Which one I'd shoot first? Oh no! I'm too late!
I'd go with Jack Lemmon over Joe McCarthy.
But Eugene McCarthy over Vladimir Lennon.
I read somewhere that most of their songs were genuine collaborations until about Rubber Soul, and a few after that. To me at least, McCartney has a humour deficit that Lennon didn't, but fuck it, they worked together for about five years after they got a record deal, time to give up on the comparisons.
I say Lennon based on the solo careers. With McCartney I get the feeling that he recorded a lot of songs and thought "This didn't really turn out very well, but I'm going to act like it did". There are half-finished ideas that are way too polished.
Whereas with Lennon every song is the finished article, or is obviously half-assed and tossed-off.
With McCartney I get the feeling that he recorded a lot of songs and thought "This didn't really turn out very well, but I'm going to act like it did".
I'm sure you're not talking about Band on the Run here.
Lennon, because I can't imagine him, if he were still alive, "nah nah nah"-ing at every possible fucking opportunity. Bloody frog chorus McCartney? No.
I second 5.
Oh dear. I just looked up a youtube video of Working Class Hero, and I'm told that my Adobe Flash is vulnerable, so I mustn't play a video until I update. Clicking the "Update now" button yields this extensive amount of information. Oh dear: how do I determine which version of Adobe Flash Player I currently have?
Really, I thought the "Update now" button would be able to figure it out for me.
Just Google flash or go to Adobe's site and follow the link to install flash* and then install whatever the most recent version is. You don't really need to know what you're running unless you're running something that requires a specific version, in which case you probably would already know what version you're running.
*I'm assuming they'll have a link. I haven't checked.
Jagger and Richards, cause troll
Solo Lennon's relentless earnestness (what sense of humor?) gets on my nerves just a little more than McCartney's studied pop, but I can never forgive the guy for cheating on Jane Asher.
But my playlist stops at Revolver.
V.I. Lenin. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov!
I sort of wonder how many people asked don't really have a strong opinion, or an opinion they could defend in much detail, but are aware that Lennon is cooler.
Todd's betting on a come from behind Lennon victory.
McCartney definitely as a Beatle. If you look at lists of who wrote what in the Beatles, he wins by a country mile, I think. Lots of deeply naff stuff since, though. Less of a dick, as a person than Lennon, less interesting, too.
Solo Lennon's relentless earnestness (what sense of humor?) gets on my nerves just a little more than McCartney's studied pop
McManus gets it exactly right!
WHAT'S SO FUNNY 'BOUT PEACE, LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING?
For the sake of definiteness:
I've Just Seen a Face
Blackbird
Helter Skelter
Love Me Do
Got to Get You Into My Life
Eleanor Rigby
I Saw Her Standing There
Yesterday
I Will
She Came in Through the Bathroom Window
vs.
You've Got to Hide Your Love Away
Dear Prudence
Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey
Ticket to Ride
Hard Day's Night
I'm Happy Just to Dance with You
You're Going to Lose That Girl
Run for your Life
Come Together
It Won't Be Long
I was leaning toward Lennon, but nothing in the first list in 21 is as bad as "Run for Your Life."
I was going to say that Lennon provided most of the elements that gave them 60s vanguardist cultural cred and McCartney gave them most of the elements that made them insanely catchy, but then I remembered that the Stockhausen influence on "Tomorrow Never Knows" was McCartney's. Still, I think it's a decent generalization.
21 makes me think I just plain like the Beatles and can't distinguish the players.
WHAT'S SO FUNNY 'BOUT PEACE, LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING?
Posted by: OPINIONATED ELVIS COSTELLO
LIES!
http://www.myrsten.nu/worldnet/beatlesongs.htm
Basically the bitter dark songs are Lennon, the psychedelic ones about 50/50, the rockers and guitar driven tunes largely McCartney, the melancholic ones McCartney, the elegantly constructed McCartney, the really trite, also usually McCartney.
Get 550 top-flight mathematicians and ask them, Grothendieck or Hans Christian Andersen?
Solo Lennon's relentless earnestness (what sense of humor?) gets on my nerves just a little more than McCartney's studied pop
Surely this is not a question of what gets on a person's nerves more.
Steve Lehman Octet's Mise en Abîme is recommended, even if it lacks its predecessor's Wu-Tang Clan cover.
26: I don't have a strong opinion on them, but otherwise feel about the same. It all just sounds like The Beatles to me.
Also, the late Beatles albums, with the exception of the White album, are more McCartney, and I don't think anyone would choose the White album over Abbey Road or Sgt. Pepper.*
* although my own preference is Rubber Soul (or Revolver) where some of the best songs are Lennon's.
