MACCA SOLO ALBUMS!

and so may songs about being left, or full of these obsessive assertions that he won't leave someone, or that they won't leave him, I know this is kind of par for the course wrt popular songs, but it seems to be particularly pronounced with McCartney

Macca is the king of that everyone-bought-it-but-then-everyone-claimed-to-hate-it thing what with Mull.. and ..Ivory and the Frog thing which i swear everyone liked when it was the supporting feature at the Broad Street showings.

"Dress Me up as a Robber" sounds pretty nice. I don't remember the percussion sounding so crisp and live.

so...what's next -- London Town and Red Rose Speedway?

it gave us the some funny piss-takes, I suppose, the snl sketch with Eddie Murphy and Joe Piscopo, the scene from Everybody Hates Chris

also KRS One made pretty good use of it iirc

Ha, the demo of "Ebony and Ivory" is incomplete, but you can totally imagine it as a McCartney II track.

Man. Basically everything he did in the 1980s would have been better as a McCartney II demo, all hesitant and warm and gentle. It doesn't make "Ebony and Ivory" great, but it at least makes it cozy. The double-disc McCartney II with all the additional fragmentary unfinished ideas is really great too.

What about the weird parts of the video where McCartney dances around with a Stevie Wonder stunt double?

http://i.imgur.com/XEqsPpJ.gif

Which ones supposed to be macca?

Honestly, it goes by so fast in the video, I just assumed the shorter guy.

But now, yes, I notice he's got a pointy beard and wearing a hat...

they should get together with the dancing John Lennon silhouette from the Too Late for Goodbyes video

Course, now that I think about it...

http://i.imgur.com/MqdZM5v.jpg

Pipes of Peace demo tracks "It's Not On" and "Simple as That" have to be heard!

Looking forward to hearing these. Surprised how much I like the new mix of Say Say Say.

Not much to add here but think "Mr Bellamy" from MAF is a great, spooky underrated track with a lovely melody. Reminds me of a slightly less twee Uncle Albert.

so obsessed with "Arrow Through Me" lately. what else is in this vein besides some of McCartney II? Is there more funky Wings??

Kinda no, sadly. At least, that's often sort of a standout Wings track for people who don't really dig Wings. :-/

There's an "Urban Adult Contemporary" station here that'll slip "Arrow" in there between Cameo and Chaka Khan.

so obsessed with "Arrow Through Me" lately. what else is in this vein besides some of McCartney II? Is there more funky Wings??

― Captain Maximus, Friday, November 20, 2015 9:20 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Kinda no, sadly. At least, that's often sort of a standout Wings track for people who don't really dig Wings. :-/

― Frump 'n' Dump (Doctor Casino),

Was this always the case? When a friend and I discovered it about a decade ago we wondered when a hip hop act would sample it. It took Erykah Badu.

'Write Away' from 1985 has a similar sort of feel imo

https://youtu.be/hsRdM8iBHh0

and 'Dress Me Up As A Robber' from Tug Of War which is in more of a McCartney II/Secret Friend style

https://youtu.be/f_kkiIXdkuI

"Was this always the case?" - Hrm, I dunno? I'm going mainly on ILM posts tbh though I feel like I've seen it get shoutouts elsewhere or show up in playlists or whatever.

u guys hear this??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq5KAdWJiWY

there's a clever little tasty surprise waiting if not

Ha. Wasn't expecting Paul to go that far with a "Say Say Say (Naked)".

(this post from 2009 was in the "I hate Paul McCartney so much." thread but it didn't seem appropriate to post what I was about to say there)

A friend of mine was in the same NYC studio while Paul was putting together some of "Memory Almost Full" and his story is Paul was super nice and asked him if he wanted to come downstairs and take a listen to some tracks he was putting down. My friend obliged and once they were in the room Paul proceeded to sit behind the drumkit and overdub some stuff, singing along. After they were done Paul supposedly asked for "your honest opinion" and my friend could only come up with "Yes, Sir Paul, sounds great!" I told my friend he probably wanted to hear "Could use a tighter snare sound" or something.

That is really, really awesome! I'm not sure if François de Roobabe (Capitaine Jay Vee) still posts here, but is this Soundtrack NYC? I've been in that facility and know the layout well because I know people who work there. Last time I was there (probably several years ago), I remember looking through some kind of display they had of album covers, and Memory Almost Full was one of them.

At this point, it looks like Memory Almost Full was the peak of McCartney's resurgence. I was hoping for more/better, but what we got is still much better than what I would have predicted. I never thought I'd go to a McCartney concert or get into any of his new music, but all that happened in the second half of the '00s.

I didn't think Memory Almost Full was an unqualified success, and after a month or so I started tweaking the album into something I'd enjoy start-to-finish, replacing the four tracks I couldn't like with the only four I liked from Chaos & Creation (which I found overrated if commendable). I hadn't played the CD-R I made in years but I tried it this morning and still enjoy it:

1. Fine Line
2. Ever Present Past
3. Friends to Go
4. Only Mama Knows
5. Jenny Wren
6. Mr. Bellamy
7. Promise to You Girl
8. Vintage Clothes
9. That Was Me
10. Feet in the Clouds
11. House of Wax
12. Nod Your Head
13. Dance Tonight
(hidden track) I've Only Got Two Hands

No, the studio was NY Noise down in the Meatpacking District. Gone now about 10 years. I worked there so the “friend” stuff = my old boss ( RIP Rick). We had lots of great folks come through and record in that small space - was an amazing experience - but, sadly, I had split for the evening the night Paul dropped by.

