Paul McCartney: NEW - 2013

As usual with latter-day Paul McCartney albums, this offering received lots of negative reviews. I find this incredibly unfair and unjustified - just stop it, eh? Accept that this is what he is putting out and take it for what it is. 

Anyway, it is a perfectly enjoyable listen, as McCartney marries his intrinsic melody and class with some contemporary beats and rhythms, but never in an overbearing way. Yes, it thumps away a bit and there are lots of grainy keyboard loops floating around, along with some psychedelia meets contemporary dance beats bass lines. 

There is a loose vibrancy to the album, however, with all of the material having an instinctive poppiness to it without necessarily producing a stand out, singalong hit. The attractively riffy Save Us and Appreciate are probably the closest to that that we get on the album. The chunky Queenie Eye and the rumbling, mysterious Road (Medley) are good tracks too, along with the title track, New, and the jaunty On My Way To Work. Alligator is beguilingly attractive as well. 

The one slightly incongruous track on here is the acoustic and vaguely confrontational look back at The Beatles' younger days in Early Days. McCartney didn't usually go in for Beatles nostalgia like Starr and Harrison did, so I find it all the more welcome. Other than this, the music is forward-looking all the way. I really like the album. 

Secondary, 3 of 28

Popular posts from this blog

Roxy Music: Roxy Music - 1972

Image
  "Is this a recording session or a cocktail party?" - Dr. Simon Puxley Like Bryan Ferry's old friend Dr. Simon Puxley, I have always found this debut album from a band that I have loved since 1972 extremely hard to categorise, or indeed analyse, because it was just so very unique.   It was recorded in early 1972 at a time when music was populated by interpreters of the blues like Led Zeppelin, Free and The Rolling Stones, prog rock, folk rock, socially aware soul artists like Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield and, of course, glam rock.  It has to be said, however, that Roxy were as much of an influence on subsequent glam rock as it had been on them.  Into this musical zeitgeist,  Roxy Music  came from, well, nowhere, seemingly.  The opening track,  Re-Make Re-Model ,   was a fantastic start, with all the individual Roxy members taking solos in Bryan Ferry’s ode to a car number plate ( CPL 593H ). This track just sort of summed up what early Roxy were all about - exciting,
View Full Post »

Billy Joel: River Of Dreams - 1993

Image
  In 1993 Billy Joel suddenly called a halt on his recording-songwriting career.  He still occasionally tours, singing his material from 1972-1993, but since 1993 he has not released an album.  He seemed to suddenly lose interest and also his muse. Fair enough, if he felt he hadn't got it in him, or hadn't got the desire then that was a fine, honest decision on his part.  This was an album that subsequently didn't get much of my attention, which is probably a bit of a shame, as it is not a bad album at all and a fair swan-song.   No Man's Land  is a crashing rock number to open with, with a bit of an  Elvis Costello & The Attractions  keyboard-drum sound, particularly at the beginning. It is a lyrically cynical song about big business and high-level corruption.  The Great Wall Of China  is a shuffling, powerful number, pretty typical of Joel's later material, full of power and purpose and appealing vocal delivery. Once again, the lyrics are realist and questioni
View Full Post »

Don Henley: The End Of The Innocence - 1989

Image
  This was ex-Eagle Don Henley's third solo album.  I remember getting it back in 1989 and being relieved that, for an eighties album, it was decidedly synthesiser-free, and was a proper rock album in that guitar, drum, piano West Coast way that it had. It was a pleasant mix of hard rockers and moving, melodic, romantic rock ballads. I much prefer the love songs, and some of the rockers are a bit run of the mill. For some reason though, I find it a bit dated these days, which is possibly a little harsh as it still has its good points. Possibly the slightly muffled, unremastered sound and those accursed programmed drums. What was with that strange hairstyle on the front cover, though, Don?   The End Of The Innocence  will always be a delight. Featuring the instantly recognisable piano sound of Bruce Hornsby, it is a perfect piece of summer's day, easy West Coast rock. The piano refrain is thoroughly irresistible, as too is the chorus and the lyrics are crammed full of wonderful
View Full Post »

The Rolling Stones: Goats Head Soup - 1973

Image
  "We didn't know where to go to record. because Keith was in so much trouble. Jamaica sounded like a fun option" - Mick Jagger This somewhat enigmatic, beguiling album   has always suffered as the follow-up to the towering Exile On Main Street. Goat’s Head Soup has never been given too much credit. It has been criticised for being lazy and for having a muffled, muddy sound (even more so than Exile). The latter is undoubtedly true, and no amount of remastering will make any difference to that. ( A 2019 remastering of the album has bestowed upon us all a seriously improved quality of sound, giving new life to The Goat. I urge everyone to listen to it). However, it is not really a ”lazy” product, as it has often been perceived  - extremely unfairly, in my opinion.  “Louche”  (definition:  disreputable or sordid in a rakish and appealing way ) is maybe a far better description - looking at that definition it would seem perfectly apt. Time, however, has seen many attitudes so
View Full Post »

