Sir Paul McCartney Rocks the Super Bowl!

[Styxx]

Staring off with "Drive My Car" into "Get Back Joe" , on the way to "Live And Let Die" and toping off with "Hey Jude"! My kind of half time show! The man still has it and more. Was I excited to see one of my all time idols who kicked me off into this business in 1964! Yes, I am and ever will be a devoted Beatle fan. Just wish Ringo was on drums or better yet ... me!:D

[EricWatkins]

I agree Styxx. He is awesome. But I really think that he should have torn his shirt just a bit to show off a little chest at the end of the last song.

[Styxx]

I was waiting for that, Excellent!:D

[Jaibulu]

I don't understand why people make a big deal about Paul McCartney. All he does is live off his old Beatles music. He hasn't written anything worthy of modern music in 30 years! He had his time, he's washed up in my opinion. Same goes for Rolling Stones, how many people really know music from the last Rolling Stones album. People only know Satisfaction and other tunes from the past. It is great that these guys are still making money but in truth I believe they are extremely over rated.

[FredProgGH]

I don't understand why people make a big deal about Paul McCartney. All he does is live off his old Beatles music. He hasn't written anything worthy of modern music in 30 years! He had his time, he's washed up in my opinion.
That's like sayng "that Shakespere guy, he just lives off of the reputation of those plays he wrote. What has he done RECENTLY??" :D

[Styxx]

I don't understand why people make a big deal about Paul McCartney. All he does is live off his old Beatles music. True, but then again so is everyone else! At least he is entitled to! :)
Wait, not entirely true. A lot of "Paul McCartney's" music was written after the Beatles break up “Live And Let Die” to name just one. Regardless, I couldn't see going to any of his concerts or for that matter the super bowl without expecting to hear at least one Beatle song by one of THE ORIGINAL WRITERS of Beatles! Be that it may, there is no denying the fact that man will go down in music history as one of the greatest Rock n Roll song writers of our time. As a matter of fact, in college we studied the colorations McCartney and Lennon had in there understanding of style to that of Beethoven, Mozart, and the rest. The findings were surprising. Yes, I am a fan and always will be. Before the Beatles hit the carts I never new music could be so entertaining and fascinating.
As for the Rolling Stones, well ... if it weren't for the "British Invasion" of the 60's sparked by The Beatles, they may not have ever been known. I was never particularly fond of them but they are interesting to watch. There's always Michael Jackson! Who knows, maybe Michael will revise Elvis's "Jail House Rock"!:D

[Jaibulu]

Usually great composers music mature as they do. Unfortunately Paul McCartney has not matured with modern day music. In other words he is not the future of music, he is the past of the 60's and 70's. Like I said, as long as he can make money that is great for him.

[Styxx]

Usually great composers music mature as they do. Unfortunately Paul McCartney has not matured with modern day music. In other words he is not the future of music, he is the past of the 60's and 70's. Like I said, as long as he can make money that is great for him.
Modern day music? What "modern music" may that be? Anyway, not disputing the fact that he makes money off of his music. My point is, so does everyone else! And, I see you do agree he is a "Great Composer". :)

[Jaibulu]

I think you know what modern day music of today is. The media keeps these people alive when in truth they are just a ghost of the past. Not to say that the music they have written is bad, it is just that they live in that era. By the way I know Beatles music, own many records, but live in modern reality.

[Styxx]

Well to be perfectly honest I am not sure what is considered "modern" today. What would you suggest and I am not being facetious maybe you could enlighten me.

[Alan Lastufka]

Styxx,

For you I would suggest Taking Back Sunday, best of the modern bands right now. I would also suggest you pick up some Modest Mouse and a band called Brand New. Those are all good.

I've also been listening to some Mars Volta recently, they are a throw back to some of the Floyd sounds, but with a modern edge. Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails are always great with everything they put out.

And for those days I'm feeling like having more fun with music I put on Alkaline Trio or Dashboard Confessional or The Get-Up Kids.

