I keep hearing mention that mccartney's stuff is more commercially viable, whereas lennon's lyrics and what not made him the superior artist. it's the same age-old trade-off that faces most musicians. if your 'message' is really that important to you, you can stick with it and insist on doing your own thing regardless of what everyone else is doing or what the masses want to listen to. or you can, essentially, shut up and play, and while you're probably compromising a little from a perspective of pure artistry, you'll be making bank doing it. everyone has different views on how socially conscious a committed artist ought to be, how vociferous they should be when presenting and defending their convictions, and so on. even if your works don't have a single solitary singing or speaking voice in them, you can start a full-scale riot if you play your cards right - or wrong, depending on how you look at it. it's happened plenty of times in the past.
