Brit Music Scene

Paul McCartney Claims The Beatles “Weren’t That Good”

Posted: 07 Nov 2009 05:45 PM PST

The Beatles are, for more, the best pop group ever to have lived. I love their early stuff, their late stuff, and even those Ringo Starr songs that appear on every album. In short, I don’t think they’ll ever be beaten in terms of a back catalog of songs and albums that remain timeless.

However, Paul McCartney doesn’t actually think The Beatles were any good. At least when they started out. He’s clearly referring to the very early days, even before they departed for Hamburg where he thinks they truly learned their craft.

According to Digital Spy, in an interview with XFM due to be aired from November 16, McCartney speaks about being turned down by Decca, gaining audiences in Germany, and then coming back to the U.K. better prepared than when they left. He says:

“We obviously weren’t that good. We were formulating it all. You wouldn’t have thought we were that great. You’d have turned us down if you were a record company. And they did – Decca turned us down!”

“When we first went to Hamburg, there’d be no-one in the club. You’d see a couple of students, maybe a guy and his girlfriend, and they’d look in a bit tentatively, look up at the price of the beer, see it was too much and start walking out. So we’d go, ‘Come on, everybody, get back in here! It’s all happening!’ So we’d learned to attract an audience. After a few weeks, we’d be really packing those clubs. It taught us that game of how to win over an audience.”

“We learned loads of songs, so by the time we got back to England, we had quite a big repertoire.”

Maybe he has a point. I’m just glad The Beatles found their mojo and went onto record the albums they did. They took the British music scene to foreign shores and paved the way for so many artists who followed.

[Photo Source: Amazon.co.uk]

Post from: Brit Music Scene

Joss Stone Whines About British Criticism Yet Again

Posted: 07 Nov 2009 10:43 AM PST

It’s sometimes hard to remember that Joss Stone is British. In fact, she’s as English as they come, having grown up in the country and at one time having a plummy English accent. But no longer, with months spent in L.A. every year turning her into some sort of American diva.

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In 2007, Joss Stone appeared at the Brit Awards and was ridiculed for speaking in a strange American accent. There’s nothing wrong with American accents of course but the fact she’d picked one up in such a short space of time turned many Brits off her.

She moaned about the reception she got a few months after the incident in 2007. And then she did it again in 2008. And now here we are in 2009 and she’s done it again. She either has a death wish or is making sure we don’t forget her. The chance would be a fine thing.

This time around Stone told Digital Spy:

“People thought I lived in America, which I never did, but I spent a lot of time over there recording my albums so maybe it affected my accent. Who gives a f**k? England is my home and that’s what hurt my feelings. England’s meant to have my back. It was like going home and having my family say, ‘F** off!’”

“The problem was that the record company canceled all my promo after what happened. I didn’t have a manager at the time, so I had no-one to stand up to the label. Literally every single interview was canceled, and then they wondered why I didn’t sell as well in England!”

Maybe we were all a little harsh on Stone at the time but it was like having one of our own flee to the U.S. at the first opportunity and returning as a flag-waving American patriot. Which was never likely to go down well.

Robbie Williams has lived in L.A. for almost a decade and hasn’t lost his English accent at all. In fact, he sounds like he still resides in Stoke-On-Trent. So it is possible to stay true to your roots while forging a career abroad. Lesson learned Joss, lesson learned.

[Photo Source: Newscom]

Post from: Brit Music Scene