[Styxx]

Thanks Alan I appreciate the suggestions. My son says he has anything I need and want to listen to. I have Nine Inch Nails and a few others plus my daughters have Dashboard Confessional. Should be quite interesting and hopefully they are all beyond the I IV V I of most bands.

[Alan Lastufka]

...hopefully they are all beyond the I IV V I of most bands.

Well then you should check out Modest Mouse and Taking Back Sunday. The others I mentioned for their lyric abilities, but they are rock/pop bands, just like the Beatles were. ;)

Taking Back Sunday on the other hand has two lead vocalists dueling it out through most of the songs making for some very interesting layers.

And Modest Mouse is hard to describe but check out "Good News For People Who Love Bad News", especially track 9 for something different sounding and track 14 for their best song IMO.

[mistahamma]

I think you know what modern day music of today is. The media keeps these people alive when in truth they are just a ghost of the past. Not to say that the music they have written is bad, it is just that they live in that era. By the way I know Beatles music, own many records, but live in modern reality.

I'll happily keep "that era" of music alive, with all the marketing-produced, autotuned-to-death, hyper-compressed, commercially-driven drool that passes as music in "modern reality."

Sir Paul and crew were awesome as usual, and gotta dig Abe Laboriel, Jr. on the skins! Excellent show!

Jim

[Styxx]

and gotta dig Abe Laboriel, Jr. on the skins! Yeah, he really did an outstanding job behind McCartney who I've read is quite obsessive when it comes to players performing his music right.

[Jaibulu]

Thanks Alan. Anyways, to each his own. I respect everybody's opinion and like I said, it is great that he is still making money...and lots of it!

[Styxx]

Well that was a nice break from the ordinary. So, whom else can we debate?:D

[FredProgGH]

With all due respect, this wonderful new modern music you're into would not exist had it not been for Paul and The Beatles. So you should be treating any performance by him like going to church. Sure, Paul has actually written mostly garbage for the last 30 years but that doesn't change the fact that his output prior to that is pretty much destined to outshine and outlive anything that the rest of us here are really likely to ever do :D :D

[Drew Buchan]

his output prior to that is pretty much destined to outshine and outlive anything that the rest of us here are really likely to ever do :D :D

I reckon everyone is thinking ..... "So true. Except for me and my as yet undiscoverd masterpieces" ;)

[Jaibulu]

With all due respect, this wonderful new modern music you're into would not exist had it not been for Paul and The Beatles.

That's funny. I can play the chain game and say Beatles wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Robert Johnson, or Bach, or whatever name you like in the past. Beatles had their time and since then Paul has not produced anything at the same level. At least a band like U2 that has been around for 20 years is still in the active music world, not that I am a big fan of their music but respect them more than Paul. Paul is media hype, he's washed up.

[Styxx]

Yeah, yeah, yeah ... :D

[bye]

"he's washed up"

was he zest fully clean?

[provette82]

Same goes for Rolling Stones, how many people really know music from the last Rolling Stones album. ((Quote))
---------------------------------------------------------------------

The Stones will and have outlasted all of the last 3 decades' groups compositions and performances of talentless hacks who are "one tune wonders". If you think the current crop of "teenie boppers" are the future of pop music, then lets collectively all bend over and kiss it goodbye. The highways and airwaves are littered with them. Exciting talent is not always manifested in the young as they don't have a point of reference - sadly most of what I'm hearing these days I heard in one form or another in the 60s thru 80s, only the costumes have changed.

"P"

[Alan Lastufka]

For me its Pink Floyd or nothing. :p

[trentpmcd]

The arguments started again - good - now it's time to shake up both sides :D

I think if you take an honest look at it, mainstream rock and pop has changed very little since Sir Paul was relevant. Maybe the addition of rap/hip-hop to mainstream rock – that started in the 80s – but little else. Sure, there is most likely new stuff happening at the fringes (there always has been), but very little filters back to the mainstream.

OK, there are differences in production and in equipment. And differences in the sound come and go (now tangy, now fuzzy, now tight, now loose and jamming), however these are just taste - any differences in the music itself? Not much. (It surprises me when a young person thinks the older rock is boring or an older person thinks the new music is noise – the only difference between the two is a little surface paint based on the current fad. Most people only see the surface trappings of the music, and defend that fashion choice to the death, and don’t seem to see the music itself.)

