The One Artist Paul McCartney Felt Could Beat the Beatles “Record for Record”

Since the first tidal wave of Beatlemania in the mid-1960s, music fans and critics alike have been comparing the Fab Four to countless other bands—but Paul McCartney believes only one artist could beat the Beatle’s “record for record.” Does it feel like comparing apples to oranges? Definitely.

But when you’re in a band as wholly iconic as the Beatles, maybe apples-to-oranges comparisons are the only ones you can make.

The One Artist Paul McCartney Felt Could Beat the Beatles

In a 2003 interview with Uncut, Paul McCartney mused whether he believed the Beatles were truly as great as their legacy suggests. McCartney admitted that he wasn’t immune to feelings of imposter syndrome that force him to wonder if the Fab Four were really as good as some said, but “as soon as I start thinking it, I tell myself I’m just being bloody daft. The jury’s in, and I don’t think there’s any argument. Basically, the Beatles were a s*** hot band.”

Of course, that depends on to whom you compare the Beatles. McCartney continued, “Stack us up against James Brown, record for record, he’s definitely hotter because he’s James Brown. But he didn’t do the stuff we did. He’s James Brown, and he’s sodding fantastic. But there’s something else to the Beatles. Look, we did a lot of good music. You look at Revolver or Rubber Soul; they are decent efforts by any standards. If they’re not good, then no one has ever really been that good.”

McCartney rightly suggested that the Beatles’ monumental legacy was as much of a social movement as it was a musical one. “We were a strangely different kind of animal that mutated in England somewhere after the Second World War. There’d never been this four-headed monster, this cultural phenomenon,” the ex-Beatle mused. “There’d never been anything like the Beatles who were about music but also about something more far-reaching.”

Macca Looked To This “Hotter” Artist For Inspiration At Times

Finding a rock ‘n’ roll artist in the 1960s who didn’t consider James Brown a massive influence would be no short order. Mr. Dynamite was a force of nature, raising the bar for performance, style, and soul. Brown was among the first ten inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was, simply put, one of the most influential rock stars of all time. So, it’s unsurprising that Paul McCartney often looked to him for inspiration when he was in the studio for the Beatles.

While discussing the Beatles’ 1966 love ballad, “Here, There, and Everywhere,” McCartney described how he tried to emulate singers while struggling to deliver a vocal performance. For the ballad, McCartney opted for Marianne Faithfull. “Something no one would ever know,” the former Beatle said. “You get these little things in your mind. You think, ‘I’ll sing it like James Brown might.’ But of course, it’s always you that sings it. But in your head, there’s a little James Brown for that session.”

Of course, there are plenty of arguments one could make against Paul McCartney’s opinion that it’s impossible to compare James Brown and the Beatles because of how different either musical act was. But again, with artistic legacies like theirs, it’s tough to find a band or solo artist that’s truly comparable to the other.

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