I have to agree that it's all just the Beatles. I don't even know why there would be a competition in play. You might as well launch a Jagger vs. Richards competition, or an Emerson, Lake or Palmer one, or a CSNY one. These bands are (were) cohesive wholes at the time. My sense is that they viewed it that way as well.
As we well know, any number of classic bands became competitive after disbanding. Pink Floyd.
Emerson, Lake, or Palmer is just too obvious.
The answer is obviously Lake, since he was involved in In the Court of the Crimson King.
16 was my thought about a lot of them. To me a big part of what was interesting about the video was that you would get a similar reaction from people who I'm almost certain had very different underlying thought processes. To wit: I don't really believe that Justin Bieber struggled to pick one in the sense that each is a powerful role model (perhaps in the sense that he wasn't sure which one his publicist had told him to be prepared to say), while I totally believe that about any number of other artists.
Also, ISTM that the older musicians (and celebrities) skewed much more heavily John, presumably because they were alive when John's superior coolness really was the default assumption. Like, how could DeNiro not say Lennon?
I don't see how anyone could fail to pick McCartney in 2014. I could see Lennon maybe having an edge in the 90s, but the zeitgeist has basically buried him along with Jim Morrison. Only trolling a little here.
21: I thought it was interesting that "Helter Skelter" (an old favorite of mine, and the slow jam version is maybe better) came up repeatedly; I'm not sure any other song did, except maybe "Imagine" (which is pretty wretched, really).
One thing that's interesting is that I think a lot of the music McCartney was lambasted for in the '70s is now appreciated, which has moved the debate (music-wise at least) into either semi-fruitless arguments about relative merit as Beatles or skewed arguments in which Paul's undeniably inferior '80s output is compared unfairly with John's rather more carefully curated '80s output.
Also, FWIW, Paul has probably done better stuff, on average, over the past ~20 years than he had over the previous ~15. I haven't listened to nearly all of that production, but the songs that have gotten any airplay are certainly much better, and I get the sense that the worse quality stuff has improved a bit, for whatever reason. Maybe he finally got the message that editing is as important as creation.
PS - "Number 9 Dream" might be my least favorite song associated with any Beatle
My old cover band did a version of "Helter Skelter" where, after the second chorus, we went right into "Paperback Writer." The two songs worked surprisingly well crammed together.
Emerson, Lake, or Palmer is just too obvious.
Is that the new FMK?
The cold or elegiac or coldly elegiac ones are all McCartney, which his image makes it easy to forget. The rockers are 50/50, I think. Lennon's are often directly about Lennon and his feelings when they're not inscrutable, McCartney's are usually not as personal.
Some writer argued that it was Ono's aesthetic influence that made Lennon only write about his own feelings and being dismissive of songs like for the benefit of mr kite.
I always found Lennon a bit offputting. I've never liked that kind of teenagery glibness and snottiness. I'm pretty common in a certain type of english males. Obviously there was more to him than that.
WAS IT A MILLIONAIRE WHO SAID 'IMAGINE NO POSSESSIONS'?
I grew up thinking I was on Team Lennon but realized early in my twenties that I was pure McCartney. Never went deep into the solo stuff but New from the last album is pure pop heaven.
Had a long thread at the other place about the missing musical heirs of Elliott Smith. Some of you were there. I was very goalpost-movey about it, but the argument I ended up at was that Smith represents a signal advance in Beatlesesque pop from the power-pop niche (Badfinger, Big Star, which winds up in goofy, mannered stuff like these guys, who I saw give a great show at Poptopia in 1998) and there isn't anyone who really continues on in that mode.
Also some of you may recall this Michael Berube piece, which is on topic.
The clear implication here--and you don't have to be a literature Ph.D. to see it--is that a child with Down syndrome will never have the intellectual capacity to understand the Beatles' oeuvre, or even to understand that some songs preceded others, were written by different band members, and so forth.
Well, this is long, long overdue, but I owe Jamie one enormous apology: I couldn't have been more wrong.
and I don't think anyone would choose the White album over Abbey Road or Sgt. Pepper
I would; if I could bring only one album with me to the desert island, that would be it.
And my vote goes to McCartney. Even if you leave aside the amazing songs, just listen to the incredible bass lines he laid down.
McCartney vacationed in the Shetland Isles, that's about as close to an opinion/preference as I can get. I'm one of those people neb pigeonholed as being vaguely aware that Lennon is *supposed* to be the" "cool one".
