Paul McCartney - Egypt Station (#1 album in US) Appreciation Thread 2.0 - New and Improved

Correct, they are keeping the numbers hidden, so it's just a guess (hopefully an educated guess) on my part.

 

I agree with you 100% Arnie. And Egypt Station is out of Billboard 200 this week, right? Five weeks in the charts seem the shortest string ever...so far...

 

To me I already feel Egypt Station is good like a Beatles album (Not AS good just good in the same way, meaning it’s an evergreen album.) I will talk about it for years to come.

I’m trying to understand why some seem to dislike it, but mostly failing. I think the pop production puts many people off. And Paul’s aged voice.

I disagree. Mccartney I, II, and Ram were all pretty ground breaking. Moreover, Paul McCartney’s MO is breaking genre barriers regularly, as a rule. I do think the Beatles were way more influential, but Paul was definitely still innovating in his solo years.

 

After listening to the album a bunch of times, I think it's a big step down compared to New, but that was to be expected : New was amazingly good and his best since Flaming Pie.

The problems with Egypt Station are:

1- Too many ballads. Confidante and Hand in Hand should have been replaced with the two uptempo bonus tracks.
2- The uptempo tracks -- mainly Come On to Me and Fuh You -- feature simplistic, repetitive melodies that cross the line between catchy and annoying.
3- The production and arrangements are good, like on New, but they don't succeed, unlike New, in adding hooks to subpar material. For instance, People Want Peace is not really worthy of all that production.

It was always unlikely McCartney could equal New, but Egypt Station really doesn't come close.

 

Yes, it had a remarkably fast descent. It's rough for older artists out there. Elvis Costello's new album debuted this week at no. 46. And poor Paul Simon's latest barely made a dent and has also disappeared.

 

The 2 songs you want to delete are my favorites on the album. In fact, I consider the stretch from Confidante through Dominoes the best 4 song run on any McCartney album ever.

 

In a few months, it'll be interesting to do one of those "weakest link" poll on Egypt Station: I wonder what songs will be most people's less liked numbers on the album.

 

Mine has settled into who cares.

 

I think Ram is a great album, and critics retrospectively came to hold the same opinion. But what is groundbreaking about it?

 

Quite simply, it's 'feel' and 'sound', the writing about simple family life and countryside living, etc. It is certainly seen as being very ahead of it's time by a large amount of today's contemporary groups (several of them have recorded entire covers of the album). The album preceding it, 'McCartney', was even more ahead of it's time and original, as at least one reviewer (a member here) mentioned in a contemporary review; both the 'one man band' approach and the home recording aspect point ahead to acts like Guided By Voices, and later on, the 90's 'lo-fi' scene, even though Paul finished the album in a studio.

Paul Levinson, 1971, Village Voice:

''Aside from questions of listener taste, McCartney is innovative in at
least two important aspects: (a) it is a multi-instrumental and vocal
album with just about all musical parts performed by one person, the
songwriter; and (b) it was recorded in an informal Gemeinschaft home
situation as opposed to the more formal Gesellschaft studio.

From the viewpoint of the development of rock recording, these are two
very creative and significant divergences from the usual paradigms. A
composer usually writes a song in the privacy and intimacy of his home and
his own thought: he alone (or which at most one or two collaborators)
determines the song’s content and style. In most instances, the subsequent
recording of this song is a product of many additional minds and energies
and is accomplished in a professional, almost quasi-business-like studio
environment. The introduction of “outside” musicians and engineers often
results in an increased excitement and heightening of the original song;
sometimes the addition is debasing. In any case, virtually all rock
recording that we hear is a product of this standard procedure.
McCartney’s merit lies in its undiluted musical follow-through on the part
of its writer.

 

"Confidante" and "Hand in Hand" I think are there for the Chaos & Creation fans. NEW really didn't have anything for big fans of that style of darker more intimate and stripped back McCartney. Maybe "Early Days," but that's still like a wistful strummer more than Confidant.

 

I have "Who Cares" stuck in my head.

 

It's my go to song from the album at the moment; I love the guitar part so much!

 

In perfectly-McCartney fashion, there is a little rising keyboard melody in the background over "thespian left in the rain" that hits all the right spots in a way only McCartney can. The organ bits also make me think of the organ in Costello's "Pump It Up" and give it a little '80s feel to me.

