re: Quincy Jones: Beatles Are The "Worst Musicians"; Michael Jackson "Stole Songs"

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Paul is perhaps the best combination of musicianship and skillful songwriting in history.

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From a market standpoint, Maca is arguably the most commercially successful musician of all time AND the most commercially successful songwriter of all time.

Yeah, popularity isn't everything, but it is going to be a long time before someone challenges that - you have folks who are great at songwriting (Dylan), but struggle for mainstream commercial success as a performer. You have folks that redefined what being a recording artist means (Elvis), but was not a particularly good or prolific songwriter.

Michael Jackson was a vocalist, performer and songwriter, but not the musician that McCartney was/is. Prince was probably the closest (certainly a better guitarist), but obviously his commercial success isn't quite up to Beatles level (and few are).

This is an area where you explain to folks why the Eagles were probably way better than folks want to admit - they had tier 1 guitarists at various times (Felder and Walsh), and Bernie was a Tier 1 banjo player, PLUS they delivered hit song after hit song that they mostly wrote, although they had habitual collaborators like J.D. Souther.

I don't think any of them were virtuosic musicians in the way that Steve Vai or Victor Wooten are such technicians that they are practically stuntmen on their instruments, but that was never what they were about anyway.

I do like the interview where Frank Zappa got pissed at Lennon for taking credit for King Kong when they jammed together though.

He's right. The Beatles are awful.

QJ is obviously no longer relevant and what better way to get some publicity in his old age than to trash The Beatles and MJ. What an asinine and foolish thing to say. Maybe The Beatles weren't the Best technical musicians as compared to some of the jazz musicians QJ worked with but not many rock musicians are. I would say Paul was the most talented playing bass, piano, drums and guitar. He played every instrument on his first solo album "Cherries". Contrary to some opinions on this board, Harrison was the better guitarist who also played the sitar and was an excellent slide guitar player, playing on Alvin Lee's " The Bluest Blues"," Helter Skelter", and on many of his solo songs.. Lennon was adequate on rhythm, played lead on several songs and also played 6 string bass, piano and harmonica. He also plays the lap steel guitar on "For You Blue". Ringo was always underrated, partially because he looked a little goofy being left-handed playing on a right-handed kit. He may not have been great but he was definitely not bad as can be seen in the early days playing " Long Tall Sally", and he was a perfect fit for The Beatles. My point is, The Beatles weren't the Best musicians but far from "The Worst" as QJ stated. Sounds like to me QJ is still a little butt-hurt from when he was a producer for Mercury Records in the early to mid 60's and producing artists like Lesley Gore of "It's My Party" fame and The Beatles came along and kicked everyone's arse from 1964-1970. What some irrelevant people will say for ATTENTION!

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So what if the Beatles weren't the greatest musicians. They got a lot better as they went on and wrote some of the best songs ever recorded. Don't think Quincy would argue with that.

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This. We can make fun of Ringo and songs like "I Wanna Hold Your Hand", but very also had an "Eleanor Rigby", oh and "Hey Jude", and "Helter Skelter", and "Happiness is a Warm Gun", and "I Want You (She's So Heavy)", and "Dear Prudence", and dozens of other incredible songs most bands can only dream of having written.

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I just don’t understand how people can like music and not respect the Beatles.

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I don't understand why people are so defensive about the Beatles.

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I don't understand why people are so defensive about the Beatles.

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It’s one thing for their music to not be your cup of tea. My guess is most of those people didn’t give them the chance they deserve, but I digress. But most of the criticism I have ever heard falls into the hater category. Like they weren’t good “musicians”. Ok, then how did they become the most famous band ever?

They objectively changed the landscape of modern music. Where they may have lacked in technical prowess, as a group, they were genius recorders of music. Not only are the compositions strong, they pioneered the way music is recorded and set a new bar that all of their peers were challenged by. They made everyone better whether you like it or not.

For that reason, I don’t understand how people cannot respect them as musicians and the music they created.

He's a very bitter old man.

The knocking of The Beatles is insane. They were all very good to great musicians.

John was a phenomenal acoustic player, as witnessed and repeated several times by Earl Slick and Phil Spector. Paul was a fantastic bass player and pretty damn good guitarist in his own right. George simply got better through the years.

Not to mention Quincy Jones never met anyone who was half the songwriters Lennon and McCartney were.

The comments are rooted in petty jealousy.

And I couldn't care less if Brando and Prior were flamers and sucked each other off or Michael Jackson was a queer hack. I'm pretty sure that's been common knowledge for a long time.

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"Technically" Maca wasn't the greatest bass player

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I can’t honestly take you seriously. He’s one of the most influential bassists to pick up the instrument. Study his bass lines. They are simple but full of melody like he had piano parts in his head and chopped them out on his hofner or rickenbacker

uh yes