John Lennon's Coolness to Pete Townshend
Feb 28, 2018 16:46:39 GMT
Post by antiram on Feb 28, 2018 16:46:39 GMT
There is so much stupidity in this thread, that it almost isn't worth parsing.
So, instead, I will reproduce Pete Townshend's review of Tug of War, which some SHite was kind enough to poat:
Rolling Stone: I've been listening to Tug of War, Paul McCartney's new album. It may be the best thing he's done in a while – it sounds real nice. But it seems to have virtually nothing to do with rock & roll.
Townshend: Do you think he ever really had anything to do with rock & roll?
Rolling Stone: Well . . . .
Townshend: No, he never did. You know, I could sit down and have a conversation with Paul about rock & roll, and we'd be talking about two different things. He's got a couple of years on me, but it could be ten years, we're so different. If he talks about rock & roll, I think he is talking about Little Richard. Whereas I don't think Little Richard mattered, you know?
But one of the reasons I'm excited about Paul's latest project is because it's him and George Martin working together again; because he's making a conscious effort to really get into serious record-making, rather than pissin' about in home studios – which I, for one, think he's terrible at. When "Ebony and Ivory" came out, everybody was saying, "Christ, have you heard it? It's terrible." Well, I heard it, and I thought it was fuckin' amazing! I thought, "That's it, that's McCartney!" He's actually taken black and white, put a bit of tinsel around it, managed by hook or by crook to get Stevie Wonder to sing it, sit on black and white piano keys on a video . . . . It's wonderful! It's gauche! It's Paul McCartney!
I've always said that I've never been a big fan of the Beatles: to me rock was the Stones, and before that Chuck Berry, and before that, maybe a few people who lived in fields in Louisiana. But I can't really include the Beatles in that. The Beatles were over with Herman's Hermits. That's not rock & roll. I was always very confused about the American attitude of thinking that the Beatles were rock & roll. Because they were such a big pop phenomenon. I've always enjoyed some of their stuff as light music, with occasional masterpieces thrown in. But with a lot of their things, you can't dig very deep. Either you come up against Lennon's deliberately evading what it is that he's trying to say, so it's inscrutable, or Paul McCartney's self-imposed shallowness, because he sees music as being . . . I mean, he's a great believer in pop music, I think. But I wonder whether McCartney, perhaps, rests a little bit on the laurels of the Beatles.
This is a valid, articulate, and pretty accurate portrait of McCartney and the Beatles. He really hits a few nails squarely on the head here. Frankly, it is perfectly reasonable to argue that the Beatles weren't so much a rock group as they were a pop phenomenon. Townshend has a concept of rock music that jibes with that of many other people's: a lineage that runs from the blues to Chuck Berry to the Rolling Stones. The Beatles are irrelevant to that lineage. One could disagree with that, but it isn't a crackpot idea.
For my money, Tug of War is an awful album in which the fan favorites are millionaire songs about sailing on a yacht and the exchange rate of the pound (think about that for a minute!), and the rest is larded up with guest duets and his embarrassingly clumsy ode to his fallen partner.
Townshend is more charitable. However, he makes the argument that it isn't rock music (which it sure isn't, boy), and he gets snarky about "Ebony and Ivory" which deserves all the snark it can get...
So, all and all, a fair review. When Townshend's brain was functioning, he had a knack for articulating some pretty good middlebrow analysis of the state of music. This is a pretty interesting quote.
Do the Beatards see it that way? Of course not.
This is how Beatles fans respond to any critique of the Fabbies, no matter how intelligent. Instead of perhaps making a case that Little Richard is relevant to the story, and that Paul is following an alternate rock trajectory, or maybe arguing that "rock" is not the be-all and end-all, or perhaps even stating that "Ebony and Ivory" was a bold moral statement in a time of uneasy race relations, the SHite Beatard goes straight for the ad hominem. Townshend is a drunk, therefore his opinions are rubbish.