 

Great observation! It does remind me of the 'Pump It Up' organ part now that you have pointed it out, and it certainly does have an 80's feel (probably why I like it so much). I am also pleased that one of Paul's 'message' songs is also one of his best songs on the album.

 

Someone said something about the production on People Want Peace was too much, I listened to it in the car on the way to work and listened out for that, but I disagree. The lyrics could have made for a typical corny Paul message song but the production takes it to another level. The upbeat of “People Want Peace” is then turned into the sad “a simple release from their suffering” then the statement making “people Want Peace” again. Great and meaningful song with great twists and turns.

 

See, I think Egypt Station is a very, very interesting combination and distillation of aspects of nearly every phase of McCartney's career. For example, People Want Peace seems to be a bit of an average song, an homage to Give Peace A Chance and the like from the 60s and 70s, and then it explodes into that very Press To Play 80s McCartney bridge that is just, frankly, fantastic. Then when you mention the ballads, that stretch of the album invokes Driving Rain and Chaos and Creation. So late career McCartney. To me that is a good thing.

I'm with you on Come on to me. It definitely goes on for too long. I think the focus is more on the lyrics, and the fact that it sounds radio friendly, hence why it goes on and on. It's a fine little jam but there's no way it deserves 4 minutes. It deserves 3 at best, really more like 2:15. Paperback Writer, an infinitely better song, is only 2:30! Fuh You is definitely an acquired taste, but it is pretty good in my book, though it is more mid-tempo. I think Nothing For Free is much, much better and also more uptempo. Still, there are plenty of "up" moments on the album that I enjoy: Who Cares, Caesar Rock, Back To Brazil, Hunt You Down.

There's a good hook on every song on this album. That's rule number #1 of pop songwriting. I think a lot of the juiciest hooks are in the guitar parts, though.

It's a difficult question to answer. Music and production-wise, there is nothing like it. I believe that the flugelhorn Paul used on Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey was one of the first uses of that instrument in pop rock music. The use of the ukulele on Ram On was also a bold choice. The guitar parts are very special. The vocals, obviously. The use of a real recorded thunderstorm, also in Uncle Albert. On that album, similar to with the Beatles, Paul did things maybe not "for the first time ever," or that were "ground breaking," but "for the first time ever in that way," and that were "trail blazing." There's a lot of innovation on that album, let's just say that.

 

Good point! Also "People Want Peace" is less than 3 minutes long. It's not really too much of anything. It's nice and succinct.

 

Another thing I love, it says what it needs to say then heads out.

 

The album has already been discounted on Amazon for at least a week.....

 

Love this album so much, come to love every song, except Back In Brazil. Definitely the skip track. Listenable but skipable. Wonderful album.

 

I'm with you on Back in Brazil. Not awful, but not up to the standard of the rest of the album.

 

The album would really miss something if "Back in Brazil" wasn't on there, I think. Adds a nice touch of sunshine (edit: and the only vignette on the album).

 

I like Back in Brazil quite a bit. Any song that makes me want to dance is good in my book

If I had to vote for a "lesser" song on the album it's probably be Confidante... or People Want Peace or Who Cares. Though I still like those.

 

I have been avoiding participating in this thread until I heard the record a few times so I could have a clear idea of what I think of it.

Well, I already have, and I have to say that I like it very much. Each listen has made me appreciate it more (this one is a grower!). Despite some unnecessary concessions to modern sound (the production in tracks like Come On To Me or Fuh You, not by chance the singles), I think this is a very good collection of songs, full of those magnificient McCartney melodies, bu also with a lot of interesting and unexpected sounds, which proves Paul is still inventive and artistically restless. A great attribute in a 76-year-old artist!

His voice is not what it used to, as we sadly know. But I have to say it's very well used in this record. Maybe with a little help from technology? I don't know, but whatever it is, it works.

The highlights of the album for me are: I Don't Know, Happy With You, Dominoes and Do It Now. The only two songs I don't like are Who Cares and Back In Brazil. The "Hunt You Down" bit doesn't do much for me either.

I wouldn't place Egypt Station among the best albums of McCartney's career (Ram, Band on the Run, Tug of War, Flowers in the Dirt, Flaming Pie, Chaos and Creation), but in a strong second line.