Never went deep into the solo stuff but New from the last album is pure pop heaven.
Listening to this is weird because the voice is extremely recognizable but also, like, old.
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Who bought the tacky LA spec mansion? Notch! Of course, this means that someone has recreated it in minecraft.
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While we're talking about old English people who may or may not deserve their reputation, I'd like to interject with an anecdote slash complaint. My daughters' school happens to be in the constituency of the Home Secretary, and she came to give out the prizes at prize giving this week. And did a little speech, which was vacuous, fatuous, platitudinous shite. I mean, I don't like the woman, but generally those sorts of people have some natural charisma which is how they got to that position in the first place. But no. She had no notes, but off the cuff doesn't necessarily mean bad, but oh my fucking christ, it was horrendous. Tried to be inspirational to those leaving, all "be true to yourself" but don't forget "no man is an island" and "dare to be ambitious" whilst "not being afraid to fail" and went round and round in ever-increasingly-trite circles. Waffly, boring, and nonsensical. A possible leader of the country? One hates to think.
61: think we can use it for the next UnfoggeLAon? Not clear that you'd need to obtain the owner's permission or even awareness.
Actually, I quite like Lennon.
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Haven't done this for a long time:Obnoxious Random Playlist Dump!
Blackmore's Night;R L Burnside
Beatles - I'll Cry Instead
Alison Krauss;Gene Ammons;Billie Holiday;Beth Orton
Grant Green;Janet McGarry;Janis Ian;The Tear Garden
Amboy Dukes;Quasi;Sir Lord Baltimore;Coleman Hawkins
Laurie Lewis & Tom Rozum;Peter Stark;Tracy Chapman
Field Mice - And Before the First Kiss
Atomic Rooster - Death Walks Behind You
Small Faces;Roy Buchanan;Red House Painters
Orchids - Something for the Longing
Sonny Clark;Arthur Big Boy Crudup
Bonnie Raitt;Chuck Berry;Doris Troy
Beck;Sandy Salisbury;East River Pipe
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I could see Lennon maybe having an edge in the 90s, but the zeitgeist has basically buried him along with Jim Morrison
More of/on this, please. Your drive-by style is fantastic, I'd just like more handwaving, not a full unpacking unless you're ready with it. I think I know what you mean, just as I think I know why Sebald is middlebrow.
Blackbirds are diurnal. Just saying.
Did George Harrison write anything good as a Beatle?
Here Comes the Sun, Something, WMGGW
I kind of like Within You Without You too,
That one could seriously ask the question in 68 is shocking.
He also wrote the libertarian anthem, "Taxman".
And surely he should get some kind of credit for Have You Ever Loved a Woman on Layla.
72: No, it's not, nor is it disappointing or sad.
Like, everybody knows a lot of stuff, you know, and that they don't know what I know or like/love what I love no longer bothers me. There is no mass culture anymore or canons. There are a near infinite number of niches and subcultures. I ain't got time to rank or order them by quality.
Movies this month, partial:
Saura, Blindfolded Eyes;Oshima, Shiiku; Forman, Loves of a Blonde;Bourguigon, Sundays and Cybele
Current Anime: Noir, ordinary "girls with guns", La Femme Nikita stuff with 4-figure body counts
Natsume Yujincho Season 3: Teen interrelates with youkai. Get it, watch it with your kid (maybe 10+), you'll cry for happy. I guarantee it.
Episode 30 free on Crunchyroll
(And for those really not familiar, the "woman" in the song is Mr. Harrison's wife.)
WMGGW ->We Must Get Good and Wasted.
My ear has been blocked since yesterday's flight and it's making me unhappy. I can't get it to pop no matter what I try.
Reportedly, if you were an infant nursing would take care of this but alas I do not think it works for nursing mothers.
I mean, I don't like the woman, but generally those sorts of people have some natural charisma which is how they got to that position in the first place
Home Secretaries? Really? Straw? Blunkett? Howard?
Major parties don't really use primaries in the UK, so I imagine reaching a high cabinet position is more about making it up through the party hierarchy than anything else. Maybe charisma becomes mildly important for PM candidates.
I'm holding out for Paul McCartney to become Home Secretary.
Theresa May is the most mentioned candidate to become the next tory leader if Cameron loses the next election, that's why it's weird to hear she lacks basic politician skills.
I have a not-very-close friend who works directly for her and fucking worships her. He's very clever but I think the attraction there is the ruthlesness.
Ed mil/ib/and, on the other hand, is incredible as a prime minister. Think GW Bush without the charisma.
