POLL: How do you rate the Paul McCartney/Fireman "Electric Arguments" album?

I should have been more clear in my post you are responding to, but I was in a rush to leave.
Besides the sonics of the album I meant to mention the arranging choices between the two albums. Chaos is pretty straight forward in it's arranging , Electric Arguments is more "out there" , which I really enjoy.

 

It's cool. I'm with you. I do think Chaos is a great sounding album sonically compared to his other releases in the past 20 years. Fireman is definitely out there for Paul. It's like he discovered the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

 

It's a brilliantly imperfect album. Funny how often I return to this one. It holds up under repeat listens unlike many of Paul's midcareer albums. If there is another Fireman album coming out this year, that would suit me for Paul purchases for the year.

 

Not bad, but not great. I remembered being disappointed that it had more in common with a typical later era McCartney album than it did with the other two Fireman albums. "Two Magpies" is terrible and "Light From Your Lighthouse" sounds like "Midnight Special" (maybe its supposed to? - I don't know). There is some good stuff on it though so I still listen to it. "Lifelong Passion" is a stand out.

 

Close to one of his best Albums. Much better than NEW. By far.

 

Exactly.

 

I like a few tracks off this, but it's one of the every few solo Beatles albums that I still am not familiar enough with to give a final opinion on, yet. I do wish that Paul would have just gone as himself instead of "The Fireman" when he attempts some edgier material.

 

Much needed highlight.

 

Except for maybe two songs, I think it's one of the absolute worst albums (along with McCartney II and the other Fireman albums) of his entire career!

It sounds like a bunch of kids trying to play in their garage, just a bunch of unstructured noise!

That's just my opinion, if you like it, that's great!

 

I actually pulled out Electric Arguments this morning because of David Letterman as he is on a lot of folks minds right now.

If you remember the Letterman show when Paul and band played atop the Ed Sullivan Theater Marquee, Paul, besides the usual fare, chose to also play Ring The Changes off Electric Arguments.

I loved that song which prompted me to find out the title which brought me to buying a copy of Electric Arguments.

I missed this poll when it first came out, so I do want to do a weigh in now. I am in the way above average fare category for this one.

Paul's last few seem to me to have too much of a "phone it in" quality at times....not good...not bad....but kind of rooted in the established Macca formula.

At least with Electric Arguments, he does seem to be willing to stretch out a bit and get a bit experimental and noisy which is just fine with me. While not every song is a success, his hit/miss ratio is pleasantly high and he sounds more focused and engaged than he has in quite a while, at least to these ears.

And of course, your mileage may vary which is also cool...

 

Bought the vinyl and it separates the album nicely into two records. A McCartney half and a Fireman half.

I always found listening to the CD all in one go was a bit much. The vinyl makes MUCH more sense.

If I feel like hearing some good McCartney music, I just play the first record. It's almost a McCartney album on it's own.
Heck, it's SO McCartney, he played a couple songs from it on tour and even added Sing the Changes to Pure McCartney.

Record two is where the REAL Fireman stuff starts.

 

For the record , I just bought this vinyl because your comment inspired me to. You're right about it making much more sense, one side being like some typical McCartney stuff and one record being Fireman. It's perfect in that sense!!

Mine doesn't come in the mail 'till tomorrow, it's $29.99 NEW on Amazon US if anyone wants to get a copy. Luckily I had a gift card and Prime, so a 30$ record with one day shipping only cost me 18$. I will make a video review tomorrow of the set and it's contents. One of my favorite albums ever...

 

Great. His most psychedelic since 1967.

 

I got this CD for $1 hoping it would be an ambient outing like "Rushes" ... but it was rawk and/or rawl. I am disappoint.

--Geoff

 

Beware if it comes in one of those hard plastic vinyl sleeves. Those things eat records. If you need more info let me know, there's a thread here somewhere on it...

 

I would rank it along with Chaos as his best work since Flaming Pie.

 

Lower tier for me.

 

Thank you, I appreciate that I think that I may have some extra white sleeves around that I'll slide them into. It's a shame that they are like that, from youtube the sleeves look really cool.

I don't even know if I'm getting it today though, I paid for one-day shipping but it had just left California at 7am this morning, and that's a long way to North Carolina. But we'll see!

 

No, it's not the inner sleeve, it's the hard plastic EXTERIOR sleeve. I'll see if I can find the thread and edit my post accordingly...

Edit - that was quick!
Warning to all record collectors!!! (outer bag/inner sleeve concerns)* »

 

Wow, that's really strange, I've never even heard of that happening before! But I'm no vinyl expert either.

So I'll be curious to see if it comes already damaged due to that process, I hope not.

Will I have to put everything into one big bad with the records out of the sleeve, or will I have to put everything into a separate bag?

 

It's the hard exterior PVC outer sleeve that you need to be concerned with. Not the gatefold cover or the inner sleeves.

I'm not really a vinyl expert either (although I have plenty of it!), but those warnings about PVC outer sleeves seem to be pretty accurate. A couple of recent Ringo albums (Y Not & 2012) came in those hard sleeves and I removed them immediately. They were really common for picture discs back in the day, and I've seen how that PVC plastic changes over time. Read up in that thread for more educated opinions than mine. I just wanted to give you a heads-up!

 

I very much like the first, pop half of the record. The second half is ambient type of music. It's OK, just not my kind of music.

 

"Magpies" and "Lighthouse" are my favourites. To each his own...

 

That's very cool of you, much appreciated!!