There are days when I think the Beatles would have become hairdressers instead if they had only known how closed-minded and stupid their fans would become.
forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/john-lennons-coolness-to-pete-townshend.653256/
So, instead, I will reproduce Pete Townshend's review of Tug of War, which some SHite was kind enough to poat:
Rolling Stone: I've been listening to Tug of War, Paul McCartney's new album. It may be the best thing he's done in a while – it sounds real nice. But it seems to have virtually nothing to do with rock & roll.
Townshend: Do you think he ever really had anything to do with rock & roll?
Rolling Stone: Well . . . .
Townshend: No, he never did. You know, I could sit down and have a conversation with Paul about rock & roll, and we'd be talking about two different things. He's got a couple of years on me, but it could be ten years, we're so different. If he talks about rock & roll, I think he is talking about Little Richard. Whereas I don't think Little Richard mattered, you know?
But one of the reasons I'm excited about Paul's latest project is because it's him and George Martin working together again; because he's making a conscious effort to really get into serious record-making, rather than pissin' about in home studios – which I, for one, think he's terrible at. When "Ebony and Ivory" came out, everybody was saying, "Christ, have you heard it? It's terrible." Well, I heard it, and I thought it was fuckin' amazing! I thought, "That's it, that's McCartney!" He's actually taken black and white, put a bit of tinsel around it, managed by hook or by crook to get Stevie Wonder to sing it, sit on black and white piano keys on a video . . . . It's wonderful! It's gauche! It's Paul McCartney!
I've always said that I've never been a big fan of the Beatles: to me rock was the Stones, and before that Chuck Berry, and before that, maybe a few people who lived in fields in Louisiana. But I can't really include the Beatles in that. The Beatles were over with Herman's Hermits. That's not rock & roll. I was always very confused about the American attitude of thinking that the Beatles were rock & roll. Because they were such a big pop phenomenon. I've always enjoyed some of their stuff as light music, with occasional masterpieces thrown in. But with a lot of their things, you can't dig very deep. Either you come up against Lennon's deliberately evading what it is that he's trying to say, so it's inscrutable, or Paul McCartney's self-imposed shallowness, because he sees music as being . . . I mean, he's a great believer in pop music, I think. But I wonder whether McCartney, perhaps, rests a little bit on the laurels of the Beatles.
For my money, Tug of War is an awful album in which the fan favorites are millionaire songs about sailing on a yacht and the exchange rate of the pound (think about that for a minute!), and the rest is larded up with guest duets and his embarrassingly clumsy ode to his fallen partner.
Townshend is more charitable. However, he makes the argument that it isn't rock music (which it sure isn't, boy), and he gets snarky about "Ebony and Ivory" which deserves all the snark it can get...
So, all and all, a fair review. When Townshend's brain was functioning, he had a knack for articulating some pretty good middlebrow analysis of the state of music. This is a pretty interesting quote.
Do the Beatards see it that way? Of course not.
Thread starter Gersh wrote:
There are times (many) I don't get Pete. How could the guy who wrote Tommy and Quadrophenia speak such rubbish? Maybe he was drunk at the time?
There are times (many) I don't get Pete. How could the guy who wrote Tommy and Quadrophenia speak such rubbish? Maybe he was drunk at the time?
This is how Beatles fans respond to any critique of the Fabbies, no matter how intelligent. Instead of perhaps making a case that Little Richard is relevant to the story, and that Paul is following an alternate rock trajectory, or maybe arguing that "rock" is not the be-all and end-all, or perhaps even stating that "Ebony and Ivory" was a bold moral statement in a time of uneasy race relations, the SHite Beatard goes straight for the ad hominem. Townshend is a drunk, therefore his opinions are rubbish.
There are days when I think the Beatles would have become hairdressers instead if they had only known how closed-minded and stupid their fans would become.
forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/john-lennons-coolness-to-pete-townshend.653256/