I'm inclined to take the "main writer" attributions in the link at 28 with a pinch of salt, at least for the early songs, but what it does do is remind me what a fantastic songwriter George Harrison was when he put his mind to it.
McCartney never wrote a song quite as sentimental and third rate as "Imagine". In fact very few people could manage that feat.
91. Open "Hymns Ancient and Modern" at random and you'll find dozens.
Actually, that's a very neat critique of Lennon. But I don't have a Hymns A&M around here. How could he have picked up that turgid and portentious sentimentality from a Catholic upbringing though? I ask from ignorance, since I have no idea what hymns the Liverpool Catholics sang.
How could he have picked up that turgid and portentious sentimentality . . .
He probably grew into it from being worshipped by the grossly sentimental wing of American hippies and RFKniks, especially after the bed-in.
Charisma is most definitely important for PM candidates, and Labour are crap at picking them on that basis. I like poor Ed (and always feel extra bad for his ineptness because we know an advisor's child very well) but surely he'll be out on his ear come May.
I wouldn't have thought you made it up through the party hierarchy without some skill in charming people. Blunkett's supposed to be good at that in person, isn't he?
I was expecting rather more polish. Although having heard her on "Desert Island Discs" recently, I dunno why.
Charisma is most definitely important for PM candidates, and Labour are crap at picking them on that basis. I like poor Ed (and always feel extra bad for his ineptness because we know an advisor's child very well) but surely he'll be out on his ear come May.
I wouldn't have thought you made it up through the party hierarchy without some skill in charming people. Blunkett's supposed to be good at that in person, isn't he?
I was expecting rather more polish. Although having heard her on "Desert Island Discs" recently, I dunno why.
just as I think I know why Sebald is middlebrow
I missed whatever the original comment was, but this reference to it made me guffaw.
My jaw aches now from trying to pop me ear.
Don't worry that kind of shit totally gets better with age.
My jaw aches now from trying to pop me ear.
Guess you found something to nurse on, per 82. Though perhaps more piratical in nature.
but surely he'll be out on his ear come May.
Why, they're 7 points ahead in the polls? He could well be PM.
How could he have picked up that turgid and portentious sentimentality . . .
Well, I study Japan ya know....and the timing is right
Maudlin at the top of their lungs alternating with a incomprehensible defensive rebellious victimhood describes much
Obviously asking if Harrison had written any good songs was a stupid question, but I was typing on my phone and being lazy. My point was that I didn't want to forget that Lennon and McCarthy weren't the only people writing songs for the Beatles. I like Harrison's stuff a lot. (well, I also admit to liking Yellow Submarine--even though it lacks artistic merit because summer camp memories.
Yellow Submarine is frowned upon?
As a third rate sentimentalist, I'll speak up for Imagine. And I'm not the only one. I hope some day you'll join us.
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So this date began at 3:30 pm yesterday. I am now in our hotel room which is booked for tonight as well. She's getting a change of clothes right now. We're about halfway through the date if everything goes to plan. That makes this date liveblogging. You're welcome.
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Sounds like a very happy solstice celebration. Do what you can to make sure the sun comes back this time.
Sounds like a successful date so far.
I don't think I have puts on any Beatles just to listen to in at least 10 years. Have we talked about the new D'Angelo album yet? Because oh man, is it fantastic.
107: Will do.
108: Sheesh, man. I'm blown away by how well this is going.
this reference to it made me guffaw
I know. Saddened when after 3 brilliant comments the other day, she decided she was being an asshole and quit.
I'm going to keep asking.
Yeah, in hindsight that was very peculiar and I think depended on my typing something jerky, deleting it without posting, and then deciding the whole series had been inexorably leading up to something damnable like "So does Mrs. Dalloway get a meta-trigger warning? Trigger mise-en-abîme?"
I think by "middlebrow" I basically just meant "shallow." I really enjoyed his hatchet job on Alfred Andersch, more because I can respect that kind of visceral hatred than anything else. Sebald would never have picked Lennon; bet he would have been on team Harrison. I actually just meant that I think Lennon's flaws are judged far more harshly than McCartney's now, whereas the reverse was the case around the time of his death, and earlier. But the sixties icon that seemed to get the most popular praise when I last checked is Dylan, which... kinda splits the difference? I have no idea.
I'll be scarce for the foreseeable future around here due to work crunch, daycare break, family vacation, etc. It's not you.
Well I still like Sebald. "And so they are ever returning to us, the snobs."
117 shouldn't be interpreted as aspersing lk! No aspersions meant! I just thought it was amusing!
