Hacker News Reader

Comment by tabtab | Hacker News Reader

Re: Stylometry--the use of statistical techniques to determine authorship--is best known for identifying the Unabomber as Theodor Kaczynski

I see different accounts. Many imply his brother "cracked" the case by fingering him as a suspect, not some FBI statistical wizardry. Perhaps stylometry added to the evidence, though.

As far as The Beatles, a large part of their success is the juxtaposition of contrasting styles, in my opinion. Lennon had a sarcastic style and McCartney a more optimistic sound. Too much Lennon is whiny, and too much McCartney is syrupy and cheesy. Mix and/or juxtapose them and you get a great balance and contrast: flavor AND spices.

View on HN

Your descriptions of their styles (sarcastic-vs-optimistic, whiny-vs-syrupy) are reasonable for their lyrics, but this analysis seems to focus only on the instrumentals, the melodies, chords, and so forth.

Their lyrical differences are reflected in the melodies, of course, but I would not describe Lennon's chord choices as "sarcastic", for example.

Hmmm, what is a "sarcastic" chord? Minors?

> Too much Lennon is whiny, and too much McCartney is syrupy and cheesy.

That's an overly simplistic - and I'd say wrong - characterization.

On the early albums leading up to Rubber Soul, Lennon handles a larger share of lead vocal duties. He sings ballads ("I'll be back", "Anna"), rockers ("A hard day's night", "Twist and shout") and mid-tempo songs that fall somewhere between rockers and ballads (like "you can't do that").

When he does start sharing vocal duties with Paul on Rubber Soul, there's not a single "whiny" Lennon song. There's "Norwegian Wood" and "In my life" (not to mention fillers like "Run for your life") which are written, sung and arranged in anything but a "whiny" style.

Don't get me wrong, many of Lennon's tunes are fantastic. I'm kind of exaggerating the differences to illustrate a point. Although "Norwegian Wood" is indeed not "whiny", if you listen to it together with only other Lennon tunes, it's altogether too weighty. Mixing weightiness with levity of "sun-shiny" tunes (mostly Paul) makes for better entertainment in my opinion. The two's differences make a perfect yin-yang balance, which is part of their formula for success. Too much yin and too much yang sour things. (Also, I'm kind of ignoring their early years when they did mostly cover tunes.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com