Look, here are the facts:

Bowie > Paul McCartney

I doubt Bowie would agree. :D

As I said Bowie has done some good music, but I think he is rated even higher by some because of his unusual rock image.

i seem to think they're about the same

But the true facts are actually:

The Beatles/David Bowie (70`s era)>>>>>>>Rolling Stones>>>>>>>>>>>>>> David Bowie/Paul McCartney and last but not least >>>> Mick "Lips" Jagger.

Now that`s a much better perspective and should keep everybody happy.:p:

I should say that I still love MJ because he came at the right moment so he got the right "branding".. :thumb:

Did Bowie have an image? Yes, but so did The Beatles. Look after your Beatles broke up, David Bowie was the man. He was one of the best of Glam Rockers and influential to many bands after that genre fizzled out. If you looked at The Beatles throughout their history they wore faux leather jacket like "Gene Vincent" wannabees, then they don French fashion to appear like the boys next door, then they were wearing Naru Jackets, they start dressing down, then dressing up, then dressing down, wearing silk jackets, they were always into some kind of fashion conscience image. How can you make it appear like Bowie has his popularity point pushed by his image and not The Beatles?

i seem to think people just assumes Bowie is better because he's "cooler" than Paul, i seem to think musical meritoriously, they're about the same and Paul had the slight edge of being in the Beatles

all the good albums of Bowie's I can count on one hand:-

Ziggy Stardust
Station to Station
Low
Heroes
1. Outside

(and maybe Let's Dance)

the rest are mediocre to abysmal

Because loads of bands looked like the Beatles, but nobody ever quite looked like Bowie and went through the amount of image changes that he did. Regardless of his music, Bowie has always been very image driven and probably the most image driven artist in the history of rock.

Yeh I think it was the 2 self titles ones in particular he did that.

Paul is the real king of pop. Like it or not the Beatles infuenced every genre today. Sort of like Mozart's influence.

Every genre? Dubstep? Grindcore? Cumbia?

That was part of what I was thinking. Rock is as much about image as pop, in some ways maybe much more so. Bowie was seen to epitomise the glam scene and established himself as much because of his image as because of the music. There is plenty of good music in the 70s but most of them never had the image and fame Bowie had.

I don't think The Beatles were as much about image. That's shown in that they changed quite a bit through the 60s, they are not remembered specifically for certain costumes, makeup or a kind of attitude like Bowie is. He even made up names for himself like Ziggy Stardust and became them in concert.

that's so not true!

yes Bowie was a bit more flamboyant but The Beatles were just as much about image as he was. They are specifically remember for those matching bowl hair cuts they had

I`d hardly put the funny haircuts that the Beatles had, in the same type of image category that Bowie was projecting. Also the comparison is not great, as the Beatles look was quite some time before Bowie kicked in.

My point is they still had an image with that haircut, an image that was even replicated by other bands.

I see your point but there is still a big difference in the images being projected here. The Beatles image was seen as being trendy and generally accepted as being a popular fad. Whereas, Bowie`s image was decadent and and androgynous, and parents didn`t want their kids coming home looking like that:yikes:

that's why I used the word flamboyant to describe that whole part of what you said :P

IMO, Starrynight was saying The Beatles had no image whatsoever or that's what I got from what he was saying.

Well dreamynight got that part wrong.:laughing:

Except that I never said The Beatles had no image. Where did I actually say that? In your imagination.

Bowie intentionally set out to shock visually, his image was part of his whole act. The Beatles didn't really shock, they took their image from the time they were in. Their originality was more in the music as that is what they concentrated on.

Very true. If anything, the initial clean-cut image of the Beatles was intended to do the exact opposite of that of the image that David Bowie portrayed. Beatles were designed for mass appeal, Bowie was designed for counter culture.

I assume this discussion went from being about McCartney vs Bowie to The Beatles vs Bowie because everybody realised it was futile trying to imagine McCartney's solo stuff & Wings to be anywhere near as good as anything Bowie put out.

Possibly, but it would be hard to crown McCartney the "King Of Pop" whist only considering his work with the Beatles, and none of his solo/side work. If you're going to disregard that and only focus on his days with The Beatles, Lennon would be just as big a candidate for the crown as McCartney.

Lionel Richie also, as a solo artist anyway in my opinion, especially as a songwriter. But I am in no way comparing or putting him on the same level as Lennon or Bowie as music icons.

