Paul McCartney vs. John Lennon? by billybobfromupabove?!
Question: mccarteny. FYI when someone dies, they become OVERRATED, just look at lennon, cobain and hendrix.
Answers: mccarteny. FYI when someone dies, they become OVERRATED, just look at lennon, cobain and hendrix.
Please...no contest. John Lennon wrote songs that meant something. Paul had the better voice but his writing is a bit sappy for this ole' rocker.
Paul McCartney hands down, he wrote almost every Beatles hit there is, plus he has a better voice and he's a better musician. People overrate Lennon just because he died.
John Lennon......by far
john lennon
mccartney had the voice but lennon had the talent and passion.
John. No Comparison.
Paul. I think he has a better voice but they're both great musicians.
That's easy. By any other standards, Paul is amazing, but John... is the most genius rock musician of all time.
George Harrison
Lennon is overrated and McCartney's a wuss.
Both were great singers, songwriters and musicians. Together they made some of the greatest music of the 20th century. In their solo work, McCartney has been the most successful (even before Lennon's life was cut short), but then his music has always been more accessible, and Lennon took a six year hiatus from putting out records before his fateful last album, Double Fantasy.
McCartney's melodies always seem to be catchy, with great hooks, while Lennon's at times could be hard to figure out (to me there's essentially no melody until the chorus of 'Give Peace a Chance', 'Cold Turkey'/'Beef Jerky', 'Come Together', 'I Am the Walrus' and others). Often his melody lines were thin and a bit too repetitive, even though, as a whole, his songs were great.
On the other hand, Lennon's lyrics had a depth and worldliness that McCartney could never capture. His songs were about issues that mattered to a whole generation of people ('Imagine', 'Give Peace a Chance', 'Revolution', 'Happy Xmas (War is Over)', 'Attica State', 'I Don't Want to be a Soldier', et al) while McCartney's were about almost inconsequential scenes ('Penny Lane', 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da', 'Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey', 'Venus and Mars', 'Someone's Knocking at the Door') or comic book characters ('Magneto & Titanium Man'). Even his darkest lyrics ('Eleanor Rigby', 'Yesterday', 'Lady Madonna') just set a scene, but don't give us any context or resolution to hold on to. Yet I love these songs!
Both wrote extensively about love of course, and both were brilliant at conjuring up feelings related to relationships, but here again McCartney's words tend to be light and naive ('My Love' ("does it good"), 'With a Little Luck', 'When I'm 64') while Lennon's are deep and full of pain, if not passion ("No Reply", "I'm A Loser", "I Don't Want to Spoil the Party", "Jealous Guy", "Julia", "Woman").
So I don't think the answer is simple and straightforward. McCartney wrote lyrical tunes without much weight, Lennon wrote simple melodies with multilayered, insightful lyrics. I respect the latter but listen more often to the former. Was one better than the other? I don't know that it matters. I'm just thankful that the two met up with George and Ringo and decided to write songs together. We are all more enriched because of Lennon and McCartney.