The Beat Surrender

1. Paul McCartney

One of the world’s great unanswered questions, along with the meaning of life, is how Macca still manages to get blamed for splitting up the Beatles. Which would probably piss most people off if you had been the one dragging the other 3 kicking and screaming into the recording studio for both Abbey Road and Let It Be. Even worse, he continues to basically get blamed for not getting shot/still being alive. Urban myth continues in insisting that McCartney has released nothing better than polished turds since leaving the Beatles (an urban myth that completely ignores Maybe I’m Amazed, Dear Friend, Somedays, Live & Let Die, Too Many People, Say Say Say… we could be here a very long time if we have to be), whilst conveniently disregarding the fact that all of Lennon’s post 1972 output sucked like a $10 hooker (as a Beatles-head I’ve listened to it all, and all of it, post-Imagine, is a pile of dog shit).

Macca was/is a happy-go-lucky kinda fella. John Lennon was a wife-beating hypocrite. Even when the nation united in feeling sorry for him when Heather Mills took him for a rebound ride – there was a sneaking suspicion that everyone actually thought he was a tool for falling for such a blatant gold digger. Macca is a living legend, the greatest living songwriter in the world, and yet someone who manages to be treated like a national embarrassment.

2. John Lydon aka Rotten

The Sex Pistols exploded in the kind of hype that the NME tries and laughably fails to stoke up each week about a bunch of weedy wannabes with cheap synths, girl’s jeans and terrible haircuts. Johnny Rotten genuinely became Britain’s Most Wanted Man – the corruptor of society as we know it. Somehow breeding a level of hatred in ordinary folk that’s normally reserved for serial killers & Tory leaders. But what happens when he actually wants to earn a bob or two? (Celebrity Jungle, CountryLife butter).

We hate the little shit even more than we did first time around for “betraying his punk roots”. Do me a favour. One of the things punk was about was inspiring people into doing what the fuck they wanted to do and not having to give a shit about what other people thought. Good luck to you Johnny. And I’ll definitely be buying whatever crap you start selling… just to piss everyone else off, of course.

3. John Squire

Poor John Squire. The man behind one of the most feted bands of all time (the Stone Roses) is now thought of as a shallow, talentless egohead. His old pal, the perpetually tone-deaf Ian Brown was, apparently, the genius behind it all (despite still not being able to write any tunes by himself and having to hire co-writers to help him with his ‘career’ – the Robbie Williams of Baggy anyone?). Yes, that’s right. Ian Brown wasn’t just eating a bannana, he was definitely rolling a spliff and being too busy being a “legend”. How else would the Stone Roses be so bloody good?

While John Squire keeps a quiet dignity, Ian Brown continues to slag him off at every opportunity – miraculously managing to fool anyone who didn’t see the Stone Roses live (which, let’s face it, is most of their fans) that he wasn’t the weakest link in the band by a long chalk, but no he was actually the saviour of mankind – or something equally preposterous. OK so the Seahorses were pants, but it’s not as if Keith Richards is laughed at for every Rolling Stones album since Exhile On Main Street.

Let’s least allow Johnny a pass for having one slip up. Contrary to popular belief, Second Coming kicks ass like a mutha, and isn’t the bloated borefest the Brown-bumming critics would have you believe. Let’s face it, The Stone Roses would have been fuck all without poor, old John Squire. They would however (whisper it) have probably been better off without the foghorn monkey man hogging the limelight.

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