I really enjoyed his hatchet job on Alfred Andersch, more because I can respect that kind of visceral hatred than anything else
I have poignant memories of that book, probably mostly adventitious. I was reading it on vacation in 2005, just as Katrina hit. For the next few days, and with the limited connectivity of those times, only scraps of information were reaching me. The scenes he painted, of mass populations wandering in shock, of the dead baby tumbling out of the dropped suitcase, seemed eerily consonant.
106: Wow, excellent. Enjoy yourself, you crazy kids.
I'm sitting in MSP right now using the free wifi and the woman next to me has a tiny puppy along with her. If any of you ever want to spend a couple hours interacting with a steady stream of excited strangers the answer is "puppy in an airport", seriously.
bob: you should watch no game no life, my girls and I are really enjoying it.
OP: lennon, but it's a less meaningful question than I used to think and mostly the beatles are excellent together though george harrison's all things must pass is the best post-breakup album. fucking #9, man, I heard that song for the first time when I was tripping. I could not understand what was happening.
My mum had All Things Must Pass and it was one of the first of her records I started investigating in my early teens, so I have a lot of affection for that.
fucking #9, man, I heard that song for the first time when I was tripping. I could not understand what was happening.
Now there's a situation that calls for a trigger warning.
If any of you ever want to spend a couple hours interacting with a steady stream of excited strangers
I cannot think of a thing less likely to be desired by the Unfoggedtariat.
Links on Sony:
broad, detailed overview
I'm still dubious about a connection to North Korea. Sony US basically didn't have technical staff.
Thoughts on No Game No Life
Good
Great studio, Madhouse;director has worked HER !!! way up to series control; some good credits (Nana, Monster, Hanamayata - full director here too)
Good reviews 8.67 on MAL
Screencaps look like visual madness, madness I say -- SD and Chibi and don't they have any restraint -- I like madness. Noir and Natsume are both relatively realistic, no chibi or sd, suits the material
Not so good
Dudes, can you like maybe dial back the color intensity down from 12 on a scale of ten?
lolicon pantsu? I will never admit to watching this.
Continuing, because "Nobody cares what you are into," but I don't care.
1) Probably more accurate is "loli panchira" and I do not go there. Anything with enough ecchi to get a subject tag at My Anime List is strenuously avoided. Not that I am a prude or mind sex and nudity, but not in comedy. Sex is not funny, dammit! I have never enjoyed dirty jokes or ribald humor.
2) Noir, for instance, although having two female leads, has little to no first order fanservice. 2nd order male gaze fanservice involves watching cute women mow down hordes of hulking brutes in suits and uniforms with glocks and uzis. I like that a lot.
3) As far as ecchi, moe, and fanservice, it is of course unavoidable in anime. I have thoughts about this, but probably not to share with an audience of American feminists. There are levels of irony and performativity of male gaze and objectification in Japanese popular culture that are hard to communicate.
4) Just opened a big big book of academic papers on BL, yaoi, and fujishi, looks mostly on production, distribution, and reception. Banzai! Like ten articles on LGBT perspectives on yaoi.
In America, at mainstream conventions, the yaoi/fujishi/slash community is shunted off to very late night, and age 18 restricted. Since the largest part of the BL audience is teenage girls, this does not work.
In Japan, on the main shopping street, they have fifty foot billboards with a 25 year old bishonen cuddling lustily a 16 year old boy, target audience young women.
I am interested in this contrast, and consider it too complicated and ideological as I said, to discuss with uninformed Americans.
5) One thing that is interesting is the terrible paucity of BL/fujishi anime (as opposed to manga and eroge). It is getting better, Free about a high school male swimming team got two seasons. Not much into sports animes. Chihayafuru, with a female competitive lead is very good.
I much preferred Ouran High School Club to any amount of T & A
If any of you ever want to spend a couple hours interacting with a steady stream of excited strangers
I cannot think of a thing less likely to be desired by the Unfoggedtariat.
Seconded.
Oh, hey, I meant to post this earlier: has everyone already heard "Imagine a Jump"? It's a mash-up of Lennon and Van Halen, and it works surprisingly well.
I guess it's "fujoshi" if romaji.
Helpfully translated at the start of my book by the American feminist as "female fan." Uh-huh. Right. This will be fun.
Dude in middle school trying to sneak a peak at the blousebuds, the twintailed (hairstyle) gamin who yells:"Don't you dare look at my breasts, you pervert!" is really blushing because she has been daydreaming about you screaming and crying underneath a male basketball team.
Feel guilty, guy? They've trained you well.