Is Driving Rain a "generation gap"?

Yep...a sadly...very, very short thread...ignoring his most genius album and it’s singles..Album/singles forecasted several future styles...yet the thread I read rated it low as another thread rated BTTE low....ramifications needed for both albums...

 

What is Geordie nagging? I told you about the hair dye..you should have just pretended he was a woman and no one would have ever, in the least commented on his old age hair color and you’d have never concerned yourself with his hair dye.

 

Heather Mills is a Geordie- person coming from Newcastle, England:

Geordie - Wikipedia

 

Thanks...as an American, I had no idea...

 

I agree 100% with this. It's just not very good.

 

I do agree that it's too long. But that's Paul. He's always had a few too many tracks on any given album (except for McCartney III and Wild Life, both of which are the perfect run time).

However, half of the tracks are really strong. Just listening to About You now and it's a proper little rocker. Tiny Bubble has got that Simply Red laid back groove and what about Rinse the Raindrops? That is EPIC. Do you really not appreciate that one?

 

It’s a stand out Macca ballad IMO..

 

The songs you mentioned maximum slay IMO...and alone are enough for me to love the album...

 

Egg is his finest album IMO...power pop punk influenced with other genres in it, especially counting those killer singles...his last and possibly only solo true rock album ...

 

Hands down you wrote the best Macca post I’ve read in a long time.....He always tried new things from the beginning of his solo which was always misunderstood as......his trying to be cool.....or I’d add his being a Jack of all trades, master of none I’ve seen that insult used against him several times....DR was and still is definitely a contemporary album..

 

The production is very dated to it's time. As I mentioned earlier - McCartney hired producer David Kahne who was previously on a successful streak with Sugar Ray and Orgy. But even by 2000, that music was old hat. I was 21 when the album came out and the production sounded forced and a little cheesy at the time (first thing that comes to mind it that beat in the intro of the title track). It's a shame McCartney was focusing on what was big on MTV circa 1999 and not the indie music/garage rival that was just about to explode and more like his early 70's sound.

 

It was released after 9/11 in November 12(otherwise “Freedom” which McCartney came up with in response to 9/11 would not have made the album). It has its moments.

 

Possibly...but I read it was first initially released a very few days before 9/11, but then there’s a second release of DR with a different cover and the freedom song was added to the second release, which is the rare version of the album. I read that online I think and others here in the thread speak of the second version with the different cover. I’d have to research it some more but that’s what I’ve read.

 

Everyone calls Macca along the way...the contemporary term for it is cheesy.....I guess by the time of DR, I was the cheese department at Kroger, because DR production style sounded ....like his most spontaneous, unforced contemporary album and didn’t sound cheesy IMO, like say POP.

 

You have to keep in mind, I was 21 at the time and had been exposed to nearly five years (the mid to late 90's) of electronica rock when every rock at was either adding trip-hop or straight out hip-hop to their sound. By 2001, hearing Macca doing it was kind of like; "really...NOW!?!". Around the same time, Radiohead had released Kid A and Amnesiac and Muse's 2nd album Origin of Symmetry had broken the band the same year DR was released. The use of sampling in rock had become much more sophisticated than what appeared on Driving Rain which felt like McCartney (or Kahne) were adding these elements in a bid to play catch-up.

But the overall production style was the American radio rock sound of the late 90's that Kahne brought to the album. At that time, If McCartney was going to rock out, I would have preferred McCartney him giving a nod to something more emerging The White Stripes or The Strokes rather than Sugar Ray and Smash Mouth

 

I see and hear exactly where you’re coming from..It all truly is generational and was for me too, as I was 43 then and to me DR did rock IMO and sound contemporary but it's all in what you compare it to, all situational.....Believe it or not, I actually saw Radiohead in concert as the opening act for REM. I really enjoyed them, liked their main hit then and their music, but I really felt old when the young ravers, I called them, with their day glow circle lights left the show after Radiohead’s performance and didn’t stay to see REM, who I came to see, lol. I don’t remember much sampling in DR though there may be some, but he and the Holmes? DJ used it later on twin freaks mashups and way earlier on Check My Machine at the beginning ...Your post was very informative to someone my age, not joking ...Thanks.

 

Seeing Radiohead touring The Bends would have been a treat!

As far as sampling/trip-hop etc....I referring to tracks like "She's Given Up Talking", Macca's "rapping" on "Spinning On An Axis", the intro's to things like "Driving Rain" and jazz intro "Tiny Bubble" which was certainly reference that era. The other tracks, while standard rock songs, still have that early 2000's slick polish to them. I feel the same way about Memory Almost Full, even though I like that album better, I was disappointed that he returned to Kahne after the fantastic Chaos And Creation In The Backyard. Reportedly, it's now a sore spot for McCartney that CACITB gets the praise it does because of his tense working relationship with Nigel Godrich during its production. Most obviously way he returned to recording with his touring band and Kahne on MAM.

