When I picked up Paul McCartney's recent album New, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Which is weird, right? I mean, it's Paul McCartney, one of the greatest songwriters of all-time. Why would it be surprising that he made a great album. The likely culprit is the specter of the Beatles.

It's impossible to think about anything any Beatle did in their solo career without thinking of the music they made together. The four of them combined to make the greatest band of all time. That's why it's easy to be underwhelmed - in theory at least - by McCartney's latest efforts. No matter how good it is, it'll never be anywhere near the quality of Abbey Road or Revolver. because almost nothing is.

So, let's try a little thought experiment. Let's create an alternate universe where the Beatles never exist, but the solo works of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr still do. "But John, that's impossible!" Nothing is impossible, not if you can imagine it! That's what being a music blogger is all about! Admittedly, it would involve taking some liberties. It's difficult to account for the number of solo Beatles songs that were written about the other Beatles, or the experience of being in the Beatles, but that makes up a rather small portion of each Beatle's respective solo catalog. Now that that's settled, let's look at the individual careers of the Fab Four, and try to figure out how we might perceive them if the Beatles had never happened.

Paul's career would likely be viewed much more favorably, because it would eliminate the "Silly Love Songs" problem. Paul has always been derided for writing allegedly lightweight music compared to the more serious, political works of John, and to a lesser extent George. This has never been fair. For one thing, Paul's music, while not necessarily political in tone (although there was "Give Ireland Back To The Irish"), was undeniably deep. Just because he was singing about his pleasant home life with Linda rather than advocating for world peace doesn't mean there wasn't anything behind the surface. Songs like "Maybe I'm Amazed" and "Heart Of The Country" are among the most thoughtful meditations on the nature of love and family ever written.

With the Lennon comparison gone, we'd compare McCartney's music to his more logical contemporaries; people like Harry Nilsson, Todd Rundgren, and Elton John. McCartney's solo work has included elements of all their works, and has likely bested them all. Without the Beatles connection, we would look at McCartney's solo career, and see one of the best songwriters of his era.

As for John, we'd still love his music, but the conversation about him changes entirely. His first non-Beatles work was the avant-garde Wedding Album with Yoko Ono, which I am convinced no one has ever actually listened to. Then, he went on to make the abrasive Plastic Ono Band, a brilliant record that would nonetheless scare the crap out of anyone only familiar with his Beatles work. "Well Well Well" and "Mother" alone would have established him as one of the more dangerous songwriters around.

Imagine was where his work began to become more commercial, even if the political themes were still around. As he got older, he talked politics less and less, and made more music about family life. Really, his later records are more similar to McCartney's than we might realize.

Without the Beatles, we'd look at John Lennon is an angry, difficult artist who sold out later in his career instead of appreciating Walls And Bridges and Double Fantasy for what they were. We'd deride him for not talking about John Sinclair, or screaming about his mom anyway. In this world, Paul and John switch positions. Paul would become the established, canonized genius, while John be trashed for abandoning his protest music to write, well, silly love songs.

George and Ringo are a bit tricky to think about. George's solo career was starkly similar to that of the former Cat Stevens. two strong early records that established him as a songwriter of note (All Things Must Pass and Living In The Material World), followed by an inconsistent stretch of good-but-not-great records in the mid to late 70s. Then, he largely abandoned pop music to focus on his spiritual life. I mean, really, save for the comeback with Cloud Nine, George Harrison and Cat Stevens basically had the same career. So, if he was never a Beatle, I'd imagine he had a following and respect similar to what Stevens had

As for Ringo, one might wonder if we'd care about his solo work at all had he not been the drummer for the Beatles, but really, it wasn't as worthless as one might think. 1973's Ringo was a joyous glam-pop record, and the follow-up Goodnight Vienna was surprisingly strong as well. My guess is Ringo lives on as a minor 70s songwriter, and his best records gain a reasonable cult following.

Being in the greatest band of all-time is, to use a dreadful cliche, a blessing and a curse. John, Paul, George, and Ringo made some of the most brilliant music of the last century together, and when they disbanded, all of their solo work existed in the shadow of what they accomplished as the Beatles. Removing their individual works from that context allows to really consider the work they made as individual human beings. We can appreciate the Beatles forever, but we should also admire the genius they were capable of as individual human beings.