Paul McCartney's Solo Output
fada
Posts: 1,032
An often ridiculed subject in the media but I for one think that he has put out some fine solo work. I am basing these off the material (solo) I have heard of his.
McCartney is a good album alot of mixed stuff without outtakes of some unused beatles material.
Ram is a quality album and probable his finest solo work.
Band on the run is a good album also.
Flaming pie, I got this on its release and think that it is a fine piece of work
Run devil run was an ok album but worth the purchase along for the brillant "another baby".
Driving rain was a weak album that was a bit of dour experience
Chaos and Creation in the backyard: A return to form. At the mercy is the best song he has done in years.
McCartney is a good album alot of mixed stuff without outtakes of some unused beatles material.
Ram is a quality album and probable his finest solo work.
Band on the run is a good album also.
Flaming pie, I got this on its release and think that it is a fine piece of work
Run devil run was an ok album but worth the purchase along for the brillant "another baby".
Driving rain was a weak album that was a bit of dour experience
Chaos and Creation in the backyard: A return to form. At the mercy is the best song he has done in years.
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Calico Skies is among the most beautiful pieces of music ever written
i'm anxiously awaiting memory almost full
Get it now, get enough, before its gone, let's everybody carry on, carry on....
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1970
John: John Lennon Plastic Ono Band ***** His finest work. Stark, raw, uncompromising. Only Look at Me is a Beatles-era song; the rest is Lennon at his creative peak.
Paul: McCartney ** Apart from Maybe I'm Amazed, one of his finest works, this sounds like what it is, a lot of home demos of songs stretching back to the Esher sessions for the White Album.
1971
John: Imagine **** His most successful solo effort, but already the well was running dry. Lennon only wrote three new songs in the first half of 1971, for this album. Jealous Guy is a rewrite of The Beatles' then-unreleased Child of Nature. Gimme Some Truth had been in development since the Get Back sessions of January 1969. How Do You Sleep? overreaches itself at times, and I Don't Want To Be A Soldier Mama could have done with being at least two minutes shorter.
Paul: Ram ****: Paul's still in whimsical mode here, but this album is criminally underrated. Yes, Paul's in lighthearted mode in contrast with John's heaviness, but this album knows how to entertain without being dumb. Haaaaaaands across the waaaaaater.... great chorus!
Wild Life **: It's dispensible. It's a stinker, even, but it doesn't stink as badly as the album directly below.
1972
John with Yoko: Sometime in New York City (no stars) This sucks, big time. It proves that right-on politics can't stop a song from sucking. "Angela... they gave you coffee ... they gave you tea ... they gave you everything but ... equality." I mean, for fook's sake.
1973
John: Mind Games ** Apart from the title track, and maybe Meat City, this is stoned filler.
Paul: Red Rose Speedway ****. Big Barn Bed is a fun track, and Wings are starting to gel as a band. It's good, light, solid Paul.
Band on the Run ***** Paul's solo high point, so far. It's a great album, all the way through.
1974
John: Walls and Bridges **** A lot of people think this album's total crap, but I think it's a near-return to form for John, helped largely because he didn't feel compelled, in his so-called lost weekend days, to write every song about bloody Yoko. Steel and Glass, written about Allen Klein, sounds like John once again relying on the "diss" formula he used in How Do You Sleep?, and again it doesn't work. But there are some cracking tracks on here, Whatever Gets You Thru The Night being the obvious one. Sometimes the production exemplifies the very worst of LA coke-and-booze-fuelled studio session crapola (Scared, with its dreadful overdubbed strings and horns, being a case and point), but overall, I think there's enough quality on here to give Lennon the benefit of the doubt.
1975
John: Rock and Roll *** It's a covers album that took forever to record (as is well documented). Sometimes John's voice is so raw from coke that no amount of added reverb can hide it.
Paul: Venus and Mars *** Apart from the Crossroads TV Theme Tune at the end, this isn't a bad album, but songs such as Rock Show sound a bit too forced at times (where Helter Skelter had been effortless).
1976- 1979
We'll skip these years. John was baking bread, writing in his journal about his wirepulling and watching videos of Monty Python all day long, whilst under enforced vows of silence one of Yoko's astrologer art dealer flunky types had recommended.
1980
John with Yoko: Double Fantasy **.5 Well, half the album's listenable.
Paul: McCartney II **** This is a fine experimental album, the dodgy Waterfalls notwithstanding. The mellotron - made famous on Strawberry Fields Forever - got a new lease of life here. One of These Days is one of Paul's most beautiful ballads. It's deceptively simple, lyrically and chordally.
So, Paul's 1970s work is clearly more consistent than John's.
You said that " McCartney" is a great album but you only give it two stars?
sorry, but thats not true
No, I said McCartney II is a great album. McCartney and McCartney II were released ten years apart.
ebony and ivory - worst song ever written.
Paul is hugely underestimated... it was Paul who pioneered the Beatles use of tape loops and early electronica,
as for doing soft melody all the time... Helter Skelter and Oh Darling are two of the Beatles most hard rocking tunes!
i firmly feel that they shot the wrong beatle.
mull of kintyrre?
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuw!
Mull Of Kintyre is better than anything on Mind Games or Sometime In NYC.
I agree, even if its melody does sound somewhat lifted from John Martyn's superlative arrangement of Eibhli Ghail Chiuin Ni Chearbhail (1973):
http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=50:jifqxxedldfe~T
the video for that song is sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo gay
great song.
and london town is an overlooked work of genius.
http://www.myspace.com/brain_of_c