McCartneys new album reviews

maccafan

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Paul McCartney Gives Starbucks a Hit - Roger Friedman
Paul McCartney. You know, he's 64 years old. On June 1, he celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Beatles' landmark album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."

Four days later he will release his newest album "Memory Almost Full." This is a landmark of sorts, too. It's his first album release on Starbucks' Hear Music label. McCartney, the most successful pop performer/singer/writer in history, has left the mainstream music business.

The good news is that "Memory Almost Full" is excellent, just as good as his Grammy-nominated "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard."

But McCartney, sources say, felt that Capitol Records did nothing to promote "Chaos" despite its four nominations. The album, like most of Capitol's releases, went nowhere. So the pop star is gone, and his departure is a blow to a record company on the ropes.

McCartney took his entire back catalogue with him when he left, too. This includes all his solo albums, and Wings releases, everything from McCartney to "Ram" to "Band on the Run" and "Chaos."

It's not like CDs still really sell or that many people are busy looking for "Red Rose Speedway" or "Flowers in the Dirt," but still: McCartney as a solo artist is one of the great success stories in the now nearly dead music business.

Whether taking "Memory Almost Full" to Starbucks is a smart move remains to be seen. The coffee chain has had a lot of hits with other company's releases, but also some duds. Can you say Antigone Rising?

And, of course, Starbucks also sells CDs at high prices. I have personally resisted James Morrison's album while waiting for cappuccino because it's $14.99. I could download it for $5 less.

On the other hand, outside of Amazon.com, Starbucks is one of the few places people my age will buy a CD at all. The remaining "record" stores are multitask disasters with thunderous hip-hop music making the visit very unpleasant.

Like most everything else in the music business, the era of contemplative record hunting through bins is over.

Even so, buying "Memory Almost Over" in Starbucks should prove to be a rewarding experience. McCartney is true to form on this CD, offering lush ballads and jangling rockers with as much gusto and unembarrassed gushing as ever. From the opening track, a mandolin-powered ebullient "Dance Tonight," to the closing power surge of "Nod Your Head," he's still got it.

Of course, nowadays, you listen to a Paul McCartney record more closely than ever for the lyrics. Is "Dance Tonight" some kind of comment on his gold-digging ex-wife's stint on "Dancing with the Stars"? Is the beautifully wistful "You Tell Me" sung to his late, beloved wife, Linda? What about "Ever Present Past" and "Vintage Clothes"? Aren't they nostalgic reminisces of that first, now much-missed marriage? It would seem so.

My favorite track, "That Was Me," a rockabilly shuffle, is disarmingly reflective for McCartney. For years, until his excellent "Flaming Pie" album, he eschewed real emotion for a veneer of flashed peace signs.

"That Was Me," as it is, inaugurates a five-song medley that finishes off "Memory." "Feet in the Clouds," "House of Wax" and "The End of the End" comprise the bulk of the medley. Some of the publicity compares this to the suite on "Abbey Road." Not really.

The medley really reminded me of a similar one on "Red Rose Speedway" and on some of the other solo albums. Paul McCartney loves a medley, you know. He loves stringing together short bits with different melodies.

Luckily, he's good at it. His medleys usually contain at least one gem. Back on "Red Rose," it was "Hands of Love." On this album, it's "Feet in the Clouds," a tour de force where McCartney — who has absolutely improved 100 percent as a lyricist — insists he has his "head on the ground" in a Beatle-esque counterpoint that even John Lennon would admire.

What will happen when "Memory" joins the ventis and the grandes and the chocolate-covered graham crackers on the Starbucks shelves?

Already, McCartney says he has made a video for "Dance Tonight" with director Michel Gondry. Natalie Portman is featured in it. But neither MTV nor VH1 plays many videos, and none by rock stars who will turn 65 three weeks after his album is released.