MTV Named Jacksons death more Tragic than Lennons so its safe to say Micheal stays the king

i'm having one now, actually ha ha ha

Just because people imitated The Beatles and (to you) hardly anyone if not no one imitated Bowie doesn't refute what I said about The Beatles having an image. You even go on and talk about their image.

You are equating flamboyancy with image, well anything can be an image, Heavy Metal gangsta rap, or whatever genre you can bring up - have some kind of image.

Elton John, P-Funk?

Yeah exactly, they were constantly changing their image. :banghead:

Much of McCartney's stuff with The Beatles is basically solo stuff anyway, so I don't see much difference. Apart from the first hits they had many of Lennon's and McCartney's songs were largely wrote separately from each other.

Although I like some of his music I'm not sure he's really really produced as many good songs across the decades as McCartney. Icons? Yes that is about image, and most rock musicians depend on image, attitude, flamboyancy to make themselves cool to the young audience.

And Neapolitan asks about other good stuff in the 70s? Well singer-songwriters were much less about having a big iconic image (Elton John being the exception). Then of course there are other things like disco, the start of new wave/punk, progressive music, classical/experimental music, jazz. Lots of good 70s music.

dear God, sir! have you heard Tonight? Black Tie White Noise? Pin-Ups? Young Americans? Earthling?

Macca's worst are better than those

You`re making stuff up now, I`ve never once stated that no one ever imitated Bowie:crazy: For the record as is common knowledge, Bowie is one of the most influential artists ever both visually and musically. He basically single-handedly started off the glam rock movement in the early seventies and the new romantic movement in the eighties.

Flamboyancy and image can be different, but in a medium such as music where visuals are an important aspect they become pretty synonymous, as an artist tries to put out an image that matches their sound, whether this is a straightforward image or a flamboyant one depends on a number of factors. The difference is with Bowie, is that his image has changed drastically several times, making him in many aspects very image driven.

well, to quote Velvet Goldmine - "Image is everything"

I really like that film.

as do I

honourable mention also goes to these few Macca solo albums:-

Off the Ground
Flowers in the Dirt
Driving Rain
Memory Almost Full

this second list is completely subjective, but i love:-

Pipes of Peace
Press to Play
Venus & Mars
Red Rose Speedway

Best album he did outside of The Beatles for me is Band on the Run. But to me it isn't really about albums (there are relatively few classic albums that have been made in my estimation) it's more about songs.

I agree Richie hasn't, (for obvious reasons) produced/released as many songs over the decades as McCartney has, but I think possibly in my own personal opinion, that Lionel Richie has written far better solo material than McCartneys.

My original referral to Icons? Was meant to mean..for example, classic singles like Ziggy Stardust, and so on..has made Bowie and other artist Icons. For writing such unique and original songs unlike any other artist has. Nothing at all to do with image.

I admit image, stage presence, media coverage and statistics, etc, and even the personal lives of famous artist is all a part of the big picture. I believe image has very little significance when rating a band, the music gives valid representation to an artist as a music "Icon". Not how they represent themselves or how the media represents and rates them.

That's certainly the case with me, though I wonder if that is the case with all. People talk about artists representing an age just because they got lots of promotion and of being totally original even though nobody is and they can't possibly know all the other music produced at the time. I think perhaps music can be judged on it's own in it's style and what it is trying to do. But then trying to extrapolate that into saying something is most influential, most important in it's time seems a waste a time.

I was really making fun of this absurd phrase that people repeat as if it must be true that 'Michael Jackson is the king of pop'. There are plenty of other contenders. People should just enjoy his music for what it is, don't make big claims as it's pointless.

Michael Jackson IS the king of pop just like Elvis is the king of Rock n Roll.

We have a thread dedicated to Elvis trying to take away the meaningless title that was given to him but it's still a title nonetheless and the average music listener will go around talking about those two being the kings in their respective genres.

It's just a gimmick.

Just like James Brown is 'The hardest working man in showbusiness' or The Rolling Stones 'The greatest rock n roll band in the world' or Kiss being 'The hottest band in the world' or Motorhead being 'the loudest band in the world'

Sure there are probably people who could dispute those claims but those bands claimed those things and they stuck with the general public so I guess there could be some element of truth to them regardless of whether they are actually 100% true or false.

yes that was my point, you just worded it a bit better.