Greatest All-Around Musician of All Time
 

Who would you say is the all around greatest musician of all time?


My vote is for Paul McCartney. First off, he's a phenomenal bassist and guitarist (listen to the bass on I Want You (She's So Heavy) and the guitar solo on Taxman, as well as the acoustic guitar on Blackbird). I'm not sure how good of a drummer he is, but still, he can drum. He's got one of the most versatile voices in the history of music (He recorded Long Tall Sally, I'm Down, and Yesterday) on the same day, and he recorded Yesterday last!

Also, he's arguably as good as mozart with melodies

Hildegard von Bingen. Wrote some of the first Western Art Music, which lead to everything we know today.

Zappa. And if you don't know who this is and what he has done, I pity you.

Stevie Wonder.

I think he pretty much played all the instruments on albums like Innervisions. his drum solos are crazy, there's a few on youtube. I mean jaw droppingly insane drumming, and he's not even known for that!

BB King. He has been at it for all these years and he still is rocking it

Yeah, but my probably with McCartney is his post-Beatles stuff seems like it was a little bit of a let down. For someone who was such a driving force behind that group, holding them together and demanding perfection, his solo material kind of failed to fill his own shoes. Just my opinion anyway.

Agreed. IMO, none of The solo efforts by The Beatles stood up to what they made together. Not Imagine, not All Things Must Pass, not Band On The Run.

I would probably never go so far as to credit Paul McCartney as being the greatest all around musician of all time, But despite me not being a big Beatles fan, I honestly believe that he's one of the greatest songwriters ever. Although it's a pretty unpopular opinion, I love the stuff he did in the 70's with Wings a lot more than his own contributions to The Beatles' material.

All the above are worthy canidates, Im going to tip my hat to Mark Knopfler, while not only being one of the most original and technical lead rock players he has an unmatched voice and he is very much like Lennon/McCartey in that I dont understand how this guy has written so many timeless songs, I mean really his less popular stuff has more substance then any mainstream crap playing today, listen to Lions,Telegraph Road or Lady Writer and thats just the forgotten stuff

As far as musicians go in the bassist and drummer categories. My vote would go to Pino Palladino, Steve Gadd, Jeff Porcaro, Carlos Vega and Jimmy Johnson.

Paul McCartney is ****. GG Allin is superior to him in every measure. GG was proficient with all rock instruments, and he refused to be restricted by musical genres. He played power pop, punk, hardcore, country and everything in between. His live performances often held more in common with performance art than your typical bull**** rock & roll posturing. For him music wasn't a job, but a way of life.

GG Allin is, without a doubt, the 20th century's best rock musician.

^Are you ****ing serious?

McCartney isn't exactly limited to one genre either:

Rock-I Saw Her Standing There
Metal-Helter Skelter
Dance Hall/20s and 30s music-Your Mother Should Know
Classical-Ecce Cor Meum album
Reggae? (Ob la di, ob la da)?
Country:Rocky Racoon

x2

When I first read this thread I thought 'Paul McCartney'

Paul McCartney would never get my vote for this. Sure, he's a great musician, but definitely not the greatest. In my opinion he writes songs (even if they aren't my type) and sings better than he plays any instrument.

I'm going to say Edgar Winter is the best musician all around. He was a great keyboardist and sax player, plus he could pull off other instruments well. However, I always thought that all three members of ELP were amazing, though they were kind of limited to one or two main instruments. If I was more familiar with Zappa I'd probably throw him in too.

Tom Waits...perhaps.

you're trying to hard.

GG Allin was what Alice Cooper 'would' have been if he couldn't keep a clear distinction between performance and personal lives and abused every substance he got his hands on.

there are PLENTY of artists for whom music is far more than a job and very much their lives, the vast majority of those don't resort to acting like a caged monkey and flinging their feces at the crowd to cover up the very real fact that they had virtually nothing of note to say.



as for McCartney 'playing' every style under the sun, gimme a freaking break. a slightly homogenized twist on another style does not make it a reproduction of that style. 'helter skelter' is about as metal as 'i wanna be your man' is punk. if he actually put out full albums of varying styles then yeah i'd cut him slack, but tossing in an extra track with a twist of another style does not make for legit variety in my book. Beck is a more varied artist.

now for those playing the ability to play multiple instruments card = greatest all around ever then please top this blind guy - Rashaan Roland Kirk

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...rolandkirk.jpg

there are plenty of clips of him on youtube playing all of those horns at once and not just resulting in a cacophony of sound.

on the other hand, when it comes to the output card Zappa trumps all other modern contemporaries with Aphex Twin being the possible future exception to my ears though he seems to have slowed down significantly over the last few years.