But no one writes or sings like Paul McCartney. After a roller coaster career of tremendous highs and curious lows, he has acquitted himself brilliantly on "Memory Almost Full."
 

maccafan

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Matt Hurwitz has heard the entire album and the three bonus tracks. Here's his preview:

Steve,

I've just come from David Kahne's house in Los Angeles, where he played me the entire "Memory Almost Full" album and the three bonus tracks. Anybody who heard David's name associated with the record and was afraid they were getting "Driving Rain, Vol. 2" has absolutely nothing to worry about. This record is as different from "Driving Rain" as "With the Beatles" is from "Sgt. Pepper." This is a GREAT Paul McCartney album. It's full of well-crafted and very well-produced songs that have all the best qualities of any great Paul McCartney album. At times, I was thinking "Ram," "Tug of War" and "Flaming Pie" all at once -- the immediacy and freshness of those records is what you'll hear on this disc. Paul's songs are honest, up-to-date and extremely creative. You'll be blown away at how this good this is. I really loved it, Steve. It's really represents who Paul is today and that he's a hot creative rocker. There are some vocals that blast off the record and are as good as "Why Don't We Do It in the Road" and "Oh Darling." Very intricate harmonies and guitar work that he and David spent a lot of time perfecting. Prepare for a great Paul McCartney experience.
 

maccafan

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Bill King (Beatlefan magazine)
An advance of Paul McCartney’s “Memory Almost Full” album (due out June 5) arrived today. I've only listened to it twice, and I liked it better the second time, which is a good sign.

The songs are definitely more developed than on 2001's "Driving Rain" album, but the production is a bit gimmicky at times, getting in the way of what would be a very nice tune in the hands of someone like George Martin (or even Nigel Godrich). Overall, the production is not as nuanced as what Nigel did on 2005's "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard"; it's more heavy handed.

As for the tunes, there are no instant classics, but there's nothing awful on here (like there was with "Driving Rain"), either. Like I said, some of them would have benefited from a different producer. A couple grabbed me right from the start, particularly "See Your Sunshine" (which seems to be for his daugher Beatrice). While the two singles, "Dance Tonight" and "Ever Present Past", get the album off to an upbeat start, it gets a lot darker later on. Several of the tracks rock pretty hard, but to me nothing really sounds all that Wingsy (contrary to advance reports). There’s some of McCartney’s most melodic, up-front bass playing in a while on the album. But I really wish producer David Kahne would use real strings instead of a computer program."
 

maccafan

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Roger Friedman

Masterful McCartney

I told you last week in my exclusive first review that Paul McCartney's "Memory Almost Full," due on June 5 from Starbucks' new Hear Music label, is better than anyone could have expected.

Here are a couple of other thoughts about a song called "The End of the End," the penultimate track on the album. I think McCartney's written a lyric here that stands up to anything during his time with The Beatles or since. It's a sad song, for sure, maybe a result of Paul's bad year and marriage break-up.

But it's also so lovely that I think people are going to be using it as an elegy for years to come. Here's a verse:

"On the day that I die
I'd like jokes to be told
And stories of old
To be rolled out like carpets
That children have played on
And laid on while listening
To stories of old."

There's really nothing like "Memory Almost Full" available right now from a contemporary singer-songwriter. It's quite amazing that we're depending on artists in their late 50s and early 60s to fill an artistic void. Amazing, and sad.

Last year, Paul Simon's wonderful "Surprise" album was totally ignored, however, even though it was the best CD of the year by miles. I hope that doesn't happen this time around to McCartney. "Memory Almost Full" is too good.
 

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Memory Almost Full by Paul McCartney

In 1997, Bob Dylan shocked fans and onlookers with his "comeback" album Time Out Of Mind. Produced -- heavily, some would say -- by Daniel Lanois, Dylan delivered an album dripping with "importance," and he was showered with praise and awards. The opinion quickly formed that, given a strong collaborator and some serious hand-holding, Dylan could still produce an album almost as strong as the classics of his youth. Four years later, defying this notion, Dylan ditched his "strong collaborator" and self-produced a dizzingly brilliant album that WAS as good as the classics of his youth: Love & Theft. Fans and ciritcs were stunned at the vibrancy and playfulness of the music and the intricacy of the lyrics; even those impressed by Time Out Of Mind didn't think Dylan was capapble of such magic so late in his career.

