C/D Paul McCartney Solo

McCartney solo hasn't got the quality control that he did in The Beatles, when John would ridicule anything that didn't hold up. But when he comes up with something great, it is still great. At his best, McCartney is at least almost as good as he was in The Beatles. It is his worst moments that are much worse now.

His solo ballads definitely couldn't be written by any "AM radio jerkoff". Most professional songwriters haven't got the musical gift to write the kind of ballads he does, with the perfect variation between major and minor and other harmonically intersting elements. The only other writer I know that is able to combine major and minor in the same perfect way is Neil Finn.

What do you mean by 'major and minor'? Chords? Keys?

I remain forever in Naive Teen Idol's debt for introducing me to Press To Play.

What do you mean by 'major and minor'? Chords? Keys?

He is almost certainly referring to Ursa Major and Ursa Minor.

What do you mean by 'major and minor'? Chords? Keys?

A bit of both, but, like Neil Finn, he actually does the chord changes in such a way that it feels like key changes. And changing between major and minor is always a great thing to do when you compose a ballad. It works every time!

one thing I always notice is that Paul McCartney was such a creative and brilliant bassist from '66 to '69 or so, and then suddenly after that I don't find his bass work all that remarkable.

The only thing I notice about his bass playing is that his bass is way too loud in the mix. Particularly on "Abbey Road" and his first couple of solo albums.

A fantastically beautiful song, which is probably his most underated solo work of all:

(And a perfect example of the interplay between major key and minor key that Macca is so good at when he is at his best. Particularly the "Only Love Is Strong Enough" bridge is fantastic)

huh. that song sounds like schlocky by-the-numbers McCartney to my ears. go figure.

That's because you are tone deaf then. It is all about harmony!

That clip doesn't have any sound on it!

I have found the song on last.fm. It sounds pretty good.

One thought about this song: if some kind of reasonably hip contemporary artist released it, it would blow people away. ... I have just been listening to Sufjan Stevens which a friend gave me from his hard drive. I guess it shows some talent, ambition, at least a couple of good tracks (out of a lot!) - but imagine if he suddenly came up with this!

I like "Only Love Remains" and its chord changes -- but it's "A McCartney Ballad" for sure and, thus, for fans almost to the exclusion of anyone who's not.

For me, the song on Press To Play that challenges what people normally think of when McCartney comes to mind is "However Absurd." It's a "ballad," I guess, but the lyrical imagery is weird, the production metallic and processed, and the bridge is arresting. Maybe it's Eric Stewart's presence, I dunno.

But really, it's the kind of track that reminds me why I like him solo so much. No, it doesn't have anything on his Beatles work -- but for every "Only Love Remains" on a McCartney album, there are at least three or four cuts that affirm the guy's drive to experiment.

(unlike his Beatles output, which was 99% classics and 1% duds)

Complete guesswork, but I'm going to take a stab at Geir Hongro's 1% Macca duds:

1.) "I'm Down"
2.) "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?"
3.) "Helter Skelter"
4.) "Get Back"
5.) Last half of "Hey Jude"
6.) "She's A Woman"

I've a friend who detests McCartney yet thinks "Only Love Remains" is one of the greatest ballads ever.

For me, the song on Press To Play that challenges what people normally think of when McCartney comes to mind is "However Absurd." It's a "ballad," I guess, but the lyrical imagery is weird, the production metallic and processed, and the bridge is arresting. Maybe it's Eric Stewart's presence, I dunno.

But really, it's the kind of track that reminds me why I like him solo so much. No, it doesn't have anything on his Beatles work -- but for every "Only Love Remains" on a McCartney album, there are at least three or four cuts that affirm the guy's drive to experiment.

I prefer his usual style, but he experimented in The Beatles and I'm perfectly OK with him trying out various stuff as a soloist too. It's just that I feel that it is exactly when he experiments that he doesn't have the quality control he would need. As long as he does on just a few tracks it doesn't matter though - I prefer the patchiness of "McCartney II", "Press To Play" and "Driving Rain" to the downright dullness of "Pipes Of Peace".

I've a friend who detests McCartney yet thinks "Only Love Remains" is one of the greatest ballads ever.

This is stranger because, as Naive Teen Idol says, it is a very typical McCartney ballad. And if you like "Only Love Remains" I cannot quite see how you wouldn't like "Golden Slumbers", "Michelle", "Here There & Everywhere" or even "Once Upon a Long Ago". I know some of those who detest him may do because of his most extremely twee stuff like "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", "When I'm 64" and "Honey Pie" though.