I'd take Gene Simmons over McCartney, any day of the week. Before you get all bent out of shape, I'm only joking. :laughing: Seriously, I'd take Jimi Hendrix because not only was he the most innovative and influential guitarist in rock, he was a very expressive singer, great writer and arranger, unbelievable performer, could play every instrument in his band, was a studio visionary, and was way effing cooler than Paul.

Prince
 

Prince would have to be one of the latest greats of all time, as well as being a producer in the studio and coryography to add.

Im going to have to say Josh Homme and Brant Bjork on this one. Maybe not the best of all time but definitely notable in that they have both created entire albums by themselves and constantly have many different musicians around them all the time.

Michael Jackson. The King of Pop!

Wtf, your kidding?

My kidding?

My vote goes to Stevie Wonder, with Paul McCartney a close second. Stevie is a master keyboardist, a superb pop-soul vocalist, a very good harpist and drummer/percussionist, plays bass well, and is a fantastic record producer. Paul is an extremely talented, innovative melodic bassist, a great pop-rock vocalist, very good piano player, very good acoustic guitar player, good electric guitarist, adequate drummer, and a gifted arranger.

And they both belong in the pantheon of greatest songwriters/melodists in music history.

Didnt Jackson do all the directing of the vocals to 'We are the world' back whenever? As far as jackson ever playing any instruments, I dont know, or have never heard of him playing any, of course he was good in the studio and coryography, but I see him more as a music icon instead of one of the most talented artist, but he is the king of pop I guess.

I'm kind of surprised no one has voted for Prince, James Brown or Charles Mingus.

My husband and I got into an argument over whether or not Prince was over-rated. I said no, he said yes. He didn't talk to me for three hours after that. :laughing:

Anyway, Prince would be a good candidate in my book.

I was about to post Prince just because of his virtuosity with nearly every instrument, but I find a lot of his music to be horribly boring. There are the classics...I like just about everything on Purple Rain...but I just can't get into a lot of his other stuff. So I didn't say Prince.

Honestly, I don't know who I would put down.

Our kidding.

Aw. :love:

Prince is the GOAT, great on guitar, piano, bass, drums, no one does more. Paul Mcartney and Jimi Hendrix also have to get votes.

Maybe not the greatest all around. But I do believe he was probably the best vocalist in Western Music.

He hasn't made a lot of music, nor has he really done much in the music scene in general. But Raul Midon is fascinating to me.

Example:

I think there's too many dimensions to name. I mean, composition skill is a different arena than production skill is a different arena than performance skill.

I'll just try to judge on composition/influence since I feel it's infinitely more important than just being a virtuoso multi-instrumentalist, and pick one of the many I think would be eligible:

How about... Miles Davis. Extremely prolific, extremely cutting edge at points, and an amazing jazz innovator. Not sure if it'd be a good choice but I'm trying to think outside the box a tad.

I agree that he's a good singer, but most of his performances and tours were all lip synched. I mean, his Dangerous tour was 90% lipped. I don't have a problem with this, because he compensates with dancing, as does Britney and a host of other pop icons. Only MJ seems to get a LOT less criticism for lipping than other artists do, and some people just seem to completely ignore that he's the pioneer of lip.

I wouldn't say 90%. He lip synced some of the more elaborate ones to focus on the choreography, but he sung a lot of his material live. From his studio sessions and outakes alone I'd say he had an amazing gift with his voice, so that he lip synced every now and then doesn't bother me either. He was as much a performer and a showman as a musician I suppose.

Tyondai Braxton is my choice. He's my avant-garde savior

/fangirl moment

Tom Waits, without a doubt. That man is probably the most talented musician of all time. He's just so creative and experimental, it's great to hear the progression in his music. Plus he hasn't put out any terrible records in almost 40 years.

The second greatest all-round musician is imo Robert Pollard. I mean, he made over 1200 songs and alot of them are actually really, really good. Bee Thousand is imo still the best indie rock record along with Alien Lanes. His vocal melodies are amazing too. He's the Pop Zeus.

McCartney couldn't hold a light to Jamerson as far as bass playing goes.
Not even close with No. 1's either.

If we're including classical music then Mozart wins hands down.
If we're not, then Earl Van Dyke tops the lot.

EDIT: If gay gets the green light in the swear filter...so should ****.
It's sexist not to, sort of.

Todd Rundgren.

Wikipedia Article On "Something/Anything"

"Rundgren played every instrument (as well as sang every vocal) on the first three sides of the double LP, while a band accompanies him on the fourth."

Wikipedia Article On "Hermit Of Mink Hollow"

"Todd Rundgren - Arranger, Instruments, Producer, Vocals."