Put simply, Memory Almost Full is Paul McCartney's Love & Theft. Paul has been quietly rebuilding his solo career for over a decade now, rededicating himself to making strong albums with Flaming Pie (1998) and, slightly less successfully, with Driving Rain (2001). His last album, 2005's Chaos & Creation In The Backyard, was an artistic triumph, and much of the credit was given to his "strong collaborator" Nigel Godrich. Articles and interviews detailed how Godrich strong-armed Paul in the studio, rejected songs he saw as unworthy, and fired his band of yes-men in favor of an all-Macca tour-de-force. The result was well worth it: a disarming collection of mature Beatlesque pop, with strong lyrics, heartfelt singing, and near-flawless performances and production.

Like many admirers of Chaos & Creation, I sang the praises of Nigel Godrich, and no doubt the praise was well-deserved. I wanted Nigel to produce every album Paul made for the rest of his career. I wanted Nigel to produce a complete re-recording of the Press To Play album. I wanted Nigel to be the Rick Rubin to Paul's Johnny Cash. Still, I have to admit, as much as I still love Chaos, there was always something missing, and a slight whiff of grim determination hung over it in its relentless Fab-centric approach. Some said it didn't "rock" enough, but I think what it lacked was a certain mischievousness, an energy that doesn't necessarily translate into "rocking" but rather into the joy of performing -- in other words, there wasn't enough "chaos" to go with the "creation." I was happy with this trade-off, however, because frankly, I thought this was some of the best work of Paul's career, and I was willing to forsake his trademark loopiness to get more of the same.

Fortunately for all of us, Paul McCartney is a chameleon -- and perhaps a bit sensitive to the idea that he needs a stern taskmaster. Like Dylan in 2001, Paul has turned the tables on us and produced an album bursting with creativity and bravado, and he's done it on his own terms. As improbable as it sounds, Memory Almost Full is a career highlight, and a fascinating companion piece to Chaos & Creation. Where the earlier album consciously evoked the Rubber Soul-, Revolver- and White Album-era McCartney, Memory Almost Full is like the greatest album Wings never made. For those who found Chaos too slow or dreary, Memory Almost Full delivers energy in spades -- he literally hasn't sounded this ballsy in 30 years. For those who love Chaos, Memory Almost Full retains the crisp production, disciplined songcraft, and sincere delivery, and adds playfulness, experimentation and just enough ROCK to make you a believer all over again.

It all starts with Dance Tonight, a simple mandolin-and-drums ditty. The strummed mandolin immediately reminds me of George Harrison and his ukelele, and that alone makes me smile. It's a harmless singalong, very much in the vein of "Great Day" from Flaming Pie, only better. It's a short and relatively insubstantial song -- which makes it an odd choice for the first UK single -- but it's charming fun, and it immediately dispels any expectation that this will be Paul's self-pitying "divorce" album. I think this would be a better album closer, but more on that later.

Memory Almost Full really begins with the second song, and the U.S. radio single, Ever Present Past. A pure pop confection with a slight dance beat, it features a crunchy rhythm guitar with stacatto guitar stabs bouncing back and forth between the speakers. A nice retro blast of Moog pops up here and there, with plenty of little touches -- most of which Nigel Godrich probably would have rejected. The lyrics not only serve their purpose, but unlike previous dance-pop songs like "Press," they have some weight to them, or at least the appearance of weight:

I've got too much on my mind
I think of everything to be discovered
I hope there's something to find
Searching for the time that has gone so fast
The time that I thought would last
My ever-present past

The song ends with a nice, rough little guitar chord, and the next song opens with a vocal chorus so sweet you'll get cavities just listening to it. See Your Sunshine is another pop gem, and after so many love songs, Paul manages to find a fresh angle:

Look what You've done to me baby
You're making me feel so fine
Step out in front of me baby
They want you in the front of the line
The wanna see your sunshine

Paul sings with real conviction here, and the backing vocals throughout are sublime. There's a bit of (I think) glockenspiel in with the usual keyboards, and there's a bass flourish at the end that reminded me of the end of "And Your Bird Can Sing." Not a "heavy" or portentious song, just perfect craft.