New Order: Movement - 1981

Image
From the unfortunate ashes of the ground-breaking  Joy Division  came New Order.  It didn't seem to matter as yet that they were without deceased vocalist  Ian Curtis, for  h is stamp and legacy is still all over this album, which still retains the dour, introspective, post-punk atmosphere of Joy Division's two albums. However, from the first upbeat notes of the vibrant  Dreams Never End   there is a slightly discernible shift in mood. A more effervescent liveliness that, of course, would see the new decade end with the band sunning themselves in Ibiza as kings of the burgeoning dance club scene.  The post-punk sombreness is still not far from the surface at all on this album, though, exemplified on the mournful, haunting  Truth . A lot of the group's material is still ghostly and mysterious. To my taste, just as it should be. If I am honest, I much prefer this, and the Joy Division stuff to all that hands in the air dance material, man. To say nothing of that dreadful foot
View Full Post »

The Rolling Stones: Dirty Work - 1986

Image
   "Mick is more involved with what's happening at the moment. He has to go backwards and compare himself to who's hitting the Top Ten at the moment" - Keith Richards Widely considered by most to be the worst Rolling Stones album, by far.   It genuinely had a lot going against it - a fractured band with its main protagonists pretty much functioning completely independent to each other, with even comparatively mild-tempered Charlie Watts falling out with Jagger, a musical trend of the time in synthesisers dominating everything and, yes, a bloody awful cover.   Let me try and "accentuate the positives" with this review. It is had too much negativity over the years, probably correctly, but oh well, here goes.....   One Hit To The Body  is a rousing, impressive opener employing that old acoustic-electric guitar riff intro again and some impressive guests like  Led Zeppelin 's  Jimmy Page ,  Bobby Womack ,  Patti Scialfa  and  Kirsty McColl . It is as good as
View Full Post »

The Rolling Stones: Let It Bleed - 1969

Image
    "The album extends the rock and blues feel of Beggars Banquet into slightly harder-rocking, more demonically sexual territory" - Richie Unterberger - AllMusic The Rolling Stones said goodbye to the decade that devilishly spawned them,  the sixties, with another of their "big four" albums that straddled the turn of the decade that had begun so successfully with the previous year's blues rock masterpiece that was the magnificent  Beggars' Banquet .  With the emphasis a bit more towards "rock" than "blues" on this album, it is pretty much the equal of BB in many ways.   Culturally, the sixties ended in so many ways with this album and then The Stones' catastrophic decade-ending open-air concert at Altamont, in December 1969, Northern California. The event was the very opposite of that summer's peace and love vibe of Woodstock. Much has been written about it elsewhere, so I have concentrated on the music, which deserves to be asse
View Full Post »

Dire Straits: Brothers In Arms - 1985

Image
  After four increasingly successful albums (particularly Making Movies) Dire Straits managed to move with this one release into the stratosphere.  It seemed that in the summer of 1985 everybody had to have this album, including people who didn't have much else in their collections. What's more within a year or two, everyone had to have it on CD, the new medium for music. Dire Straits became the flagship CD band, to be played in hi-fi showrooms everywhere as the definitive example of perfect digital sound.  As someone who had really liked their previous albums, I eagerly waited this one, but it slightly disappointed me at the time and indeed continues to do so. Like the most commercially successful and globally popular release  from many other artists (Sgt. Pepper, Born In The USA, Thriller, Exodus....), it is not my favourite, not by a long way. Anyway, to the songs, many of which are now Radio Two standards. Opening with the country-ish rock of  So Far Away , we soon realise
View Full Post »

Elton John: Breaking Hearts - 1984

Image
   This was one of those Elton John albums that somehow didn't quite do it, either for me, or for many others, it would seem. However, listening to it again, I am pleasantly surprised to hear that is much better than I recall. I have owned it for years and not dug it out too often. I am finding it has hidden depths (again!).   Bernie Taupin  was back with Elton full time now, as he had been on the previous album, the successful  Two Low For Zero . Also, the  Elton John Band  -  Dee Murray ,  Davey Johnstone  and  Nigel Olsson  are all present here, which is always a good thing.  Restless   gets the album off to a fine start with some chunky Stonesy riffs and a confident, lively vocal. It is a solid Elton rocker, good to hear.  Slow Down Georgie (She's Poison)   is lyrically banal, but is actually quite an exhilarating, upbeat number that gets you singing along, embarrassingly.  Who Wears These Shoes   is, funnily enough, also strangely addictive in its funky liveliness. Indeed,
View Full Post »

Van Morrison: New Arrangements And Duets - 2024

Image
Upon this album's release, in late September 2024, many reviewers were seemingly falling over themselves to slag off this album, which contains fifteen jazzy re-workings of (comparatively) lesser-known Van Morrison songs (he is also joined by guests on quite a few of them). Anyway, the professionals seem to think - using all their cupboard is bare clichés about Morrison having lost his songwriting muse - that no matter who you are or however many albums you have been continuing to put out on an almost yearly basis you should be coming up with an album of new material at this stage in your career. Yes, The Rolling Stones put one out last year and Bruce Springsteen released some new stuff back in 2020 but Van Morrison has been releasing albums of new material right up to 2022 so he owes nothing to anyone. If he wants to release this then he has earned the right to do so. Another thing that bugs them is that the previous two albums ( Moving On Skiffle and Accentuate The Positive ) we
View Full Post »