New Paul McCartney album "Egypt Station" coming September 7, 2018*

It's a McCartney miracle, a McCartney miracle I tell you!

 

I can wait another day or a few weeks... for more McCartney.

 

It will be great. The rewies and prewiews aside
I am very confident Egypt Station will be a special one.

 

Point of order I'm a complete, unapologetic Paul McCartney mark. My first exposure came real early thanks to my Dad, who being born in 1950 (17 when Sgt. Pepper was released for us math wizards) was a big music fan with a mountainous vinyl collection. I had a cheap kid's 45 record player, grabbed a stack of 45's, and after a few spins of stuff that wasn't particularly memorable, I put the needle down and heard what I thought was a mosquito, the opening to "I Feel Fine"...

I remember that moment vividly, the goosebumps washing over me, the excitement coming out of that little speaker. For a 6 year old kid it, as cliche' & corny as it can sound, changed my life and from then on music in all it's various forms became my laser focus.

Now just because I have all of McCartney's solo work I'm under no delusions, portions of his solo discography ranges from fair to straight crap (looking at you "Press To Play"). First few times through I always listen to his stuff fairly critically (being a musician myself it's hard not to dissect the instrumentation, arrangements, effects, etc.) Then I try to just do something else (drive, clean, etc) so I'm not so intensely focused on every little thing. That's when the track as a whole begins to be subconsciously taken in and melody/harmony/rhythm allowed to sink in.

The first two "singles" are good songs, I prefer "I Don't Know" over "Come On To Me", but they both are produced well. Because of his aging voice "I Don't Know" has a deep poignancy, while the stompy "Come On To Me" has one of the coolest bass drops McCartney has come up with as it comes out of the breakdown. Overall the songs make a positive impression that the new album will be good.

But then "Fuh You" 'dropped'...

While it has grown a bit on me a bit, at first I thought "This song is just not very good." It had nothing to do with the "fuh you" F word controversy, to me it's very "Big Boys Bickering", much ado about nothing. No, the production is what I have an issue with. One of the reasons the aforementioned LP "Press To Play" was so awful (IMO) is that McCartney tried to sound like the contemporary music of the time (1985-1986 big drums, synths, over-production, etc.) "Fuh You" has the same issue; it's McCartney trying to make a millennial pop track instead of just being himself and writing what comes, regardless of genre & commercial considerations.

(Playing the part of Hugh Padgham tonight is Mr. Ryan Tedder!)

"Fuh You" sounds like a song off of one of those MTV reality shows...NOT a good thing. Tedder, producer of Ariana Grande, Taylor Swift, Maroon 5, etc. produced the song in line with McCartney working with young in demand producers like he did on "New". Thing is those efforts largely worked (the Mark Ronson produced tracks "Alligator" & " New" especially), this half assed millennial pop track just doesn't work. Since this is the only track produced by Tedder hopefully it's the sole turd out of the bunch...

Bottom line is, the true McCartney believers among us will still buy Egypt Station and as the years go on I know I'll soften on "Fuh You". We're not automatons who'll buy anything Sir McCartney puts out. 1) I see it as taking in an artists entire body of work, and McCartney is certainly an artist in the true sense of the word & 2) The man's work has saved me numerous times. When in a deep depression and feeling this entire agreed upon illusion is painfully pointless, music (with Beatles and McCartney at the top of the list) brings me back down to Earth where I can see that if another group of human beings can create something so powerful, beautiful and transcendent then there must be hope for humanity after all.

Pardon the novella, it's just I've visited this thread the last few years and just listened, appreciative of the scoops and information. This album has been given the "might be his/their last" qualification many older musicians & bands run into especially as the first generation of rock is mostly gone (Elvis, Perkins, Berry) and the second "golden" 60's/70's boomer generation is fast approaching the inevitable.

Whether Egypt Station will be his last album proper or not I am as interested and hyped for this record in a way I haven't been in years. It's reminiscent of when I was 17 and got Off The Ground day of release, excited to see if Paul could build upon the strides taken on Flowers In The Dirt. Similarly I feel Egypt Station is coming after a three album late career renaissance began in 2005. I am cheering him on and hope he goes 4 for 4. Because while it's noted occasionally by critics it's largely ignored with the stock review open "his best album in years" mentality.

"Fuh You" won't make or break the album, it has however, as evidenced in this thread, got us music wonks going pretty good, excited for stickers & tracklists and trading favs & skips. To have just turned 43 and hating it I feel it's pretty great to feel that 17 year old excitement over a new album... especially in the world we all find ourselves in today.

Be cool...

 

I wonder if this is part of why he waited five years because he thought the absence would help him get a higher chart position. I hope he gets the number 1 spot, then just starts releasing some thing new every year or two, Fireman, Orchestral, American Standards, another Pop album I don't care, but I just want him to follow in the footsteps he created from 2005-2011 with 7 releases in a 7 year time frame!

 

It's not like it used to be.

 

As a McCartney fan from "the days of yore"; I have found most of his output over the past 20 years difficult to take seriously.
Actually, the last album I find of particular interest was "Flowers in the Dirt". I really, really, want to "like" an entire album
but somehow always find them lacking, one way or the other. There are some bright spots on "Egypt Station" but overall, meh.
I'm not going argue over this stuff, after all it's just my opinion.

