C/D Paul McCartney Solo

There's quite a lot of relatively tedious bluesy stuff on very late Beatles / Let It Be sort of period, isn't there? I would have thought Mr Hongro might be against that too.

Yeah, "Oh Darling" is missing from that list for sure. I don't mind some of that stuff, but I agree with "relatively tedious" - if they had kept on going as a band I think that period would stand out more as a kind of weird genre digression - one very much in line with general trends in the period - whereas, since it lined up with them trailing off, it just becomes part of the melange of "classic rock"...

Most of that blues stuff wasn't Paul's. If anything, he got even more tin pan alleyish.

Well, except for the triumvirate guitar solos on "the end".

Yeah, "Oh Darling" is missing from that list for sure

"Oh Darling" is R&B influenced but also has other elements, like more chord changes, for instance. It is more like the early stuff than like his most blatant rock'n'roll numbers, really.

i bought the bowl of cherries one recently, it's pretty nice....the sort of record they call "slight" i guess, but still it's jaunty.

He got more Tin Pan Alleyish? Examples?? I wanna hear them.

I guess McCartney's most blatantly Tin Pan Alleyish number must be "Baby's Request".

The never-finished "Suicide" has the appropriate jauntiness as well.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/nov/21/fireman-electric-arguments

apprently not his finest hour.

Not his finest, but it's OK. Quality-wise, it is more on level with "Driving Rain" and "Off The Ground" than with "Chaos And Creation In The Backyard" though.

It'd pretty good, I dont' think it's of the level of "chaos" or the last album, on the whole, but it's also not meant to be the same kind of thing. It's not McCartney II either, but for a late-career experimental album, something you wouldn't even expect him to do at this point, it succeeds.

but that review is completely off base and nothing to go by

He'll never match the greatness of "Temporary Secretary" again. And I am not being sarcastic.

"Temporary Secretary" isn't even the best song on that SIDE of that album!!

Oh damn, I thought I wouldn't let myself be tempted, argh...

Well most of the best and brilliant-est songs on that alb are on Side 1 anyway. The soapsuds and dandruff are mostly on the other side. ("Summer Day's Song" is super, tho.)

"McCartney II" isn't even particularly good. And "Temporary Secretary" surely not. Just using synths isn't enough to impress - they have to be used on a good song too.

lol something Geir and Alex can agree on

pfft geir you are wrong

McCartney II is a very accomplished piece of experimentation, being produced (as it was) in 1979-80. Yes he makes a load of noise about doing it all himself, but he's always done that.

Rockestra w/ Bonham:

What a woeful helicopter smash of an album. How it's Fireman and not Macca being 100% self-indulgent is fathoms beyond my reach.

Armed with this thread's contents I made a best of post-Beatles playlist on Spotify (sorry to those shut out of Spotify):

http://open.spotify.com/user/nickyd/playlist/40YtLVuiEtdisxLcaqhHt1

And then I whittled it down further to stuff I actually liked:

http://open.spotify.com/user/nickyd/playlist/7Ctxim1T5TslHsVGg09feX

(can't stop listening to Back Seat Of My Car at the moment.

Where is Pinefox when you need him?

Paul McCartney is one of those artists that I bet there's a potential CD-R or two's worth of stuff I would absolutely adore - really he needs to be a lot more obscure than he is, so some loving curator could trawl through his albums and B-Sides and make some selections. As it is his commercial/historical clout means the available compilations take the path of least resistance a bit too much.
― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 13 February 2003

"Every Night" from the first solo album is an idyll of a song, very "Railways Conserve The Environment" 1970 (as opposed to, you know, RADICAL 1970) indeed. I'd have liked it if he'd written "Come And Get It" slightly later so it could be his first solo single, because it's better than "Another Day", or if he'd written it slightly earlier so it could be a Beatles single, because it's better than "Hello Goodbye". The promo film for "Helen Wheels" is fantastically evocative. "Hi Hi Hi" is better than "My Ding-A-Ling" precisely because it *isn't* "in the tradition of the music hall" (the hilarious reason given by the ultra-conservative Charles Curran-era BBC as to why it was still playing Chuck Berry's lowpoint when it had banned the Wings song in December 1972).

