Please Please Me is better, but Love Me Do is still really good.

 

It has a great energy and spirit, but musically, it's very simple - bordering on basic. Doesn't mean it's bad or anything, though, of course. And it just shows how much the Beatles have grown as musicians and songwriters, when you compare Love Me Do and their later songs.

 

Yeah, I really do love their early stuff, but I love them more post squeaky clean bubblegum image. Reading tales of John beating the **** out of people in Hamburg and them taking speed to perform multiple shows while listening to Love Me Do is pretty funny.

 

I like a lot of their early work as well. As far as musically, that was the way rock was back in that time. Like the Beatles, it evolved.

 

Happy 72nd Birthday, John. Except I guess that whole being dead for 32 years will put a damper on the day.

 

Agreed.

 

Happy Birthday, John.

 

Anybody who really knows about the Beatles has to just laugh about the whole squeaky clean phase. That can be placed mostly in the lap of Brian Epstein regarding their image and George Martin regarding their music. I have a bootleg of outtakes from the Please Please Me album where Martin can be heard telling George to turn his amp down because there was too much "buzz" coming through - basically amp distortion. And if you'll listen to the live All Star Cub album from Hamburg, you can hear distorted guitars cranking out some primal sounding rock'n'roll. It's a shame that that didn't translate over to the studio, because Martin's early understanding of the Beatles music was to clean the tone of it up. It's okay though, because that collaboration turned out alright in the end.

 

He was the best post-Beatle though.

 

No, he wasn't. A close 3rd, though.

 

If he's third, he'd better be close.

 

Ringo in the number one slot, eh?

 

He was, until "Time takes time".

 

In order (solo, I mean)

George
John
Paul
Ringo

 

PGJR

 

I concur. John's a difficult case because he starts (and I'd say ends) so strongly, but a huge swath of his middle is just...look, I like Mind Games and Walls and Bridges as much as the next guy, but they're just so undistinguished.

 

Lennon's performance of 'Mother' (live in NYC, IIRC) > PGR

 

Concert for Bangladesh > Live in NYC (though they're both excellent).

 

Yay, my 2nd favourite living Beatle is touring here! First show since 1964. Seriously, I've been hoping he'd tour here for ages. His All-Starr Band shows are huge fun.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/music/7832190/Ringo-Starr-to-play-NZ-shows

 

i agree with you about john, but they're all pretty inconsistent "difficult cases" post-beatles. john and george wrote the songs i like the most after the beatles, while paul wrote the most songs that i like. but paul benefits from having released so much more material than the other two. i don't know, this is just a rambling way of saying i can't really rank them.

 

I would absolutely go and see Ringo in concert. If only to say I'd seen two Beatles perform. I'm sure it would be a fun night out, too.

 

Saw Ringo and his All Star band in 1992... great show. Honestly, I think I enjoyed Ringo's show more than I enjoyed Paul's (though they were both great).