lazarus
Blue Crack Supplier
I don't hate McCartney, and I imagine the impression I've given is that I cringe or fast-forward every time one of his songs come on. That's not the case. I enjoy a majority of what he's done. But there's something about his personality that rubs me the wrong way, and it's hard to completely disregard it. Lennon was a nutjob and could be a complete asshole, of course, but I just watched Let It Be with some friends, and everyone just wanted to sock Paul in the jaw. A lot of the time he's bossing the other band members around, trying to be the captain of the ship (and perhaps someone had to do this, but still), and then when he's trying to be funny, it often comes off (here we go again) forced and awkward. There's something about the way he looks into the camera every time one of his songs are being filmed...it's hard to put a finger on it. But he comes off a little smug.
As for the music itself, yeah, tons of great stuff. But to me he made some wonky or redundant choices that are frustrating to hear. I disagree with the notion that all of them wrote bad songs, especially if you disregard some of the primitive, earlier material. From Rubber Soul onward, the only Lennon song I can think of that's doesn't do it for me is Good Morning Good Morning (and luckily it's part of an album where the whole is better than the sum of the parts). Whereas with Macca, I could totally live without Magical Mystery Tour, Your Mother Should Know, Honey Pie, Wild Honey Pie, Maxwell's Silver Hammer, and Lovely Rita. That's not a long list, but it doesn't include a handful of his songs that I mostly enjoy but have questionable elements, and this also happens to be one of my favorite bands, with many albums that are among my all-time favorites.
Let's also not forget that the whole Let It Be/Get Back project was Paul's idea, and it pretty much destroyed the band. He was also the one behind the Magical Mystery Tour film, which tried to drag the Pepper's concept out a bit too far, and wound up being the band's first unequivocal failure.
