Agreed on Get Out of My Way but I wouldn't swap Looking for Changes, Peace in the Neighbourhood or Biker. Perhaps Long Leather Coat could have replaced Looking for Changes.
To be fair to Sting, I don’t believe his love of old English folk and ‘lute’ music can be labelled a ‘desperate’ move on his part. You can’t just master that overnight.
As a huge fan of Flowers at the time, Off The Ground felt to me like a bit of a letdown to me but I still like it, even if I don’t love it. Like Driving Rain, there’s plenty of good stuff on there.
I don t particulary like Of the Ground. Not that it s a bad album-it s more I find it an album that could have been made by any-at the time-middle-aged artist. Sort of MOR to my ears. It s just so fuhing ordinary. If Paul fails I prefer him to do it in a more spectaculsr way. For instance I find Press To Play to be the nadir among his album but at least he tried something different-Hillmen and all. With that said there are a few good ones on Of the Ground to-I for one am very fond of Winedark Open Sea. Some if the songs came out rather good live as well I do know that many people adores Press to Play and Off the Ground. Unfortunately I have so far failed to hear what they hear. That s one of the wonders with music-the fact we hear and react so different to the same pieces
Well, the desperate part was the Duets album, hot on the heels of the 'lets rerecord hits album'. I threw the lute reference just because I like poking fun at it.
I always consider his latter period beginning with Flaming Pie. I remember reading an interview in the build-up to that album where he was asked about his career and what more there was to do and he replied with something along the lines of he'd keep going because there might be a second half. That comment suggested he still had the desire to be the best he could, and so it's proved, in my opinion. I Ihink the Anthology gave him the impetus to bring similar quality to Flaming Pie and he's been mindful of it ever since. That's not to say I didn't like the stuff that came before. I don't mind Off The Ground either, but I think it's the most glaring example an album of his that could have been made stronger with some of the B-sides included for some of the weaker tracks that made the cut. But yeah, for me it's Flaming Pie, as I include Run Devil Run in this late-career renaissance (and, to a degree, Rushes). The weakest in this run, for me, is probably Driving Rain, but I've listened to that twice recently, after probably not going near it for 10 years, and I'm starting to agree with some of the earlier comments here that it might be due a revaluation. It certainly holds up better than I expected, for all its flaws. I've got to say, though, that for a musician who could have spent the last quarter of a century being nothing more than a heritage act without diminishing his reputation, this clutch of albums has been a gift. Long after we're all gone and people begin to analyse his body of work as a whole, rather than as simply Beatles and post-Beatles, as tends to be the case among more casual listeners, I think much of his later-career stuff will stand up remarkably well against the better-known work.
For me the latter period started when he got his hofner out again and started getting all nostalgic on the tours starting with Flowers. Apart from his Fireman albums he hasn't gone risky again within his own work like he did on Press to Play, apart from Deep Deep Feeling there is nothing on McCartney 3 that's all that experimental certainly not different to what he has released before bar maybe the opening track which goes on for too long in my opinion.
Regarding MAF, take the live versions of Dance Tonight, That Was Me, House of Wax and Only Mama Knows. All your questions and doubts will be clarified. Songs come to life as if by magic.
I agree that he tended to separate his more risky stuff from his main albums after Press to Play. That is a bit of a shame, I think, though it crept back in on MAF. I've not heard McCartney III yet, and would love it to be full of crazy experimentation, but it sounds like that's not really the case. Oh, well - still very much looking forward to the 18th and getting to know it, weirdness or not.
As far as I’m concerned McCartneyIII has a timeless sound -whatever that means It s a bit retro in parts a bit modern in parts but mostly as I said timeless
There was a "non-brickwalled" version that got discussed and "shared" here at some point but I couldn't hear much of a difference TBH, must have been some "amateur" job. That album has to rank as one of the most brickwalled and loud albums ever made by a major artist. It's crazy how this could have been allowed to happen...with songs like "See Your Sunshine" being completely ruined by that approach.
Although Paul at least sounds a lot more committed on Looking For Changes than on the more "by -numbers" Get Out of My Way, I too would replace the former with Long Leather Coat as the animal welfare track. I'd also drop the somewhat cringeworthy fluff that (slide aside) is the non-rocking title track (Off The Ground, La La La La La La La!!!!) with something else, maybe Kicked Around No More - though I'd then need to re-order the album. Given that his solo career now spans 50 years, The Anthology currently divides it into two pretty much equal halves.
I do think that Flaming Pie was a pivotal moment in McCartney's career and on the back of the Anthology, he was again in vogue with a younger audience. Since then, his output in general has been like a second solo wind in his career, so yes, I do think that he has been on another journey from 1997 to date.
From what I have heard, McCartney is simply doing his own thing with McCartney III and is not really targeting any particular age group. Unplanned and unabashed.
Chaos and Creation is just as brickwalled as Memory Almost Full. Driving Rain is close, as are New and Egypt Station.
Uh, ok. Really interesting to read. To me there are too many mediocre tracks on it, like "People Want Peace", "Back In Brazil", "Who Cares", "Fuh You". Real standouts are to me only "Happy With You", "Dominoes" and "I Don't Know". I listened to it yesterday again, but did not like it more than before. The long tracks do not flow naturally to me. I still don't like how the vocals are mixed in "Despite Repeated Warnings". Sounds muddy. To me the album really sounds like he was trying to cover all styles in order to please every potential buyer. I think this time he focused more on young buyers though. Pls don't get me wrong, it's not a "bad" album. It's just not so special and I am not a big fan of the production either. I would rank it somewhere in the middle of his albums.
