Paul McCartney: McCartney II - 1980
Paul McCartney's first solo album after the demise of Wings was a patchy affair, to be honest. McCartney was battling to keep hold of his relevance after punk, with new wave, post punk all over the place and "New Romanticism" waiting around the corner.
Was there any need for McCartney and this sort of semi-synthesised, electronic-ish material? Probably not, at the time. It is a very incongruous album, culturally. The idiotic, bemused expression on the cover didn't help either. Compare that with the Sex Pistols' album cover, or London Calling, or Dexy's Midnight Runners' Waiting For The Young Soul Rebels, just as random examples. Is there anybody in music's long history with a face as stupid-looking as Paul McCartney?
Coming Up is a danceable, lively piece of funky-ish disco that was very popular at the time, actually, while Temporary Secretary is an electronic, blippy strange song, insufferably catchy, and in possession of an embarrassing spoken part near the end.
Just when you think that McCartney has lost everything he had and gone all synthesised pop, he comes up with the bluesy, rock guitar glory of On The Way, an industrial, meaty, chugging blues that I really like. It is the only really traditionally credible piece of rock on the album, however. Waterfalls is a trademark hooky but plaintive McCartney ballad. It was memorable, and although stuck in something of a time warp, it is as timelessly endearing.
Nobody Knows is a frantic slice of thumping country blues that I can't imagine appealing to anyone much in 1980. It sounds like a lazy demo piece of fun, to me. Similarly, the funky wah-wah instrumental that is Front Parlour. Yes, it is perfectly listenable, but was this really the best Paul McCartney could put on an album at the time? This is Paul McCartney we are talking about, remember. Summer's Day Song is actually a quite evocative synthesiser-backed song with the electric sounds of David Bowie's "Heroes" instrumentals all over it. It is one of the album's most adventurous numbers.
The electro-dance rhythms of the instrumental Frozen Jap is interesting too. I quite like it and it sort of suited that whole Ultravox-style electronic vibe of the time. Bogey Music lets things down, though, being a ludicrous pice of jaunty "fun". I guess this whole "side two" of the original album, from Front Parlour onwards at least showed that McCartney was trying to be experimental, relevant and innovative as opposed to issuing another album of Wings-style (relatively) formulaic chart-aimed pop.
Darkroom exemplified that as well - a quirky piece of Lene Lovich-style electronic nuttiness. This is definitely not what you would expect from Paul McCartney. I do wonder what people thought who had bought this album on the back of Coming Up, though. I dare say they just only ever played "side one".
One Of Those Days snaps us back to laid-back, typical McCartney wistful balladry, however, just in time, before the album ends. This album was certainly no work of genius, let's be brutally honest, either in its songs or its production. The whole sound on the album is pretty indistinct and muffled, I am told it was deliberately "lo-fi". Hmmm. Any excuse, eh? Some have even said this album has "cult" status and is listed in one of those "100 albums to hear before you die" lists. Do me a favour.