Track four begins with some slightly foreboding-sounding strings, and you prepare yourself for perhaps the first big ballad of the album. After about 40 seconds, though, an electric guitar rips into the proceedings, and Paul unleashes one of the best rockers of his career, Only Mama Knows. Far more reminiscent of Wings than the Beatles, this song features not only relentless playing (courtesy of his touring band, in one of the six tracks they played on), but also lyrics fascinating and obscure enough for the most jaded Beatleologist. Most McCartney fans will know that Paul has referred to Linda as "Mama" several times in song, so when he sings:

Only Mama knows
Why she laid me down
In this godforsaken town
She was running too
What she was running from
I always wondered
I never knew
Only Mama knows

An armchair psychologist might suggest that this earthly life itself is the "godforsaken town," and Paul is feeling lost without Linda. The middle-eight gives further evidence of restlessness and Paul's struggle to endure:

I'm passing through
I'm on my way
On the road, no ETA
I'm passing through
No fixed abode
And that is why....
I need to try
To hold on
I've got to hold on
I've got to hold on

Of course, maybe it's just a fantastic, balls-out rocker that should be enjoyed and not thought about. But this is the first of several tracks that invite similar speculation. Either way, it's a revelation at this stage of Paul's solo career, and it ends darkly with more strings, "Glass Onion" style.
 

maccafan

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Continued

The next song is the ballad I had been expecting, You Tell Me. Many will pounce on this as the "anti-Heather" song, but the presence of his band on the track suggest that it could date from 2003. Were the seeds of discontent sown that early in the marriage? I don't know, but this is a "dark" love song that looks biting on paper, but sounds more regretful when heard:

Were we there?
Was it real?
Is it truly how I feel?
Maybe
You tell me

The instrumentation is simple, with acoustic guitar, muted drums, and some very Wings-like backing vocals. Was Denny Lane knocked over the head, thrown into a van, brought to The Mill, and forced to sing on this song? We'll never know, but the backing vocals act as a wistful chorus of sadness. Whoever plays the electric guitar solo nails it, with minimal notes but genuine emotion.

This brings us to the mid-point of the album, and arguably the highlight. Mr. Bellamy is everything that Chaos & Creation wasn't -- goofy, ridiculous, impossibly absurd -- but it succeeds gloriously. It could have been everything that makes you cringe about Paul McCartney, it could have been "Magneto and the Morse Moose de Soleil Like an Icon" ... but it's NOT. It's a wholly unexpected song that follows no previously-known Beatles or McCartney template; when I first heard it all the way through, I was so taken aback I actually started giggling out loud. Beginning with some slightly mournful horns and cellos, a deliciously bouncy piano loop pops in, and Paul begins a song that can only be about his cat stuck in a tree -- from the perspective of the cat:

I'm not coming down
No matter what you do
I like it up here without you

Mr. Bellamy's owner chimes in, in a deep, sing-song voice that one might use when talking to your pet:

All right, Mr. Bellamy
We'll have you down soon

and then later, in the same voice, when (presumably) the firemen have arrived with the ladder:

Steady, lads
easy does it
Ooooh, don't frighten him!
Here we go...

Is Mr. Bellamy feeling the stress of Paul's recent domestic woes? He seems to like the peace and quiet of the tree, and in the middle-eight he muses:

In the delusionary state
No wonder he's been feeling strange of late

Is "Mr. Bellamy" really this deep? Could Paul have possibly put this much thought into a song about a cat up a tree? I don't know, but this is a heavenly piece of songwriting genius, perfectly performed and produced. When he sings, "Don't frighten him!" there's a guitar line under it that somehow makes the worry in the lyric real. After the final refusal of "I'm not coming down/ No matter what you do/ I like it up here without you" there's a piano-and-horn coda with Paul singing longingly, "Come down, come down to me." Brilliant all around.