Oh God y'all, I'm listening to Give My Regards to Broad Street for the first time in probably 20 years, probably for the second or third time ever, and there's so many oddball sonic and production choices all over this thing. The "disco" No More Lonely Nights for example, is SO close to being plausible as the seed for another McCartney II level foray into 80s electro-indie pop. Unfortunately for me, for once I'm not buying Paul's nonsense and it all just sounds distractingly unrealized to my ears.

Like, I LOVE "Ballroom Dancing," always have, but the version here is such a disaster. In theory I'm SO on board for Paul wanting to swerve the song halfway through into the land of 80s studio boogie, but it's just so terribly-executed and uninteresting. On many great Paul albums, his random style exercises feel like they come from a genuine interest in new sounds he's hearing, while this sounds like he's striving to do it but doesn't really have a handle on it. "Not Such A Bad Boy" is much more convincing. Not landing like an instant classic or anything, but gives me a pleasant "Live at Daryl's House" vibe. "No Values," later in the album, is very bland, but maybe kind of pub-rocky if I'm using that term right?

The lows are SO low. But I can imagine an alternate-universe version that's thought of like, "oh yeah Paul McCartney's got this kinda cool early-80s album that's his version of Glossed-Up Roots-Rock With a Hint of New Wave; if you dig Run Devil Run or any of the more rock-type Wings songs, you'll dig it." Instead it's pretty widely considered his worst album, or at least pretty high up there (right?). I guess it might just be a case of "the songs weren't there."

Marcello:

I really didn’t think we could sink any lower after Bowie’s Tonight, but Give My Regards is a far more actively unpleasant record and a far more painful listen, despite (unlike Tonight) having at least one salvageable track. Why? Because Bowie micturating on “God Only Knows” is one thing, but listening to an artist effectively crapping on his own work brings a level of badness which this tale has not previously known. It is not that this record lacks good songs; indeed, some of its songs are among the best ever written...

No doubt the internet is full of Macca fan sites and message boards whose contributors can see the good side of Broad Street and strive to point out its hidden merits. Good luck to them. I tried, and I could not. The one song worth saving was the most prominent new one, and the single: “No More Lonely Nights” was the strongest song McCartney had written in years, and proved that when he could be bothered to pull his finger out, he was more than capable of bringing back the old magic. Eric Stewart and Linda McCartney’s backing vocals remind us of “I’m Not In Love,” Dave Gilmour turns up to play a propulsive, anguished guitar solo, and it’s all very acceptable in a late 1975 kind of a way (and a far more deserving number two single than “The War Song”).

i personally think this album is better than it's given credit for but only if you ignore the utterly pointless covers. the original material is pretty good.

The only time I'd ever favour the Stones over my belov'd McCartney and Bowie is late 1984, and quite drastically too. The Stones released their best ever thing (the Too Much Blood 12" maxi) and Paul and David released their worst ever.

'orrible wuzzn't it

very fa'kin' funny michael

So yeah I pass on Regards (though the film has its uses), but I am to some degree a Press to Play defender.

come sit by me then

he's a has been at this point along with bob dylan (his last decent record was 'desire')

more caustic opinions plz

More cerebral opinions please

At least one would be a start.

Chat more chat

Oh God y'all, I'm listening to Give My Regards to Broad Street for the first time in probably 20 years, probably for the second or third time ever, and there's so many oddball sonic and production choices all over this thing.

some of these wings albums aren't half bad y'know

is the movie better or worse than the 70s sgt pepper one

better because it's never actually boring except for this bit - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3rG4vm06kE - which apparently lasts 12 minutes but feels like 12 years.

Ebert said that when he told Paul his movie was no good, Paul looked like he wanted to kill him.

Magical Mystery Tour is very close to the worst movie of all time with some of the best scenes.

"his movie" i.e. Broad Street

Magical Mystery Tour would've worked out great had they simply cut out the musical sequences and sent those out to Ed Sullivan, the BBC and other television programs, similar to what they had been doing with their other proto-music videos. It probably wasn't economically feasible though - they needed to recoup the cost of making that film and that wasn't going to happen unless they had an hour-long program to sell.

FWIW, I thought Dylan should've done the same with the 1975 tour footage that became Renaldo and Clara - the film was always going to be a mess and he needed to deliver a live show to NBC anyway, so he should've just ditched his ill-conceived narrative film idea and simply cut together a concert film. In that case, it would've been a far better financial decision had he done so - he ended up spending a great deal of money shooting that Colorado show for the NBC broadcast, and then he poured a ton of additional money into Renaldo and Clara as he kept editing it for another two years, leaving himself buried in a ton of debt (which was the main reason he did those awful Budokan shows - to financially right the ship).

Ebert said that when he told Paul his movie was no good, Paul looked like he wanted to kill him.

lol yeah it was Siskel, who said McCartney almost threw a glass of OJ in his face.

McCartney not even the best filmmaker in the Beatles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gk1tnvl8mo

omg that looks so awful.

appreciate the liveblog, NTI.... Wow, I don't think I ever really had a clear sense of what the movie was, just that it looked very uninteresting and uncool, even to a teenage Beatle nerd weighing the VHS box at Blockbuster. I wish I'd been more adventurous, since it does at least sound *memorably* bad. The sheer quantity of dream sequences! He must have thought that the success of MTV was an endorsement for the kind of nigh-structureless MMT model of "there's some songs, and then in between, things happen!" well again: maybe if the songs had been there. but now I'm picturing a 70s version with the Band on the Run tracklist and it still seems pretty wince-worthy.

I saw this movie in the theater, my pick.

My step-brother leaned into my ear the whole time, going "this SUUUUCCCCCKKKKS."

Paul McCartney's new tour is called Got Back:

https://www.paulmccartney.com/live/got-back-tour

It'll be the first tour under his new name, Sir-Macs-a-Lot.