Perhaps the OP was talking about the UK? (Sorry, I just woke up and can’t be bothered to look). Phil Collins was HUGE.
Only because Paul was about to release the Archive edition of Flowers. Crazy logic in my view, but apparently so.
Controversial though it seems to be, I always preferred this band to his current one. (That said, they’ve finally clicked for me lately). But Robbie and Hamish were (are) wonderful musicians.
This is all individual experience so there’s no right or wrong but I was 13 when Flowers came out and it never left my turntable (sorry, I’d have said ‘record player’ back then) that summer. It reached no. 1 here in the UK. I remember watching the Put It There documentary on the BBC. I was blissfully unaware that Paul was supposed to be ‘uncool’.
It reached the heady heights of no. 17 in the UK! But seriously (pun intended), I really don’t get the dislike for My Brace Face around here (I know, it’s only opinions!). It is, in my view, a great single. I spent years after waiting for Paul to match the songwriting on Flowers. He certainly didn’t on Off The Ground. And, much as I admire it, I never quite got the love for Flaming Pie, except that I knew I was supposed to love it (and kind of did), in the wake of the Anthologies. It certainly benefited from their reflected brilliance. And some of the songwriting was of course top notch McCartney. Flowers wasn’t the record it could’ve - should’ve - been but I didn’t know that in 1989 and, for me, it remains a high water mark in Paul’s career. It’s just a shame to me that he seems so affected by what he perceives as public opinion on his back catalogue. How has My Brave Face never been played live since?? Or This One for that matter? Top tier McCartney pop in my book.
Why wasn't Flowers in the Dirt more successful? Just listened to it again for the first time in a while. It's a pleasant enough album but it just isn't good enough. There is nothing special about it. Nothing. There is no spark. The video clip of Costello performing My Brace Face in the studio from whatever TV special that was has more spark than this entire LP. Plenty of good songs but ... there is ZERO here to excite a casual fan, or make a new fan. The production is dated and boring. McCartney has been here before and after this album -- lots of good stuff but in retrospect it's surprising the album did as good as it did. I think Flaming Pie, Run Devil Run, Chaos and Memory Almost Full are much better overall records. Even the My Valentine album has more life to it than this dead fish.
Butr, you see my point. Today, veteran artists often have to do something relevant to the younger generation to keep their name out there. Nile Rodgers was pretty much forgotten until he worked with Daft Punk. Now the younger generation knows about him.
very likely, even though some posters who disagree with me are in the U.S.. That's why I think it comes down to demographics.
It took The Beatles Anthology project to make him cool again. I'm sure the song "Free As A Bird" was a lot of young people's introduction to The Beatles and Paul McCartney. You are right that there was a U.K./U.S. difference. I just got through listing what was popular in 1989 in an earlier post. Of course, the MACCA fans, and the people on this forum who were older than me probably panned most of it. I would also tell you that George Harrison was probably more popular than Paul McCartney in 1989 due to his "Cloud Nine" album, and his involvement in The Travelling Wilburys.
I have defended the man against the automatic hate he get's for being the constructive and more agreable beatle, BUT I have just finished a listen and it's true (for me!) that is is rather boring and overproduced. It is a kind of muzak and my favorite song has to be Figure of Eight. My Brave Face is so produced that you can hardly identify the artist as mentioned. My brother had Press to Play and I think it was much better though not as good as the early stuff. Overall I believe an artist have 10 years to make a point. And 10 more to cash in. And then (s)he / they should retire.
A previous post mentioned Trevor Horn/Steve Lipson - I don't know if this has posted before but SuperDeluxeEdition interviewed them (along with Mitchell Froom) to coincide with the FITD archive reissue: In Their Own Words: The Producers discuss McCartney’s Flowers in the Dirt | superdeluxeedition It's a very revealing insight into what went on during the pre-production, sessions etc. TH and SL really challenge him (in a good way) but ultimately Paul feels that he has to come up with an album that is 'now' because he doesn't want to be seen as passé...
Oh, okay. You’re always at the right age and no one else is. Funny, but I thought I was surrounded by music loving friends in a music heavy community who constantly met and shared our latest music purchases. We’d go out on record hunts, see concerts, listen to radio. But obviously we were out of touch in comparison to you. Lol
Yes, but My Brave Face was being discussed by posters and logically so being the hit single from said album. And of course folks were going for the Beatles songs but he was gaining new, young fans with his latest single. It was getting a heavy push. That’s all I’m saying.
Though it did win over new fans - myself included. Like anything McCartney, some think it's good, some don't, and that's all good. But that's not the answer as to why it sold or didn't. Fan perspective doesn't typically correlate to the commercial fate of a record. For example - Pipes of Peace is generally considered a far weaker album that FITD, yet it went platinum in the US and scored two hit songs, including a #1. The point being - the different fate of each album is not due to inherent quality. It's due to Pipes of Peace debuting 6 years earlier in McCartney's career, in a very different marketplace.
I think this sums it up nicely! My friends and I all bought it (we were 14) and we went and saw the tour when he came around.
Your opinion of course, which you are perfectly entitled to! But you can’t tell me there is so little between 1970 and today (other than the usual suspects and whatever the the current album is) that he could play live in 2018.
This One is a pretty good song that to me would not add much of anything to the actual concert. It would excite people on forums such as this as change for the sake of change. If it was played at a Paul concert I was at, I'm sure it would be fine but would not make or break the show either way.
Also, Collins probably wasn't immune to the onslaught of grunge in late '91. Most people think of grunge as being what killed off hair metal, but I think it also did irreparable damage to pop in general in that it killed off a lot of the '80s style production (gated drums, tons of synths, "gang vocals," etc) which spanned different genres. Plus the whole general "as soon as the new decade gets going, a lot of the previous decade's artists fall by the wayside." Not just Phil Collins, but people like Huey Lewis, Steve Winwood, Lionel Richie, Cyndi Lauper, etc. (Or like 90% of the people who were in "We Are The World") So spanning from pop to rock. I think something similar would have happened to Eric Clapton by '92 had it not been for the fluke runaway success of Unplugged.
Fair enough. I just happen to like that one (this one ) a lot more than you. But I get where you’re coming from.
Nice try trying to set up a strawman argument. I never said that I was the only one at the right age. I would like for you to point out where I wrote that, and where you think I inferred that. You are among music-loving friends. Thing of it is, and you know it's true, that we all have different experiences, and that depends on our ages and backgrounds. No one disputes that. Oh, and, by the way, you know good and well that people here often reject other members' musical didn't hear it until recently. Big deal. I'm quite sure there are things a lot of people like that you've still never heard. My experience in 1989 is that the people of my age, and a bit younger that I was surrounded, with had absolutely NO interest in "Flowers In The Dirt" or Paul McCartney. And, I told you what was played on the radio and on MTV at the time. I say that because I was a heavy radio listener and MTV watcher at the time.
Thank god for that! And not a moment too soon! Grunge didn't last too long, either. It had a much shorter life span than hair metal did. But, it did not kill off pop music, even as R&B rose to prominence in the 90s. Like the songs or not, there was a LOT of pop in the 90s, and in my opinion, great pop.