1.) "I'm Down"
2.) "Why Don't We Do It in the Road?"
3.) "Helter Skelter"
4.) "Get Back"
5.) Last half of "Hey Jude"
6.) "She's A Woman"

Bingo! Except the order would be another one. :)

Ringo! Have you heard he quit singing :)

There's quite a lot of relatively tedious bluesy stuff on very late Beatles / Let It Be sort of period, isn't there? I would have thought Mr Hongro might be against that too.

Yeah, "Oh Darling" is missing from that list for sure. I don't mind some of that stuff, but I agree with "relatively tedious" - if they had kept on going as a band I think that period would stand out more as a kind of weird genre digression - one very much in line with general trends in the period - whereas, since it lined up with them trailing off, it just becomes part of the melange of "classic rock"...

Most of that blues stuff wasn't Paul's. If anything, he got even more tin pan alleyish.

Well, except for the triumvirate guitar solos on "the end".

Yeah, "Oh Darling" is missing from that list for sure

"Oh Darling" is R&B influenced but also has other elements, like more chord changes, for instance. It is more like the early stuff than like his most blatant rock'n'roll numbers, really.

i bought the bowl of cherries one recently, it's pretty nice....the sort of record they call "slight" i guess, but still it's jaunty.

He got more Tin Pan Alleyish? Examples?? I wanna hear them.

I guess McCartney's most blatantly Tin Pan Alleyish number must be "Baby's Request".

The never-finished "Suicide" has the appropriate jauntiness as well.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/nov/21/fireman-electric-arguments

apprently not his finest hour.

Not his finest, but it's OK. Quality-wise, it is more on level with "Driving Rain" and "Off The Ground" than with "Chaos And Creation In The Backyard" though.

It'd pretty good, I dont' think it's of the level of "chaos" or the last album, on the whole, but it's also not meant to be the same kind of thing. It's not McCartney II either, but for a late-career experimental album, something you wouldn't even expect him to do at this point, it succeeds.

but that review is completely off base and nothing to go by

He'll never match the greatness of "Temporary Secretary" again. And I am not being sarcastic.

"Temporary Secretary" isn't even the best song on that SIDE of that album!!

Oh damn, I thought I wouldn't let myself be tempted, argh...

Well most of the best and brilliant-est songs on that alb are on Side 1 anyway. The soapsuds and dandruff are mostly on the other side. ("Summer Day's Song" is super, tho.)

"McCartney II" isn't even particularly good. And "Temporary Secretary" surely not. Just using synths isn't enough to impress - they have to be used on a good song too.

lol something Geir and Alex can agree on

pfft geir you are wrong

McCartney II is a very accomplished piece of experimentation, being produced (as it was) in 1979-80. Yes he makes a load of noise about doing it all himself, but he's always done that.

Rockestra w/ Bonham:

What a woeful helicopter smash of an album. How it's Fireman and not Macca being 100% self-indulgent is fathoms beyond my reach.

Armed with this thread's contents I made a best of post-Beatles playlist on Spotify (sorry to those shut out of Spotify):

http://open.spotify.com/user/nickyd/playlist/40YtLVuiEtdisxLcaqhHt1

And then I whittled it down further to stuff I actually liked:

http://open.spotify.com/user/nickyd/playlist/7Ctxim1T5TslHsVGg09feX

(can't stop listening to Back Seat Of My Car at the moment.

Where is Pinefox when you need him?

Paul McCartney is one of those artists that I bet there's a potential CD-R or two's worth of stuff I would absolutely adore - really he needs to be a lot more obscure than he is, so some loving curator could trawl through his albums and B-Sides and make some selections. As it is his commercial/historical clout means the available compilations take the path of least resistance a bit too much.
― Tom (Groke), Thursday, 13 February 2003

"Every Night" from the first solo album is an idyll of a song, very "Railways Conserve The Environment" 1970 (as opposed to, you know, RADICAL 1970) indeed. I'd have liked it if he'd written "Come And Get It" slightly later so it could be his first solo single, because it's better than "Another Day", or if he'd written it slightly earlier so it could be a Beatles single, because it's better than "Hello Goodbye". The promo film for "Helen Wheels" is fantastically evocative. "Hi Hi Hi" is better than "My Ding-A-Ling" precisely because it *isn't* "in the tradition of the music hall" (the hilarious reason given by the ultra-conservative Charles Curran-era BBC as to why it was still playing Chuck Berry's lowpoint when it had banned the Wings song in December 1972).

― robin carmody (robin carmody), Monday, 17 February 2003

I'm listening to Macca on spotify, maybe I can play N's playlist.

I'm not sure though, how those playlists work.

I am just listening to RAM.

you shld be able to just click on the link and it shld open the playlist

Listening to that playlist: whatever else about it, it reminds me of the greatness of 'You Gave Me The Answer'