| More Popular than Jesus 09:30 - Dec 9 with 2625 views | spooner |
34 years ago.
Why???
Gimme Some Truth | | | |  |
| More Popular than Jesus on 09:50 - Dec 9 with 2612 views | Hannibal_de_Seaside |
If it hadn't happened we can only imagine what could have been. | | | |
| More Popular than Jesus on 10:32 - Dec 9 with 2597 views | 1966_and_all_that |
I've been a huge Lennon fan since I first got interested in pop music back in 1969 and, like others, I too have wondered what he would have gone on to do if he hadn't been killed. In the short term I don't think his comeback would have been successful. However, I do believe that he would have made an excellent return at Live Aid 84 in America and that this would have kick-started his career again,possibly via a world tour. In the long term though, I think his star would have waned again by the early 90s. Hopefully he would have had the sense to bow out gracefully or turn his hand to other ventures if he were to remain in the public eye - perhaps with a final 'Beatles' appearance at George Harrison's Albert Hall remembrance concert.
Of course, we all do this kind of hindsight stuff: what would Elvis have gone on to do if he'd kept off the burgers? Would James Dean's acting career have lived up to the early promise in those first three films? Would Kennedy and Khrushchev have eventually precipitated WW3? | | | |
| More Popular than Jesus on 06:22 - Dec 11 with 2512 views | BigHandsOliverKahn |
Did like his songs though. Think we were robbed of some classics by his early departure. | | | |
| More Popular than Jesus on 10:59 - Dec 11 with 2489 views | basilrobbiereborn |
At his best when writing with McCartney. Some of their stuff was wonderful. But in "Imagine" he inflicted one of the worst songs of all time on a defenceless public. | |
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| More Popular than Jesus on 11:30 - Dec 11 with 2486 views | Hannibal_de_Seaside |
With that reply I'm not sure how much of his post-Beatles work you are familiar with Robbie. On the Imagine album there is some outstanding work (even if you don't like the title track), a mixture of the very best of love songs, brilliant self-examination (e.g. Crippled Inside) and some ascerbic tracks holding the mirror up to the establishment for them to see how corrupt and misguided they (we?) are. He built on this with Mind Games and Walls and Bridges, but perhaps the best work came in patches on the two infuriatingly inconsistent albums Some Time in New York City and John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band.
Had he been spared I'm sure he would have continued to produce the same range of honesty and depth that gave us the likes of Working Class Hero and Mother in the early days. Lennon's songs were often challenging and hard to listen to, and at times misguided, but by heck we could do with some artists like him now to challenge the obscenities that exist in this country, the USA and many other parts of the world. And to tell us off for not doing more about it ourselves. | | | |
| More Popular than Jesus on 11:36 - Dec 11 with 2482 views | basilrobbiereborn |
You're probably right HdS, you clearly know far more about his career than I ever will. I just find that one particular song hard to forgive. I've filed him under "Lampard". | |
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| More Popular than Jesus on 17:56 - Dec 11 with 2437 views | 1966_and_all_that |
One of the great things about Lennon for me was that he was a very interesting person. He always had something to say and was articulate about it. In the 'swinging' London of the 1960s, when the Beatles were in their pomp he gravitated to the likes of Peter Cook and Richard Lester without ever becoming part of a 'set'....as didn't George Harrison when he buddied up with the Pythons.
This is the sort of cross-cultural and intellectually stimulating personality that seems to be missing from so many celebrity media-people in our pre-packaged, buy one X-factor clone, get one free, age. Not that I deny their talent. There are some really good singers and show people out there but what's behind the PR-trained smile when you poke it with a stick? We should, perhaps, be thankful that we've still got Billy Bragg and Ian Hislop putting in the occasional Question Time and writing stuff like the Wipers Times - excellent TV drama!), but they're hardly spring chickens. | | | |
| More Popular than Jesus on 18:09 - Dec 11 with 2429 views | Plumbs |
It summed up the feelings at the time Robbie when ordinary people were making a stand about wars in foreign lands-something that resonates now for those who care.
