Which albums of Paul McCartney are really worth it? Here is a big check.
Do you love the Beatles? But the solo artist and wings front man Paul McCartney have you always found only hm? Then it is time to check this opinion, because there is no living artist who has influenced pop music more than him. “There is a long way between chaos and creation”, he sang himself – and often got stuck halfway. But if you know where you have to look, there are plates in the creative flood that can be reached by Paul’s other band.
Recommendations of the editorial team
Got to get thesis into your life
Paul and Linda McCartney: Ram (1972)
“I Want a Horse, I Want A Sheep, Want To Get A Good Night’s Sleep,” Sing Paul McCartney in “Heart of the Country”. There, after the separation of the Beatles, he flees to the Scottish country. He doesn’t find any rest: the former Fab Four got caught in a legal dispute in 1971. Paul plunges into work to distract. A new song is created every day – 25 a total of eleven of them land on RAM. It is the plate with which he emancipates himself from his ex-band. As the new partner, his wife Linda is at his side, a proto version of the Wings plays the pieces. The acoustic guitar conveys country sailor, the finely set arrangements disguise the complexity of the compositions. McCartney’s bitterness cannot be hidden. “You took your Lucky Break and Broke IT in Two”, he etches towards Lennon. It shoots back with its own diss track: “How do you sleep?” Paul’s planned answer, “Quite Well, Thank you”, unfortunately remains unwritten.
Four and a half stars
Paul McCartney: Tug of War (1982)
On December 8, 1980, Mark David Chapman killed John Lennon. When Paul McCartney is asked by journalists the next day, he apparently reacts cold: “It’s a drag, isn’t it?” He only lets his pain over the death of the friend feel the world on this album – whether explicitly in “Here Today” or hidden in “Take It Away”, where there is talk of the “Sole Survivor Carrying the Load”. Ram on – continue. The motto from 1972 also applies ten years later. McCartney’s anchor remains the music. The artistic liberation (McCartney II) is followed by the big pop draft for the 80s: Tug of War is hardly less eclectic than the two plates in front of it. Beatles producer George Martin combs and snaps these songs until a boogie-woogie number also fits between ballads and blues, and McCartney composes as long as it has not: The majestic “wanderlust” is one of its best songs ever. And then there is the Steve Wonder duet “Ebony and Ivory”. Fluffy, safe. But if you still hate this well-intentioned piece of 80s plush 36 years later, you have no heart.
Four and a half stars
Paul McCartney: Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005)
What Paul McCartney is most missing in all the years after the Beatles is someone who says no to him. In 1989 Elvis Costello gave his opposite counterpart, so the best songs are created on Flowers in The Dirt. In 2004, McCartney was again looking for a creative partner where he can rub himself. George Martin recommends Nigel Godrich, Radiohead’s house and farm producers. It is exactly the right one for this. He banishes McCartney’s live band from the studio and encourages him to record as many instruments as possible. McCartney has never sounded about the length of a plate as seriously as on chaos and creation in the backyard. Perhaps it has to do with the fact that his marriage to Heather Mills was on the last train at that time. “Smile When You’re Heart is fi Lled with Pain,” sings Paul. He copied that from Charlie Chaplin. Thumbs Up and everything is good. This time the gesture cannot even convince him. Melancholy weighs more heavily than optimism. And that almost looks like a liberation.
Four stars
Wings Greatest
Wings: Band on the Run (1973)
The world is waiting for the return of Paul McCartney, the songwriter and studio artist for four years. After three shocked country records and the almost shocking mediocre Red Rose Speedway, most have almost given up the recovery, including Paul himself. And then this album is created-under the most difficult circumstances. McCartney wants to record it in the EMI studio in the Nigerian capital Lagos because it sounds like an exotic location. Days before departure, Henry McCullough and Denny Seiwell leave the band. Wings shrink to the trio: Paul, Linda and Denny Laine. Lagos turns out to be a nightmare. The first demos are taken from Paul in a robbery. As if through a miracle, he still finishes band on the run – and picks up his most straight -line rock plate. No other sold in 1974 in the United Kingdom and in Australia. The title piece, “Jet” or “Helen Wheels” can still be heard on certainty, if you are frightening to it, if you are hidden through the radio in the USA at any time. “Let me roll it” is reminiscent of John Lennon, “No Words” of George Harrison. Maybe that’s why everyone can agree on the band on the run: because the Beatles could have heard in the same way in the 1970s.
Five stars
Wings: Back to the Egg (1979)
After the soft London Town, back to the egg, apparently back to the Rock’n’Roll-Roots. The singles “Getting Closer” and “Old Siam, Sir” rock harder than the wings ever rocked. “Spin it on” even reminds of “I Feel Alright” from the Stooges. Punk may have inspired McCartney, whose nihilist rage of destruction is alien to him. Under the name Rockestra, the rock establishment from Pete Townshend to John Bonham is a minute-long senseless jam on page B. At the other end of the scale, the forward-looking synth-r’n’n’n from “Arrow Through Me” and “Million Miles”, a gospel squeezed out of the concertina. The Classy swinging “Baby’s Request” sends the wings into the good night. A concept album? “Rather a Bombcept album,” says McCartney. Good one, but only in commercial terms. Back to the Egg is artistically one of its most versatile records.
Four stars
Chaos and creation
Paul McCartney: McCartney II (1980)
At the end of the 70s, McCartney had come far – and yet again where he started the decade. Again he had led a band to Olympus, again he was tired of this band. In January 1980, McCartney was arrested at Tokyo Airport because he carries marijuana with him – an unconscious act of self -sabotage, as he later says. After nine days in prison, he returns to his farm in Scotland. There he works back to the music, just as on McCartney ten years earlier: McCartney II. This version is more spun, synthesizer and sequencer are now part of the inventory of the Home Studios, electro-instrumental stand in addition to blues feter exercises. Half of it needs no one, the other shines in the glamor of unbroken creativity: “Waterfall”, the crazy “Temporary Secretary”, a blueprint for Hot Chip. And of course “coming up”, which becomes the last number 1 hit of the Wings in a live version. When John Lennon, the song hears on the radio, he ends his pause for his skills. Even ten years after the end of the Beatles, their competition was the strongest creative engine for John and Paul.
Three and a half stars
LET IT BE
Paul McCartney: Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984)
If you want to see Paul McCartney running through London for 100 minutes, the film “Give My Regards to Broad Street” is recommended. In 1984, only a few cinema seekers are interested. The soundtrack still reaches the top of the charts. “No more Lonely Nights”, the power ballad with Gilmour-Solo, can also delight the hearts of young hard rock lupfer. The rest of the plate consists of unnecessary new images of Beatles and Wings hits as well as relatively new songs such as “Wanderlust”.
Two stars
And in the end …
… you are also well advised with a greatest hits collection, because many of McCartney’s best songs either only appear as a single (“Another Day”, “Live and Let Die”, “Goodnight Tonight”) or on average albums (“Calico Skies” from the age-weak Flaming Pie or “My Love” becomes). Pure McCartney’s deluxe edition (Six stars) (2016) almost all of these hidden treasures and also contains “Sing the Changes” from the listening The Fireman project that McCartney has been running with Youth since 1993. If 67 tracks are too much at once, you can also go to Wingspan: Hits and History (Six stars) (2001). This keeps what the title promises and combines the most important of the wings of “Listen to What The Man Said” to “Silly Love Songs”. 40 songs – but it really can’t be less.