The McCartney Poll

Voted for "Tug Of War", closely followed by "Chaos..." and "Flowers"..." and then with "Band On The Run", "Venus And Mars" and "Ram" following after those. The rest are all considerably weaker.

Knowing ILM, I guess this will be a fight between "Ram" and "McCartney II", although "Band On The Run" will probably have its share of lurker votes.

The eponymous debut.

Ram, for me.

'Memory Almost Full' is a desperately sad title. It makes him sound like HAL shutting down. I know he's getting on a bit in pop star terms, but he's not actually that old.

He's 65. Pensioner age. I guess "old" is a relative term, but at 65 you're not really "middle-aged" any more, are you?

Wingspan is the only album you need own, but docked two notches for omitting "Say, Say, Say" and "Press."

I consider myself to be middle-aged, and I'm in my seventies.

Hate to break it to you, but you're unlikely to live until you're 140.

Ram -- though McCartney made it a tough call.

I love them all too much to choose. And Geir's gratuitous deletion of a few oddball catalog entries just further puts me off - really, man, did you think "Standing Stone" was going to skew the results THAT much? Psssssh. True McCartney fans, boycott!

And Geir's gratuitous deletion of a few oddball catalog entries just further puts me off - really, man, did you think "Standing Stone" was going to skew the results THAT much?

No, but it would take a lot to manage to come up with a completist list. If you count all those oddball projects, the past 15 years of McCartney's career have actually been considerably more productive than most legends in their 50s-60s.
And only protest votes would have gone to "Standing Stone" or "The Liverpool Oratorio" anyway.

If you count all those oddball projects, the past 15 years of McCartney's career have actually been considerably more productive than most legends in their 50s-60s.

God help us, wouldn't want that to be true, would we?

Less snarkily: I get where you're coming from but I think it breaks the poll and misrepresents McCartney's work to serve your own definition of what counts as real Paul McCartney music. I have a feeling Run Devil Run, for instance, might have earned at least one vote.

Also Thrillington and Twin Freaks.

I've known a few people who really liked Run Devil Run.

Anyway, Ram, which is also probably better than any Beatles album as well. (At least in terms of how it's aged.)

"No Other Baby" on RDR is the best singing of his career; it's one of the few times his vocals connect pain with desire.

He absolutely tears it up on "Honey Hush," too - it's not freaky like the original version (by I think Johnny Burnette? with the loud, honking down-tuned guitar) but it's fiery enough to do some damage. Run Devil Run is great - certainly the best album I've ever heard in the genre of "boomer rocker does a bunch of old rock covers." This definitely includes Paul's own lousy Choba B CCCP.

My friend Indy was convinced it should have been called "Ram Devil Ram," though.

"proper" albums. geir you iz an insulting boy. i'm not voting either. poll is ridic.

No Run Devil Run = No vote from me

Yo, I already did this poll! And Ram rightly won, as it will again...

Whoever likes "Run Devil Run" doesn't like McCartney. "Run Devil Run" isn't McCartney.

Good call, Geir.

please vote!

The Dylan Poll

Run Devil Run is the only solo Paul i can take all the way through. thank you.

This is absurd. At least five of these albums are by a band called "Wings", not by Paul McCartney at all. That's hardly "proper". Really let me down, Geir.

Whoever likes "Run Devil Run" doesn't like McCartney. "Run Devil Run" isn't McCartney.

Geir's subtle balance between plausible obsessive Geir and fake parody Geir jumps the shark.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

yay Ram wins again

someday apostates will realize the near-genius of Press to Play

so basically, not that many people care about paul mccartney

in other news, sun rises in east

Well, they don't care when the same poll (with the addition of Run Devil Runwas conducted a month ago. Maybe Geir was hoping that the three votes it received last time would contribute to the landslide victory of Tug of War. Rational minds prevail once again!

Oh dog-wang-doodle! I cannot remember whether I even voted but...

"proper" albums. geir you iz an insulting boy. i'm not voting either. poll is ridic.
-- Frogman Henry

Missta Henry, sir - art thou one of teh Frog Chorus?!?

I'm trying to make a Paul McCartney mix (without all the usual greatest hits songs on it). If you could help me, that would be great.

Post mix here

Driving Rain deserves more respect. Not that insipid Freedom song he tacked on the end though.

Agreed.

I have listened through some of his albums, and he hasn't released a really bad album for ages. "Press To Play" was kind of weird, but I wouldn't consider it bad. "Pipes Of Peace" may be close to bad, but had its moments. And as for "Flowers In The Dirt" onwards, all of them are at least fairly nice, with a couple of them ("Flowers In The Dirt", "Chaos And Creation In The Backyard") even being really great and among his best work ever.

Chaos is brilliant.

It often annoyed me that weird people would flock around comparative rubbish like Pipes of Peace, when his 4-5 most recent albums comprise the best single stretch of his post-Beatles career.

Also, Tug of War is inconsistent.

"Tug Of War" is perfect.

