that's not what you'd prefer) rated McCartney III an average of 7.0.
Thanks for participating, everyone.
And with this, the polls of this thread are completed. Feel free to keep the thread going to discuss/summarize the careers of Ringo, of Paul, or of the other two (or the group) as you like. Thanks for an interesting 15-month project!
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 20, 2022 13:18:31 GMT
I thought people might be curious as to how all these ratings turned out. Here are some interesting numbers.
Average scores for all 83(!) albums rated: 6.92
Beatles (16 albums): 8.64 George Harrison (12 albums): 7.72 John Lennon (8 albums): 7.2 Paul McCartney (26 albums): 6.47 Ringo Starr (20 albums): 5.58
Highest rating: Abbey Road, 10. (The only one!) Lowest rating: Ringo the 4th and Some Time in NYC, 3.6 (tie)
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Post by kds on Apr 20, 2022 13:22:40 GMT
Those solo works rankings pretty much reflect how I feel overall.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 20, 2022 13:32:28 GMT
They don't quite for me, though I understand them.
I'd usually have George about a point lower, an average in the mid-high 6s; and I'd usually have Paul about a point higher, maybe the low-mid 7s. Beatles, Lennon, and Starr, I think are about right. (I wish I'd also tracked my own votes so I could be more specific! But I didn't, and I have no intention of going through the whole thread to find them!)
My first thought in seeing the ratings broken down was that it's a bit of a punishment to have such long careers, as the artists' quality fades over time. But taking a look at the scores, that doesn't seem to hold true: - Two of Paul's first four albums were in the 5s, the other two in the 7s; then he had a run of his highest scores through the mid 70s; then he was really all over the place in the 80s-20s, from 4.0 to 7.8. - Ringo's first two albums were among his lowest scores, then he had his highest rated album (8.1 for Ringo); and then he really got most of his next-best ratings from '92 on. - John's third album was by far his lowest score, 3.6.
Point being, we had some low scores right away that affected averages; and we had some strong ones later in their careers. It does seem we didn't have any really knockout scores late in people's careers with one explicable exception: Traveling Wilburys, Vol 1 (9.5) But that's not just a George project, obviously. He had a lot of help.
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Post by B.E. on Apr 20, 2022 13:42:41 GMT
Five voters ( jk I'm including your 10; let me know if that's not what you'd prefer) rated McCartney III an average of 7.0. Not to be super annoying, but I believe it only mustered a ‘6’ (10,7,6,4,3).
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Post by B.E. on Apr 20, 2022 13:43:47 GMT
Thanks for an interesting 15-month project! Thank YOU, Kapitan, for running it!
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 20, 2022 13:49:04 GMT
Five voters ( jk I'm including your 10; let me know if that's not what you'd prefer) rated McCartney III an average of 7.0. Not to be super annoying, but I believe it only mustered a ‘6’ (10,7,6,4,3). You are of course correct. My apologies! I'll fix it. (Math is clearly not my thing, especially early in the morning.)
I've corrected not only the main ratings list in the first post, but the averages listed in my post above. Modest changes, but worth being correct about.
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Post by kds on Apr 20, 2022 14:49:28 GMT
They don't quite for me, though I understand them.
I'd usually have George about a point lower, an average in the mid-high 6s; and I'd usually have Paul about a point higher, maybe the low-mid 7s. Beatles, Lennon, and Starr, I think are about right. (I wish I'd also tracked my own votes so I could be more specific! But I didn't, and I have no intention of going through the whole thread to find them!)
My first thought in seeing the ratings broken down was that it's a bit of a punishment to have such long careers, as the artists' quality fades over time. But taking a look at the scores, that doesn't seem to hold true: - Two of Paul's first four albums were in the 5s, the other two in the 7s; then he had a run of his highest scores through the mid 70s; then he was really all over the place in the 80s-20s, from 4.0 to 7.8. - Ringo's first two albums were among his lowest scores, then he had his highest rated album (8.1 for Ringo); and then he really got most of his next-best ratings from '92 on. - John's third album was by far his lowest score, 3.6.
Point being, we had some low scores right away that affected averages; and we had some strong ones later in their careers. It does seem we didn't have any really knockout scores late in people's careers with one explicable exception: Traveling Wilburys, Vol 1 (9.5) But that's not just a George project, obviously. He had a lot of help.
For me, George has had about as many highs as John, but without the lows. Paul had a lot of peaks and valleys. But, over the last 40 years, more valleys. Although, the past that he's continued to release (mostly mediocre) material long after John and George certainly doesn't help his standing. Ringo is...um, Ringo. I think if I assessed their output while all four were still alive, the rankings would be different, and I'd probably put George in 3rd.
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 20, 2022 14:59:19 GMT
Paul is interesting because he's the one who really kept churning it out with very few hiatuses. He really didn't take any multiyear breaks until Flowers in the Dirt (1989) to Off the Ground (1993), and then that to Flaming Pie (1997). And the latter of those two was due largely to the Anthology project, which seemed to reinvigorate him somewhat.
From then on, he did take longer between albums--but by this time, that was very common, not just for legacy artists but more or less any mainstream artists. Two, three, four, five years is no longer a shocking retirement the way it was for John Lennon in the latter 70s.