Mind you, I don't have anything personally against David Kahne (its not like I know the guy ), I still like most of the songs on Driving Rain, but I would personally rank it on the lower end of my McCartney albums along with other works Kahne has done with McCartney. It's personal taste.

As a side note - the album that became Chaos And Creation In The Backyard started as a David Kahne produced album. They recorded about eight songs before the sessions were scrapped and Nigel Godrich was brought in.

 

I remember the old days of PMc.com as well. The World Youth Day for the Catholics is an apt analogy as Beatles fans could finally discuss a new album from an ex-Beatle with other fans. When I bought the album, I barley saw it promoted anywhere. In Australia, you never saw the music videos unless you caught them by mistake on cable or downloaded them from a fan site as a tiny, pixelated RealPlayer file. McCartney was meant to come to Australia for that tour but canceled due to the Bali Bombings.

My excitement levels were higher when Flaming Pie came out. That album got a lot of plays on my old portable CD player in '97. I bought Driving Rain as soon as it came out, but rarely gave it many repeat plays.

 

Very informative post...I’ve read some of this but not all of it elsewhere. Thanks for citing the sampling/trip hop DR songs. Yes, I immediately recognized the jazz intro to Tiny Bubble. I’m amazed at how completely knowledgeable younger Paul fans are. I believe you noted you are younger, compared to many anyway, 63.

 

I just wish I had your DR cd that you didn’t care for then. I have to search it out now,,,,DR as I’ve said several times on the thread is where I got lost on McCartney for various reasons.....not because of his albums but I had a lot going on then...

 

DR could have easily have been edited down to a decent 45 min album, still wouldn't have been a great Mccartney record.
Half backed tunes and songwriting shows he wasn't in a great place at the time.
My edited version with a different album title without DR (release as a single with TB)

About You
Lonely Road
Rinse (edited)
She's Giving Up Talking
Spinning on an Axis
From A Lover To A Friend
Magic
Heather
Your Way
I Do
Back In The Shineshine Again
Your Loving Flame

 

Good edited version you made of DR ...I think he was in the filling up the cd minutes mode then, thus tge added songs. I really need to listen again to the she’s given up talking song ..,again as so many here like it but I never did. I’ve found that it pays to go back and listen to songs and albums again you didn’t like as they can click with you later and you find you eventually like them.

 

(Excuse typo in original post)
Underrated tune, that goes on slightly too long almost like the first Mr Bellamy in lyrical tones. If you include the twin freaks on Rinse this flows as a much better album. I do similar things to New, Egypt Station, Chaos, Memory 'Pie and Flowers where the b sides and unreleased tracks are better then some of the tunes on what's on the actual album. McCartney is a genius, but isn't the best judge of his own material sometimes IMO

 

Amen..on all counts...

 

Yep...The old Paul the egotist trope that John especially but also George circulated a lot in the press..and it’s very good thing he was....as the later Beatles distracted and slacking so he had to call and get them to studio for last few albums but be blamed if anything failed, due to extreme money mess and sheister manager others wanted he had to have the ego and guts to sue them all for breakup, .....unlike others didn’t have to get other Beatles on his albums for partial reunions to sell them, lol, ...also, during wings didn’t get lavish advances from Klein to pay them well and they each left for different reasons, rock critics and biographers really hated him since breakup till anthology...but yes, he had ego enough to take wings to the top inspite of all against him in the seventies, to succeed with a younger MTV generation till got to old, age 45, but later to have two successful tours....as he wasn’t a critical or boomer darling unlike the other three who courted the press and bashed him.

I’m sure it took a real strong ego to survive and at times thrive at times and keep going at down times despite all of that and to do more adventurous, risky type music like McCartney II, fireman, to perform with other creative younger artists boomers especially hate like kayne and rhinna. While John , George and ringo basically recycled their late Beatles styles and sound throughout their solo careers, the egotistical and adventurous Paul was adapting to other music and blending sounds and genres and still is though sometimes fails as with driving rain. He was...always looking and trying something new....way back when critics and boomer fans called him a failure...but now first album now hailed as low fi, then seen as weak and Ram now hailed as proto indie then seen as nadir of rock. It was his creativity ..and yes..a very necessary ego that moved him forward and most of his albums don’t sound alike.

Younger critics and a musicologist have reassessed his career and upgraded much of his stuff, some drastically, at least haven’t downgraded it through...and don’t view it through old....old boomer critics stereotypes and John and George lenses and fanboy preferences. He was the most adaptable Beatle naturally from later Beatles forward as others got more stuck in a style and sound and lyrical themes and repeated them solo. Older people are not necessarily at all more aware of current events as you said, as they tend to have set prejudices, but they tend to be stuck in their opinions and their glory days....but younger folks are more ...adaptable...and Paul was always and still is young at heart though he has songs about children and old folks and anonymous folks in between as well as experimental and various genre songs and albums.