On White Musical Genius
Posted by Socrates in Alex Linder, music, rock music, Socrates, White music, White philosophy, White thought at 12:05 pm | 
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Alex once asked (paraphrasing) “how can Wagner be a musical genius when he only wrote one memorable piece of music (Ride of the Valkyries) and even that one isn’t exactly jaw-dropping?” Yes. He’s right. Most of the “musical geniuses” in history aren’t really geniuses.
If you want Mozart and Beethoven, you can keep them. For my money, ex-Beatle Paul McCartney has more musical talent in his pinky finger than Mozart and Beethoven had in their whole bodies combined. McCartney — not John Lennon — was the bigger genius behind the Beatles and he wrote roughly 25 songs in his career that could be labelled as being “at or near musical-genius-level” [1]. (These comments about McCartney could also, arguably, apply to Elton John, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd and Don Henley/Glenn Frey of The Eagles. To those who say that you can’t compare rock music to classical music, I say: sure you can. Rock may be less complex, and usually shorter in duration, but it’s still music).
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[1] e.g., McCartney’s songs such as: Let It Be, Yesterday, Penny Lane, Hey Jude, The Long and Winding Road, Here Comes the Sun, Something, A Little Help From My Friends, Your Mother Should Know, Maybe I’m Amazed, Live and Let Die, Silly Love Songs, Band on the Run, Jet.