But McCartney was better at writing songs that people liked.
It does annoy me that people say how great Lennon was, yet its obvious which songs were his, and which were Pauls (who sang it was usually a giveaway, especially on later songs).
Paul wrote the more popular stuff, John wrote the weirder stuff.
Pretty much a reflection of their solo careers as well, with Paul having far more singles chart friendly songs!
On the other hand, though Paul continued writing brilliant pop songs (no live person can compose better melodies, in my opinion), his albums simply weren't as good as The Beatles without the "weird stuff". Probably the most groundbreaking thing they ever did was "A Day in the Life", which was a Lennon-driven number in a Paul-conceived album.
I dont think any of their solo albums was as good as the Beatles as a whole.
Some of my favourite Beatles songs are actually the Harrison ones. (I dont think anyone would admit to liking anything by Ringo, solo or with the band).
Like Harrison, Lennon for me wrote some awesome songs, but he also wrote a hell of a lot of stuff that I just could not get into.
I can listen to, and enjoy, far more McCartney solo stuff (up til the early/mid 80s) than I can enjoy solo Lennon or Harrison stuff.
Harrison and Lennon were probably a lot better "artists" than McCartney, but McCartney definetly was more in tune with what would sell.
If you was to equate it to artists, Lennon and Harrison would be the likes of Van Gogh and DaVinci, where as McCartney would be more like a George Perez or Brian Bolland.
Both styles have their merits, but they will appeal to different groups of people.
This is not to disrespect Lennon, its more a case for the fact that it annoys me that McCartney is often overlooked as being just as creative and talented, but in a different way.
I think its considered hip to like Lennon, but totally uncool to like McCartney!