I always laugh when I hear how innovative the Grunge movement was – their music (and their clothing) was just a rehash of styles popular in the 70s with a new, harsher attitude. New faces and a new attitude playing the same old music and wearing exactly the same clothes I was wearing in 79 (never understood why the press considered it such a fashion statement). I will give the movement credit for saving rock – there was no redeeming quality in any mainstream music from 1988 – 1992 that I could see, with the possible exception of REM.

The late 90s seemed to repeat the cycle of the late 80s – no redeeming qualities.

Back in early 2002 I went to a record store and bought almost every CD I could find that was copywrited since 2000 and was from a band I had never heard of, something like 60 or 70 CDs. I spent weeks listening to each one over and over. I could not find one thing that sounded different, even on the indie labels, and nothing that inspired me. I haven’t tried to listen to pop or rock since then.

I’ll admit, I haven’t listen to most of the bands Alan mentioned. I do really like Radiohead, but don’t think they’ve carried rock as far to the fringes as some would think – not nearly as far as, say, Robert Fripp or Brian Eno (or any of the couple dozen prog-rockers I could mention) did in the 70s. And by the time the Radiohead sound gets filtered down to pop radio with, say, Cold Play (to my ears just a watered down pop version of Radiohead), there is very little difference between what they do and whats been done 10,000 times before with the exception of a little different veneer – no difference in the music itself.

The Beatles did something unique – they didn’t move the fringe forward, they moved the mainstream forward. Others have done it, but have they gone as far as The Fab Four? (Listen to Meet the Beatle, follow it with Sgt. Peppers and then with Abbey Road then let me know if pop music has ever changed quite as much in any other 6 or 7 year period of time.)

Except for a small handful on the fringe, pop/rock doesn’t really change much. When it does, there is almost always a backlash that sends it back to its roots, like the one that killed prog-rock. One thing I’ve noticed that happens is people get tired of the same people doing the same thing, so every generation there is a new revolution in pop/rock music. Almost all of the artists are replaced and there is a new sound. Only it is really just an old sound repackaged with fresh new voices and fresh faces with a slightly different paint job doing the same old, same old.

Anyone out there I missed offending? Let me know and I’ll try again. :D

[EricWatkins]

Sorry Trent, I'm still not offended. You'll have to try a bit harder next time. I really think that we should spend less time criticizing other forms of music. I was born in 69 and therefore missed the Beatles hype but have a serious appreciation for what they contributed. We should leave the criticism for the critics.....and what a lonely job that must be. It really comes down to the fact that music is very personal to everyone in different ways and styles. Every song means something very significant to someone out there. Music is just too subjective for me to stick my neck out there and say that anyone artist is any less important than any other. I have my own personal taste for what moves me but I dont deny that 50 cent's latest single really just spoke to someone deep down. When I was growing up in the 80s, I got stuck in the rut of dissing every other band that wasnt Rush or VanHalen or something along those lines. Finally my wife kicked me in the head enough times to make me realize that all music has a place and an audience and that audience is no less significant than I. Sure the media picks and chooses who gets the brass ring but if you think that noone else in that superbowl audience was enjoying Paul's performance other than his agent and the record company executives, you're mistaken.

By the way, dont listen to Paul on that one lyric. We should actually live and let live......and let people live without thinking that thier personal taste in music has to be a guilty pleasure.

Peace

[Daag Nabbott]

Yo, Eric! Well said!