I do love the fact that Paul is still generating new music consistently. I always love a great, catchy, 'pop song'. McCartney will
always remain one of the truly great artists, and that's enough for me.

"I'll take two 'Band on the Run', to go; with extra tracks on the side."

Thank you for reading.

 

Does this mean you actually have listened to Egypt Station. Would be nice if you could share your opinions then-at least of the bright spots

 

Just wondering if anybody has uploaded the new Carpool Karaoke episode from CBS aired 20th Aug? It's the new extended edition and someone just messaged me to say I'm in it quite a lot. Sadly I'm not sure on plans to show it in the UK and CBS haven't put in on YouTube.....

 

I have looked at the Record Store Day link from the official site and it still shows the 16-track version (without even song titles...), so at this point I don't know if the availability of the 18-track deluxe on those independent store was just a rumour. Does anyone have some sort of confirmations?

 

Thanks for a great posting hope to hear more from you.I mostly agree with your sentiments even though the production of Fuh you didn t put me of the way it does for you and many others. With that said I certanely would not have liked a full album sounding that way.As a single and a one of track on an album it s perfectly ok in my book
Just like you I really lookin forward to Egypt Station that seems to be one of Pauls more ambitious efforts in some time.
Also agree with your wiew of Press to play but
as you may have noticed many here love that album
In the end it seems like Macca-fans agree about the mans greatness but have different favorites or not-favorites

 

Paul??? Is that YOU???!!!

 

Thinking about Despite repeated warnings and the way its described. Namely as a multi-melody epic with all kinds of stylisyic changes and orchestral bells and whistles. According to
Uncut in the style of Band on the Run, Live and Let die and-lo and behold-Happiness is a warm gun.
When was the last time Paul tried something like this?
When I think about it must be on Band on the run
Any other suggestions?

 

Bemagnus thank you so much. I've lurked the forum for years and particularly dig the Beatles/McCartney centric threads. You hit it on the head, for Paul McCartney fans it's all about unity not uniformity. We all think he's phenomenal, one of the true pioneering greats but we all have our own favs list of his albums, songs, etc. I understand the love for Press To Play and enjoy Stranglehold, Footprints and the B-side Write Away, it's just not an album I go back to a lot. Although since I use SoundCloud's GO+ subscription service for streaming and they have most of McCartney's solo work (plus the Fireman records, live albums, etc) I've gone back to several albums I don't have high on my list and it's great having the catalogue in my pocket.

I think of the medley at the close of Memory Almost Full as his latest "The Huge One"/BOTR style excursion.

 

Interesting quote:

Back To The Egg was originally to have been titled We're Open Tonight, but the eventual title was suggested by Linda McCartney. The idea was for a concept piece depicting a band on their journey to a performance, with the egg representing the protective shell of being on tour.

"It started off being a concept album. It had a travelling idea, where somebody got into their van on a rainy night and was heading towards the gig, but in the end it just ended up being just songs."
Linda McCartney

 

Good Times Coming/Feel The Sun?

 

"I Want You To Fly" (one of the B-sides to "Jenny Wren") might fit in this category. It takes a pretty radical detour at its halfway point. Also "The Pound Is Sinking".

 

Only Mama Knows, also

 

IWYTF is one of the Macca's unused gems> great song!

 

Some people here seem very determined to dislike an album they haven't heard yet.

I'm trying to force myself to remain neutral. The 4-star Mojo review was encouraging (especially because Mojo -- in the past when it put Paul on the cover -- didn't include a review of his latest album in the same issue but waited a month to give it middling 3-star or less review so the fact that they gave it 4 stars in the same issue as the cover story gives me hope that the album might actually be worth 4 stars), as was the 7/10 Uncut review. But we'll see.

 

Exactly!

 

I listened to Fuh You for the first time yesterday, which is rather tardy of me if I'm honest, but was somewhat put off by the comments on here and also the desire to view the album as a whole rather than a collection of individual moments. I'm not sure I see the fuss or the issue with it really, it's a great ear worm and I would argue one of his more successful attempts to sound contemporary in the last 30 years or so. Whether you think he should be doing that at this stage is a different issue, but I think he's done what he set out to do, make a silly, catchy pop tune with a a little hook of controversy. Something he's been doing for years and then playing dumb about.

It's classic McCartney, do something 'naughty' and then claim he doesn't see what all the fuss is about, while lapping up the publicity it wouldn't otherwise have generated. When he released "The Light Shines from Within" off of Wild Prairie I remember him getting animated because no radio station would play it due to the "F" bomb included. No radio station would have played it anyway in a million years, but he got in the press off the back of it. See also Hi Hi Hi etc. Lennon was right, McCartney is a master of PR - there is an argument that the world has slightly left him behind and sees these stunts for what they are these days, but I applaud him for still giving it a go. He's our Macca and I wouldn't have him any other way!

Fuh You is still ringing in my ears - good, dumb, pop. There's always a place for that.

 

WIDE PRAIRIE.

 

Not sure. BUT I thought of this little bit from 2012, with Berry Gordy:

At the 1:10 mark:

 

No, that's the next album title.