The next song, and the final track before the much-ballyhooed medley, is a bit of a comedown, but almost anything would be a comedown after "Mr. Bellamy." Gratitude is a gospel-rocker in the "Call Me Back Again" vein, although it lacks the vibrancy of that song. It's been called a "show-stopper" by the early reviews, but I think it has merit, particularly when you listen to the lyrics, which seem to be aimed specifically at Linda:

I'm so grateful for everything
You've ever given me
How can I explain
What it means to be loved by you?
I wanna show my gratitude...

The song seems to refer to how much he's missed her, and how he would rather suffer the loss than move on:

I should stop loving you
Think what you've put me through
But I don't want to lock my heart away
I will look forward to days when I'll be loving you
Until then I'm gonna wish, and hope, and PRAAAAAY!!!!

The last two lines in particular seem nakedly emotional; Paul seems to be waiting for the day that he and Linda will be reunited in the next life. After he sings this verse (the middle eight), the simple piano arrangement is augmented by a burst of horns, turning the song into a celebration. He oversings it a bit, maybe, and he doesn't have the gospel pipes he used to, but it's still very moving.
 

maccafan

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Continued

The next song is Vintage Clothes, and it ushers in the album-ending "medley." I wish he hadn't assembled this as a medley, and if he had to, I wish he hadn't called it a medley, because it will only demand comparison to side 2 of Abbey Road, which would be unfair to ANY collection of songs. That said, it's more than the equal of the Red Rose Speedway medley, and what it lacks in symphonic sweep, it makes up for in emotional depth. "Vintage Clothes" is a pounding piano rocker, celebrating middle age while tweaking it gently:

Don't live in the past
Don't hold onto something that's changing fast
What we are is what we are
And what we wear ... is vintage clothes

Some vintage mellotron is sampled for ironic (comic?) effect, and Paul minds the young-uns:

A little worn, a little torn
Check the rack --
What went out is coming back!

It's funny and charming, and more importantly, not too long, and it segues into That Was Me. A happy-go-lucky rockabilly chugger, similar to "Summer of '59" but with more cheek and energy, he revels in his past for once instead of defending it:

That was me, at the scout camp
In the school play,
Spade and bucket by the sea
That was me

He reminisces about his childhood, proudly and wistfully, and later alludes to the whirlwind of Beatlemania. After all his interviews, you'd expect him to sing "That was me/ with the tape loops/ the avant garde one/ that was me" -- but he doesn't:

That was me, at the party
Sweating cobwebs in the cellar
On TV -- that was me!

It's great to hear him so loose and happy, and he sings the hell out of it at the end. This segues into the slower, poppier Feet In The Clouds. It's a great mid-tempo tune, instantly catchy, and Paul continues on his nostalgic path:

The teachers said I had my head in the clouds
They directed, I suspected, disconnected
Had it my way
On the street I had my feet on the ground
Stood corrected, well protected, resurrected
Had it my way

The chorus is typical McCartney ear candy, although it gets more complex at the end:

I've got my feet in the clouds
Got my head on the ground
I know that I'm not a square
As long as they're not around
But I find it very, very, very, very, very, very hard

The chorus is repeated again at the end, and the last line is sung several times through a vocoder, with Paul scat-singing over it and strings in the background. Sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it works! These three songs really sound the most like a "medley," as things take an unexpectedly sinister turn with the next song, House Of Wax. Another surprising Wings throwback, this is like a great lost "arena rock ballad" from the Wings Over America tour. Like "Soily," it has some dark and mysterious sounding lyrics:

Lightning hits the house of wax
Poets spill out on the street
To set alight the incomplete
Remainders of the future
Hidden in the yard

Now if you're like me, you're saying, "What the hell does THAT mean?" I don't know, and maybe Paul doesn't either, but this is a mood piece, and anyway, he assures us that:

Hidden in the yard
Underneath the wall
Buried deep below a thousand layers
Lay the answer to it all

The rest is more of the same, and it's pure Wings silliness, a la "Beware My Love," and you could dismiss it ... except the singing is great ... and the guitars are great ... and it's just fun to listen to. As good as it is on the CD, this will KILL live.