I'd have thought his 'Plastic' Ono band would have resonated with you,seeing as you dont care to live in the Blackpool community? | |
| Real fans go to pubs like the HITW or the Welly |
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| More Popular than Jesus on 18:47 - Dec 11 with 2414 views | straightatthewall |
If he wasn't dead, his stuff wouldn't be considered that good. Same for Morrison, Hendrix, Barrett, Cobain and Gately.
If he was alive now Lennon would be wishing he was Noel Gallagher. | |
| We got Bogdanovic, Oyston got very rich |
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| More Popular than Jesus on 20:46 - Dec 11 with 2384 views | Plumbs |
A lot wont agree with that satw and will look back in anger a your post. | |
| Real fans go to pubs like the HITW or the Welly |
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| More Popular than Jesus on 17:55 - Dec 12 with 2336 views | Lala |
'If he wasn't dead, his stuff wouldn't be considered that good'
First time you've made me chukcle without trying I think - seriously disagree with you there SATW, and if I didn't have womanflu I would bottom this out with you right now, but too tired....will re-visit thread next week.
Edit - but doubt I will be as thorough as Archie.. [Post edited 12 Dec 2014 18:03]
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| More Popular than Jesus on 18:00 - Dec 12 with 2334 views | ArchibaldKnox |
Now that is a very broad brush indeed, SATW, dismissing such figures for failing to grow old and eventually disappointing us.
I think out of the selection you made, Lennon and Morrison had their wilder excesses somewhat controlled by the excellent support they had in their bands. And so were able to channel moments of genius through to true musical innovation with that support. IMHO, the Doors as a band were, individually and instrument for instrument, more talented than the Beatles. Lennon and McCartney wrote collaboratively at first then competitively but they were helped greatly by George Martin and often 'presented' their song ideas to the other band members. It was a duo that Lennon was forced to compete in, and I think he decided to leave when he realised McCartney was writing the musically better songs in the latter years of the band, His ego was too big for that, as he had earlier been the lead partner in everything. But comparing him unfavourably with Gallagher, the plagiarist, is a little harsh.
The Doors were more improvisational and I think were a much deeper collaboration, working up songs together for hours on end, with Krieger/Densmore being influenced by jazz, and Manzarek by classical and ethnic music as well. Of course, Botnick was the sound engineer who fused it together (and, earlier, he had produced Love's first three albums, inc. Forever Changes, which is awesome). Morrison was less of a musician and more the lyricist or poet, sometimes pretentious, but never short of imagery. And these images were set to music-scapes largely by Manzarek and Densmore with Krieger able to do his thing over the top. The Doors were altogether cooler, more in touch with people, and using passion not 'cleverness' as the Beatles did. There seemed to be more soul in the Doors' music and they spoke to me whereas the Beatles never did. Morrison as a poet did seem to burn out in the last year, but the booze had a lot to do with that. He could have come back after a rest (though he seemed to like the isolation), and the Doors were never the same without him, even though they tried out Iggy Pop as a replacement.
Hendrix and Cobain, however, dragged their colleagues (both bands were 3-pieces) along a new path by the force of their musical vision. At that time Hendrix the guitarist was a revelation. He was happy doing cover versions as well as his own, but bent them out of shape and created completely new effects. He had developed these over many years playing in show bands on the road. Constant touring honed his skills. Cobain had a personal tortured vision which he was able to turn into words. Both flared brightly and quickly. I think Hendrix would have gone much further as he was experimenting with jazz fusion at his death, but I suspect Cobain had burnt out very quickly what he had inside.
I don't think I can regard Syd Barrett and Gately (Stephen???) in the same breath at all. In fact the Floyd prospered when Barrett left (was sacked) because they worked more as a team rather than supporting Barrett's increasingly fragile ideas. But the one musician who very nearly had the same level of greatness at that time was Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac. The stuff he was doing in the late 60s/early 70's was blues extraordinaire. Sadly, his mental collapse robbed us of his virtuosity almost as effectively as death. | | | |
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