The Hound said:
Which is the best Beatle? Personally I'm partial to Paul McCartney, but some argue that John Lennon took the group from silly teenage love songs to the more psychedelic classic rock group that made such albums as Abby Roads and Let it Be
Ok, a minor point of clarification, but what most people would consider the Beatles "silly little love song" phase (Please Please Me, With the Beatles, A Hard Days Night, etc.) was really pretty revolutionary. Sure, there were some songs during those early years that didn't have a lot of meat on the bone, but there were also a lot of songs that were sneakily-complex. "I Saw Her Standing There" was a pretty wild track for 1963. The usage of Aeolian cadences (whether intentional or not) in "It Won't Be Long." "All My Loving" stands the test of time. "From Me to You" is pretty unique. "I Feel Fine" might have been the first use of recorded feedback and has a great riff.
The Lennon-McCartney debate is almost an impossible question to answer. And yes, when someone is asking who the best Beatle is/was it is a Lennon-McCartney debate...George Harrison was massively talented and one of the most underrated musicians of all-time, but his catalog simply does not stack up.
I am a slight McCartney lean, although I think Lennon is the "cooler" answer. It is kind of funny, if you ask me what I think the 10 best Beatles songs are I would guess 7 or so would be songs that were primarily composed by Lennon..."In My Life", "Strawberry Fields", "A Day in the Life", etc. But McCartney's diversity as a song writer simply astounds me. The same guy that wrote "Back in the USSR" wrote "Elenor Rigby"? The same guy that wrote "Mother Nature's Son" wrote "Oh Darling"? The same guy that wrote "Honey Pie" wrote "Helter Skelter"? I'm sure I'll get slaughtered for even bringing up "Honey Pie", and it is not even in my top 100 favorite McCartney tracks because I don't listen to 1930s music hall/ragtime music, but I can acknowledge how incredible it is that he was able to write good songs in pretty much any genre he wanted. McCartney is the most talented and diverse musician of the 20th century.