Of course, after such a "big" song, Paul knows to go "small" for the finale, and he does so to devastating effect. The End Of The End has all the hallmarks of a typical McCartney album-ender -- the stately piano, the swelling strings, the uplifting message -- but he raises his game to a level he's never even reached for before, and that's saying something for a guy who wrote "Hey Jude" and "Let It Be." Some have already commented on the lyrics, saying that Paul seems morbid or even prematurely concerned with his own mortality. I don't think Paul is preparing to shuffle off this mortal coil just yet, but I think it's inevitable that he'd think of such things after losing as many loved ones as he has:

At the end of the end
It's the start of a journey
To a much better place
And this wasn't bad
So a much better place
Would have to be special
No need to be sad

Nicely put, you think, very "take a sad song and make it better" -- but Paul hits you right between the eyes with the verse:

On the day that I die I'd like jokes to be told
And stories of old to be rolled out like carpets
That children have played on
And laid on while listening to stories of old

It's a sweet and touching song and, thankfully, he doesn't let it get maudlin -- he even whistles in the middle of it. He wrote his most famous album-ending lyrics almost 40 years ago -- "And in the end/ The love you take/ Is equal to the love/ You make" -- but he's lived a lifetime since then, and he really fleshes out that sentiment in this song. Your heart will skip a beat the first time you hear it.

Unfortunately, this sublime moment is followed by the only real misstep on the entire album, a noisy bit of nothing called Nod Your Head. If it were a hidden track with 10 minutes of silence between it and the end of the album, I could live with it. On the copy of the album I've heard, it follows almost immediately after "The End Of The End" and really jerks you right out of the mood he created so carefully. It's not an album-killer, but putting this pointless chunk of nonsense at the end of this wonderful album was a bad move. As I mentioned earlier, if he had to put a brief "Her Majesty"-like capper after the "big statement" final song, he should have put "Dance Tonight" there -- it's a fun, celebratory, light-hearted ditty that incidentally matches the mood he hopes for in the big statement song. When I buy the final album and make a CDR to incorporate the bonus tracks, that's the first -- and only -- thing I will change about the album.

So where, ultimately, will Memory Almost Full fall in the McCartney pantheon? This question was raised in the weeks following the release of Chaos & Creation, when many people immediately placed it in their personal "Top Five" -- or even "Top Three." Wiser (or perhaps more skittish) voices recommended waiting a year or two before making such rash judgements. That was a year-and-a-half ago, and Chaos has aged well, but Memory Almost Full will force a re-evaluation, for it is bursting with a side (or three) of Paul that we thought had retired permanently. Where Chaos & Creation was mature and stately, Memory Almost Full is bold and brash. The tear in Paul's eye has been replaced by a twinkle. I don't know how others will receive Memory Almost Full -- opinions on ALL of his albums vary wildly -- but my biggest problem will be: What do I bump out of my Top Five to make room for it?

Sean Murdock

Guys these are just a few reviews I've come across, what do you think?
 

Reverend Rock

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This all sounds very, very encouraging. I was particularly impressed by the lyric examples. This (and Chaos and Creation before it as well) is much more what I would want from a mature McCartney than most of his album output has offered, so I'm really looking forward to getting my copy.
 
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Martha Washington

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me, I think the reviews for "chaos" were pretty overboard. I think i'll keep my expectations a little more in check this time.
 

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I really liked Chaos... and if the quality of this one is in the same ballpark (and the lyrics look like they'll be perhaps a little better or at least as good), then I'm sure I'll like it a lot.
 

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