[Styxx]

Like, how many of you were there in 1964 when they hit the charts? Some much changed so fast it was mesmerizing! I remember liking music and listening to the radio whenever dad wasn't home. We would listen to Rock a Billy, ya know, Elvis, Chuck Berry and others and it was OK but seemed to lack excitement. Bill Haley and The Comets, and mostly the crooners Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and so on. When the Beatles hit it was something brand new! Four guys playing together, singing and with styles totally unheard of and everyone seemed to say, what? I want to play like that! As almost as if in one day there were British Bands popping up left and right with that "Beatles" statement painted all over them or die trying! Don't forget, McCartney and Lennon wrote hits songs for other British pop singers as well. Jerry and the Pacemakers - "Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying."
Wait a minute. I feel as if I am prone to justify my taste and likes in music. I really don't care what everyone else thinks of whom ever musically past or present. I like what I like and that's me. I like that you like what you like and that's me too! It's cool. Just restating a fact. Paul McCartney Rocked the Super Bowl last night. Even my wife who really can take the Beatles or leave them, was shocked at how well his opening song sounded! The man sang like Paul McCartney and not like a has been with a so so voice!
It is written that to call any form of music "good music" it must withstand the test of time! I believe twenty years was the average time cycle.

By the way, I am spinning Sex Pistols as I write this!:D

[trentpmcd]

Eric, stop making sense! (no, not the Talking Heads) – You are taking the fun out of being cynical! :)

[UNIX_GURU]

For me its Pink Floyd or nothing

Hehe, I was bring them up as well as Yes (the best band of all time) and Genesis, though as for Sir Paul you do have to give it to him that he has kept his voice in very good shape (he is somewhat older than I) and still puts on a good show. Live and let die was great! :cool:

[FredProgGH]

That's funny. I can play the chain game and say Beatles wouldn't exist if it wasn't for Robert Johnson, or Bach, or whatever name you like in the past. Beatles had their time and since then Paul has not produced anything at the same level. At least a band like U2 that has been around for 20 years is still in the active music world, not that I am a big fan of their music but respect them more than Paul. Paul is media hype, he's washed up.

Well, a couple things. As far as what led to The Beatles, of course. That just continues to make the point. If Bach rose from the dead and played a show would you talk he same kind of smack because he's "washed up and irrelevant"?? :D

As for Paul not doing anything to the level he once did, I already admitted that, and again, that's not the point.

As for media hype and washed up- he just played at the Superbowl.

Look, I think I get your point about Paul being an icon of the past and not the present, and it's true. What we're saying is that it's A) important to remember those icons of the past, and B) we still get off on those icons of the past. And we get defensive about them!

ih, one more thing. U2 is approximately as far into their carreer today as Paul was when he did the Wings Over America tour in '76 which was, if I'm not mistaken, the biggest selling American rock tour up to that time. I'll have to check.

[trentpmcd]

ih, one more thing. U2 is approximately as far into their carreer today as Paul was when he did the Wings Over America tour in '76 which was, if I'm not mistaken, the biggest selling American rock tour up to that time. I'll have to check.
I’m not so sure. I first saw U2 albums in 82 or 83 (putting them almost exactly 20 years behind the Beatles) so they are about at the point in their career when Paul was singing “Ebony and Ivory” with Stevie Wonder or “My Girl” with our friend Michael and making headlines by being arrested in Japan, give or take a few of years. Or maybe closer to the time of his (Paul's) second solo album where he played all of the instruments (and had a few big hits), I believe called McCartney II. I remember the videos so that was definitely mid-80s. Same point though – he was making music that was getting a lot of airplay (and video play).

[FredProgGH]

Well, I'd only be fudging about 4 years :)

[mikea59]

This is all so silly - Lennon and McCartney were arguably the two most influential song writers of the last century. Lennon is sadly no longer with us, McCartney won't be performing much longer - just enjoy him while he lasts.

On a side note, there's been an active discussion here on a Dallas radio show about how the Superbowl performance was lip-synched. They've had several people call in who claim to be "in the business" and say he was definitely faking it. Their main argument was that there was no ambience - no crowd noise - on his mic. Any of you here "in the business" have an opinion on this?

