MACCA SOLO ALBUMS!

Marcello: http://nobilliards.blogspot.com/2013/07/paul-mccartney-tug-of-war.html

It's not just a lovin' machine
It doesn't work out
If you don't work at it

Listening to Flowers in the Dirt straight through for the first time in ages. The songwriting's really solid, definitely at least Tug of War level. Occasionally let down by the production or performance choices. First three tracks promise a classic but the middle half of the record kinda points up all its strengths and weaknesses. "Put It There" is a wonderful melody and sentiment - doesn't quite need the strings and definitely doesn't need Macca's whispery/"sincere" delivery. "Figure of Eight" and "This One," like a lot of his midtempo 'rockers' from here on out sounds like a wannabe Jeff Lynne production and would have benefited from a straightforward live-band rock sound or maybe even a "new country" approach which might have made a more natural bridge between his throwback rockabilly instincts and the turn of the '90s.

The drums were probably doomed to sound bottled from the beginning, just given the stable of people that would possibly be on McCartney's radar - but a "Cherry Bomb" or "Mixed Emotions" sound would have really suited McCartney and he never seemed to be able to find it. Always a little too clean and precise. "This One" in particular feels like it has the guts of a hit song, lame title aside. Note the filler outro ("some kinda solo or instrumental thing maybe will go here?").

"That Day Is Done" is such a legit kooky idea - ballad from the perspective of a corpse + Fats Domino "prom under the sea" number. Good idea, good songs, doesn't quite work on record. Maybe this one really should have been more of a 50s pastiche. The record kinda falls off after that - "How Many People" is just disposable, "Motor of Love" can't get around its horrid title and wretched Yamaha soft rock ballad sound. It's also a few BPM too slow to let the melody shine. And it's six minutes long! I would probably have a much more negative opinion of this album if I hadn't thought of it as ending with "Ou Est Le Soleil," which is stupid but at least has some kind of energy and the hint of drama on the horizon. All three of the other bonus cuts ("Back On My Feet," "Loveliest Thing" and "Flying To My Home") should have been swapped onto the album, maybe with some re-thinks (wtf is with Paul's singing on the last of those?). "Loveliest Thing" is such an album closer, I mean come on.

new remix of Tug.. is just pointless IMO. whole thing sounds like they just added a bit of reverb here or there. it's on Spotify FYI.

Love "This One," despite the outro.

Me too - Flowers In The Dirt, too, is undoubtedly one of my favourite McCartney solo records.

There was some discussion of the Tug of War project on the Pipes of Peace/Press to Play thread. (OK, it was just me reviving it every couple of weeks plus Turrican posting.) We were talking about the amount of treble on the remastered single edit of "Take It Away." My favorite track on the album is "The Pound Is Sinking," so I listened to that. Can't A/B it currently, but I find the amount of treble on it to be causing me enough listening fatigue that I'm not so inspired to listen to other tracks.

Listened on headphones so I'll try it on the stereo and I think I'm going to see what I think of the title track, too.

I think that Be What You See/Dress Me Up As A Robber might be my favourite solo McCartney track, the lurch in quality from from the penultimate to the final track on this album is really something.

is there anybody who will defend Ebony And Ivory? I get the impression that it was treated as a punchline pretty much from the moment it was released? I guess it might work better if McCartney had rewritten it as one of his woolly, non-specific 'why can't we all get along' type songs rather than trying to make it 'about' racism, but even then I thing that Ebony And Ivory would be unsalvageable and I find some of his songs in that vein kind of poignant despite/because of their sentimentality. did McCartney ever write anything else quite so cloying? 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

did McCartney ever write anything else quite so cloying?

"My Love." Lots of early Wings. "The Long and Winding Road" in any version.

I think in a lot of his woolly sentimental songs there is this anxiety and desperation just below the surface which makes them interesting and compelling, there is this dread that something awful will happen that seems to be motivating the desire for ppl to patch thins up/commit to one another etc, something like 'Waterfalls' kind of brings this out and makes it explicit, but it seems to have been more or less smoothed out in Ebony And Ivory

My Love." Lots of early Wings. "The Long and Winding Road" in any version.

aw, I like all of those, though

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.