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Monday, 17 February 2003

I'm listening to Macca on spotify, maybe I can play N's playlist.

I'm not sure though, how those playlists work.

I am just listening to RAM.

you shld be able to just click on the link and it shld open the playlist

Listening to that playlist: whatever else about it, it reminds me of the greatness of 'You Gave Me The Answer'

still on N's playlist; 'Jenny Wren'!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHz_7e7yluM

...hard not to admire that! Love love love the song, beyond all rational justification - so much flourish and energy put into this goofy little idea!

May have linked this before, but: http://www.ummagurau.com/art/doctorcasino/magneto09.mp3 is an unfinished homemade cover of the song from my extremely unfinished (ie, never to be even halfway done) double album of Paul McCartney covers.

current fave solo pmac: "let 'em in"

gotta give a shout out to "little lamb dragonfly".
doctor casino, good to know someone else has been working on the same project as i am! so far all i've got is spot-on versions of "c moon" and "some people never know".

Yeah, Let 'Em In is fantastic! I mean who writes a song like that, such a ridiculous, drug-addled concept for a song. Musically, it's all so regimented with everything in its right place. I guess I'm having trouble describing what's so great and strange about it, but it's a very odd number. Sonic candy about nothing, which I guess sums up Wings pretty well. And it reached #3 here in the States!

x-post

i had this exact thought: "who writes songs like this?" So simple, so addictive. The piano/drums/one note bass line doesn't really even sound like a mccartney tune, until he starts singing, and it all fits together so perfectly. And like a lot of his songs, I have no desire to know what he's talking about, or what any of the lyrics might actually mean.

it is about a doorbell and that is all

McCartney's songs-about-nothing or songs-about-stuff ethos (doorbells, lambs, etc) was perfect for the seventies, no?

Paul McCartney >> Wings

yeah heard 'let em in' (for the first time i think) at dinner the other night with the girl and we were both kinda really into it. maybe i should check a wings rec?

how the hell have I never heard Magneto and Titanium Man

Those mid seventies Wings albums have some good stuff but they defy categorization.

NY Times' Pareles likes the 2 1/2 hour Yankee Stadium gig

At 69, Mr. McCartney is not saying goodbye but touring stadiums and playing marathon concerts. Friday’s set ran two and a half hours, with Mr. McCartney constantly onstage, and it had 35 songs, not counting a few additional excerpts. He played half a dozen instruments (though he didn’t show off his drumming), sang with only a few scrapes in the voice that’s familiar worldwide, and looked as if he was having a boyish romp as he navigated what endure as some of rock’s oddest hits. His hair grew more tousled with every song.

The set drew on Mr. McCartney’s various outlets from the 1960s on: the Beatles, Wings, his solo albums and his once-pseudonymous project the Fireman.

Though he also notes:

There was more than a little familiarity to the concert for anyone who attended Mr. McCartney’s 2009 shows at that other new ballpark, the Mets’ Citi Field, or listened to and watched the resulting live album of CDs and a DVD, “Good Evening New York City” (Hear Music). Once again he wore suspenders over his white shirt. His band lineup hasn’t changed, with Abe Laboriel Jr. on drums, Brian Ray and Rusty Anderson on guitars and Paul (Wix) Wickens on keyboards. Two-thirds of the songs were the same, often in similar groupings and with the same arrangements and first-time surprises, like appending Jimi Hendrix’s “Foxy Lady” to “Let Me Roll It,” or segueing “A Day in the Life” into “Give Peace a Chance” — a V-sign waving epiphany for the crowd — or explaining that the civil-rights movement inspired “Blackbird.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/arts/music/paul-mccartney-yankee-stadium-concert-review.html?src=recg

Did "Maybe I am Amazed" too

Aw...no birthday wishes on his 70th! My favourite:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SbKGsEK_T9g

https://twitter.com/SPINmagazine/status/214834929417199616

I shouldn't admit this, but I find all the Facebook posts kind of moving.

https://www.facebook.com/PaulMcCartney?ref=ts

I find I've Just Seen A Face kind of moving. How marvellous it would've been to be a Beatle.