Conversely, George perhaps wisely took it easy through the 80s and almost skipped the 90s altogether. (Obviously toward the end he was ill.)
It seems that Paul has that same spirit toward albums that Bob Dylan does toward touring: what the hell else am I going to do? But the result means you're not going to maintain really high level stuff all the time. (Though really Paul's scores in our ratings were similarly uneven from after Tug of War onward, not just in the post-00 era.)
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Post by lonelysummer on Apr 21, 2022 1:16:46 GMT
I was surprised at how high the later Paul albums were rated. To me, a 7 is not a bad rating. I couldn't tell that Paul albums after Tug of War/Pipes of Peace/Broadstreet (the last time he was having across the board hits) were rating any lower than the earlier ones. Not at all surprised the Ringo albums got generally low rankings once we left the hit making years. Most people never bought them, much less heard them. Surprised he keeps cranking them out to indifferent sales. I wonder what it is - at least in the field of pop music - that causes artists to be at their most inspired in their 20s? If you're lucky (McCartney, Dylan, maybe a few others), that might spill over into your 30's, but for most, it's a steady decline, and soon you're into the Never Ending Oldies Tours (even if they don't call them that). "Okay, we'd like to play a song off the new album" (everyone runs for the concession line or the rest room). I mean, in some ways, it doesn't make sense to me. By the time you are 40, 50, 60, you've lived that much longer, so you have that many more experiences to draw from. Is rock and roll all adrenaline and 00% life lived?
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Post by Kapitan on Apr 21, 2022 11:41:44 GMT
Is rock and roll all adrenaline and 00% life lived? I don't know about the percentages, but roughly, yes.
Exciting, vigorous rock seems to require newness, probably both on the side of the artist and the listeners. Everyone involved gets older and wiser, the musicians presumably get better ... but that's not what makes rock and roll great. It's the energy that makes it great.
It's like comparing a first love affair to a 40-year-marriage. The latter is obviously the better outcome, but the first is way more exciting. Rock is more like a first love, and maturity just isn't usually part of the deal. Rock fans usually don't want to hear a song with solemn life lessons; they want a song with a great beat or riff, and lyrics that are a double entendre about sex.
That's why only a certain type of act seems to age well--and generally not in the raucous rock they began with.
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Post by lonelysummer on Apr 25, 2022 4:03:21 GMT
I did it for John, i did it for George, so I'll have a go at making a best of solo Paul list. - Every Night
- Teddy Boy
- Maybe I'm Amazed
- Too Many People
- Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
- Eat at Home
- Back Seat of My Car
- One of These Days
- Take it Away
- Wanderlust
- Rainclouds
- Say Say Say
- The Other Me
- Keep Under Cover
- No More Lonely Nights
- No Values
- My Brave Face
- This One
- Hope of Deliverance
- Momma Miss America
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Post by lonelysummer on Apr 25, 2022 4:12:26 GMT
My personal favorite Wings tracks - Some People Never Know
- Hi, Hi, Hi
- My Love
- The Mess
- Live and Let Die
- Band on the Run
- Let Me Roll it
- Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five
- Junior's Farm
- Sally G.
- Listen to What the Man Said
- Medicine Jar
- Treat Her Gently/Lonely Old People
- The Note You Never Wrote
- Beware My Love
- Time to Hide
- London Town
- With a Little Luck
- Deliver Your Children
- Daytime Nightime Suffering
- Winter Rose/Love Awake
- Coming Up (Live at Glasgow)
- The Long and Winding Road (WOA version)
- Richard Corey (WOA version)
- Lucille (Kampuchea version)
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Post by lonelysummer on Apr 25, 2022 21:13:32 GMT
A Shot of Ringo Starr - It Don't Come Easy
- Early 1970
- Back Off Boogaloo
- Photograph
- You're Sixteen
- Oh My My
- Only You
- No No Song
- A Dose of Rock and Roll
- Weight of the World
- Don't Know a Thing About Love
- I Don't Believe You
- Runaways
- One
- Mindfield
- Without Understanding
- I Wanna Be Santa Claus
- The Christmas Dance
- Oh My Lord
- Free Drinks
- Peace Dream
- Samba
- Magic
- Change the World
- bonus track: I Call Your Name (recorded for John Lennon tribute, not on vinyl or cd to my knowledge)
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Apr 26, 2022 1:02:35 GMT
My personal favorite Wings tracks - Some People Never Know
- Hi, Hi, Hi
- My Love
- The Mess
- Live and Let Die
- Band on the Run
- Let Me Roll it
- Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five
- Junior's Farm
- Sally G.
- Listen to What the Man Said
- Medicine Jar
- Treat Her Gently/Lonely Old People
- The Note You Never Wrote
- Beware My Love
- Time to Hide
- London Town
- With a Little Luck
- Deliver Your Children
- Daytime Nightime Suffering
- Winter Rose/Love Awake
- Coming Up (Live at Glasgow)
- The Long and Winding Road (WOA version)
- Richard Corey (WOA version)
- Lucille (Kampuchea version)
Good one in "Lucille". I loved that video; MTV played it every hour. But, where is one of my favorite Paul McCartney/Wings songs..."Jet"?
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