[UNIX_GURU]

Superbowl performance was lip-synched

Over the years many artist have lip-synched (with their own voice) at the Superbowl as this has been an excepted quality control technique, there is a lot of crowd noise as well as the dreaded "Super Delay" that can influence the sound in a very negative way. That said, did Sir Paul lip-sync? He might have though it is hard to say for sure in this case (I was watching for it) because if I remember correctly he introduced a song and the mic sounded the same as when he was singing. I think you need to live and let this lip-sync thing die. ;)

[mistahamma]

No way. That was "real time" for sure. The only "overdub" was a few piano notes that were doubled by the keyboard player on "Live And Let Die." That sounded phoney to me, until I realized that both Paulie and the keyboardist were playing the same parts.

That was a great live performance!

Ern :)

Agreed -- no lip-syncing, no auto-tune, nothing -- just pure, live musical fun. A bunch of great live players, playing great live songs. Paul's still got serious pipes for a guy his age.

Jim

[Styxx]

Lip synced, that's funny although not impossible. :D Nope, after hearing McCartney since I was 12, that man did not Lip Sync. I can tell you his voice has changed but not so much to warrant Lip Syncing his own songs. If you’ve ever had the pleasure to see Paul live in concert that man sings everything!

[JonFairhurst]

If that was lip syncing, it was the greatest lip sync job ever performed. The timing was perfect, the vocals just rough and imperfect enough to sound live, and a consistency of sound from start to finish. No way that was lip sync'd.

The jury's still out on the backup vocals though. The camera didn't give enough views of the band to be able to tell.

-JF

[Ray Lindsley]

I don't understand why people make a big deal about Paul McCartney. All he does is live off his old Beatles music. He hasn't written anything worthy of modern music in 30 years! He had his time, he's washed up in my opinion. Same goes for Rolling Stones, how many people really know music from the last Rolling Stones album. People only know Satisfaction and other tunes from the past. It is great that these guys are still making money but in truth I believe they are extremely over rated.

1. What have you done lately that will be remembered in 30 years?
2. Does your "modern music" include the latest retro sound that sounds like a cheap Beatles rip off?
3. Is there a time limit on greateness? Does the value of one's acheivements only last as long as they are still acheiving? I guess that makes Bach, Mozart, etc. completely irrelevant.
4. Did it ever occur to you that these "has beens" do not like the direction that current pop music has gone in and prefer to stick with what they like? Listening to 90% of the crap on the radio, I could understand why a true musical genius would not want to try to cater to the public right now.

I don't know why I'm wasting my time- you're not going to understand until you get past high school (or at least junior high).

[Styxx]

:D Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee! :D

[Steelhed]

Personally I haven't bought, or been interested in anything the music industry has to offer in a long time, It all sounds like ~~~~!! And the music industry complains how much downloading music is killing them, when it's their choice of who theyre gonna shove down our throat as the new stars is whats killing them!!! I have no sympathy for the music industry the way it dictates who we are gonna fall in love with musically.. A good example is the Superbowl pre-game, bands like that "Black eyed Peas" sounds like complete ~~~~.. Is that the modern music this kids talking about? I'd personally rather hear garbage can lids banging against eachother rather than that kinda crap that is prevailing... If the music industry shook a box of ~~~~ around and told people it was the next star, the concerts would be sold out... It's not about the music anymore, it's the Image, so now we have a bunch of gangbangers getting up there, and it doesn't matter if it sounds like ~~~~, people are gonna buy it because that's what the music industry told us sounds good... Anyways, Take Pink Floyd, Gee their music is very old as well, but it has feeling, and tonality and reason... There are some fairly recent bands I like but way fewer choices than ever in the good band dept...BTW, I wanted to say, I thought that was a good performance by Paul at the superbowl, and I thought it was a good show as well, the fans got their moneys worth at this superbowl...

[PaulR]

:D Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee! :D

Hahaha!

It's great when they all go off like a fire cracker about music. The same things were said when the Beatles were starting out in 1962 by all the kids parents -only in reverse.

They'll never be any good - not like Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby. THEY could sing!

Weeeeee!

[Haydn]

Paul was definitely singing live and the background vocals were live. That's how they sounded when I saw him live the last couple times. Paul just works with great musicians and vocalists.

The mikes they use live won't pickup hardly any crowd noise. They are very directional. They would have tremendous feedback problems if they did.