Paul McCartney is a global superstar because he was a Beatle & his work while with them, but his solo career was bad for at least his 1st 4 albums. Without The Beatles, we may never have heard of him, like the great 2019 movie “Yesterday”. In fact, none of his solo albums are any good beyond the singles as most of his deep cuts are not “A” or even “B” material, and if he hadn’t been a Beatle, he probably would’ve went nowhere by 1972 & he wouldn’t have had the chance to record & release the latter-day hit singles. He’d have been a 1-hit wonder by what would have been his 3rd & final album, if you can imagine that (Lennon pun intended), assuming he’d gotten the chance to even record the 2nd & 3rd albums.

I love Paul’s solo singles work & it includes almost 40 hit USA singles, but without a Beatle history, those albums would’ve been forgotten history & have sold next to nothing. The critics pounded all his albums back then & still do 50 years later & correctly so. He sold albums only because he was a Beatle. All of Paul’s 1st 4 albums before Band On The Run were either gold or multi-platinum albums in the USA (usually hitting #1 or #2, all except the 3rd album). The 1st album hit #1 in the USA for 3 weeks & went double platinum, and the 2nd hit #2 USA & went platinum. The original version of “Maybe I’m Amazed” on album #1 wasn’t released, but it’s a good song as the live version hit the top 10 in 1977.

Chalk all these sales up to being a Beatle as they weren’t good albums and he only had 1 USA hit single in 4 albums (“Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” from the 2nd album). The 3rd & 4th albums were indeed slight commercial disappointments that “only” went gold, but the 3rd album hit #10 & the 4th album hit #1 in the USA, and any band would give anything to hit the top 10 & go gold. But there’s nothing on these albums that supports these results other than being a Beatle.

It’s possible that the record company may not have made much money on those last 2 albums considering what their cost may have been & what they may have paid him, and might have considering moving on from him, but he would’ve simply self-financed if no one else had picked up the 5th album’s material. Without the Beatle money & fame, he wouldn’t have been able to do that. He’s sold 90 million albums post-Beatles & had 38 singles in the Top 40, so his career sales may be beyond criticism, but let’s face it – his solo career happened simply because he was a Beatle. He did manage to write a lot of hits after it took off, unlike the other Beatles who had much less solo hits comparatively, but we may have never heard of him otherwise if he hadn’t been a Beatle. 

How far would their solo careers have gone if the Beatles weren’t popular & disbanded? How good would the Beatles songs be if John & Paul hadn’t collaborated together initially? That John/Paul collaboration is what led to each of them getting good enough to write songs of their own, and George learned how to write by being a part of the Beatles & watching them. George Martin had a big hand in their success that may not have happened otherwise & he taught them everything about production values, instrumentation & song structure.