And out of his 4-5 recent albums, only "Flowers In The Dirt" and "Chaos..." are brilliant. The rest are only OK, having their moments, but also way too many rock numbers.

I would sincerely claim that McCartney the solo act is considerably better quality-wise than Wings used to be though.

The rock stuff is among his best recently. 'Rinse the Raindrops' is one of the best things he's ever done. Any more bagging of Driving Rain and I shall be forced to cry.

Memory Almost Full is a bit all over the place, despite half of it being massively accomplished for an old feller.

Current solo better than Wings? Yep, definitely. A few years ago he claimed that scouring archives for the Beatles Anthology inspired him to write better stuff, and fortunately it seems to have been a sustained influence.

i am going to buy this shirt

http://www.iamfauxpas.com/images/mcheart04.jpg

Little did he know that would be his exact facial expression more than 20 years later when Heather took all his money and joined a dancing show.

After 15 years of using them I got a wrong Amazon order: Off The Ground. wtf do I DO with this

play the elvis costello collaborations

timellisongeirNaive Teen Idol to thread.

Big boys shippin' things
Fuckin' it up for Amazon

It's on my table wrapped tempting me to remember how "Hope of Deliverance" goes.

hope of the sibilance

"Hope of Deliverance" is pretty! Other than that I have no idea - never got this one when I was a young Macca fan and couldn't bring myself to later on, especially since I would have wanted to find it on vinyl which may or may not even exist. Pretty sure it's mostly meh though, based on "Biker Like An Icon" and "Looking For Changes" which I think were on a live album.

sampling it on iTunes I remember it: it got airplay here. It's pretty and straightforward. But. Well.

Yeah, I mean, that sort of says it. Pretty and straightforward was Macca's MO at that point, but I kinda dig it. There's some dopey but quite pleasant unreleased things from around this same time-frame, e.g. "Lindiana" and "Return to Pepperland" but that's defffffffffinitely in fans-only territory.

It's no "My Brave Face."

No question on that, but I'm a Geir type who probably would rate Flowers in the Dirt as secretly one of his best albums, counting the bonus tracks.

Big boys shippin' things
Fuckin' it up for Amazon

― Doctor Casino, Sunday, May 12, 2013 12:27 AM (34 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

HA! :D

No question on that, but I'm a Geir type who probably would rate Flowers in the Dirt as secretly one of his best albums, counting the bonus tracks.

― Doctor Casino, Sunday, May 12, 2013 12:49 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I rate Flowers In The Dirt highly, myself :)

It's on my table wrapped tempting me to remember how "Hope of Deliverance" goes.

― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, May 12, 2013 12:29 AM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'The Lovers That Never Were' is a track on there that I really really like, but I'll definitely say there are things on that album that you don't want to be reminded of. The lyrics to 'Looking For Changes', for one.

there's something called "Winedark Sea."

Never heard this one!

there's something called "Winedark Sea."
In that case, AImless to thread.

it's not very good. also, gross feet on the cover.

the first 'mccartney hope killer lp followup to hope raiser lp' i experienced in real time, two years earlier i'd had enough residual beatles phase and budding elvis costello phase in me to get flowers in the dirt the day it came out.

first and last?

(For me, Flaming Pie was the hope raiser and I've liked the three since then.)

yeah tbh driving rain is a dropoff from flaming pie (which i really should revisit) and memory almost full is a dropoff from chaos and creation but neither dropoff is anything on the level of flowers in the dirt -> off the ground or tug of war -> pipes of peace or venus and mars -> wings at the speed of sound (could be underestimating wings at the speed of sound there admittedly).

nah

that's got 'cook of the house' on it, you're underestimating nothing

ha yeah cook of the house is an awful thing.

i rep for "Wino Junko"!

balls you are forgetting "Run Devil Run," which is pretty great, I mean I'd feel pretty good if I could do dad-rock that decently at dad-age.

I still have a burned copy of Chaos & Creation courtesy of ~somebody~, I should probably give that some more spins. I remember "Fine Line" being pretty solid, the rest is kinda hazy.

i'm sure this will draw guffaws but the one time i heard that 'valentine' song on snl it sounded pretty good for me, certainly more than i expected when i heard he'd done a rod stewart standards album, good enough he'd written every song of the album instead of tackling johnny mercer etc. better than 'my love'!

balls you are forgetting "Run Devil Run," which is pretty great

i have that on minidisc and have never played it

Memory Almost Full >>> Chaos

I had a similar experience, balls. "My Brave Face" and FITD got massive promotion, coinciding with "Veronica" becoming Elvis C's biggest American hit. FITD the first Macca album I bought, and it still holds up. No one wants to believe that "This One" is one of his very best silly love songs.

Nah, I definitely think Chaos > Memory Almost Full. I think Memory Almost Full has some good stuff on it, but there's nothing on Chaos that's as terrible as Memoory Almost Full's low points: 'Gratitude' and 'Nod Your Head'.

*Memory.

No one wants to believe that "This One" is one of his very best silly love songs.

― A deeper shade of lol (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, May 12, 2013 11:37 AM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Err... I believe it!