Solo Beatles single by single thread

Count me in as another person who likes "Hope for the Future". I get why people don't like it though.

 

Kanye West ft. Paul McCartney - "Only One" (2014)


Released: December 31, 2014
Charts: #28 (UK), #35 (US)

"Only One" is a song by American recording artist Kanye West, featuring English musician Paul McCartney. The song was released on December 31, 2014 and was the first song released by West since the release of his sixth studio album Yeezus.[2][3][4][5][6] Both artists co-wrote the song with Kirby Lauryen, Noah Goldstein, and Mike Dean. The song is a tribute to West's daughter, North, and is sung as a message to Kanye from the perspective of his late mother, Donda West.[1]

The song was recorded over a two-day period in Mexico in September 2014 in which West and McCartney, alongside other artists, recorded upwards of nine songs.[1]

The track was released on December 31, 2014 to the iTunes Store. The track features English musician and former member of The Beatles and Wings, Paul McCartney, and is the first of two rumored collaborations between the two artists, the other being a track called "Piss On Your Grave".[7] The song also features uncredited vocals by Ty Dolla $ign. West's wife Kim Kardashian tweeted upon the release of the track that it is her favorite track by West, saying, "People always ask me what my favorite Kanye song is and it's "Only One". Kanye feels like his mom sang through him to our daughter."[citation needed] Kanye West is described in a press release as not being able to remember singing the words to "Only One" when he and McCartney were later reviewing the early 2014 sessions that generated the song. Later, West "realized that perhaps the words had never really come from him … he understood in that moment that his late mother, Dr. Donda West, who was also his mentor, confidante, and best friend, had spoken through him that day ... A message had been passed down through generations."[8] Kim also said, "I cry every time I hear this song. And such a beautiful photo of Kanye and North by Inez and Vinoodh."[9] In the song Kanye is singing from the perspective of his late mother Donda West who died in 2007. "Only One" was the first McCartney–West collaboration to be released commercially. The two would later feature on Rihanna's "FourFiveSeconds", released just twenty-four days after "Only One".

The song was originally slated to be released in West's album SWISH, eventually released as The Life of Pablo in February 2016.

 

Hope For The Future - Cliched coasting and laurel resting
Only One - A lost, meandering artist searching almost literally every corner of the music world for inspiration

None of what he's done since 2013 bodes well for the upcoming album I'm afraid. Between these weird grasping at straws one off projects and drowning in the Beatle well in concert, I'm not sure even he knows why he's still in the game except for it being what he's always done. Hope I'm wrong.

 

I hope you're wrong too, but I see where you are coming from.

I remember I quite liked Hope For The Future at first, and I have for a while, but I don't revisit hardly anymore. It's a step down from all the songs on NEW, and I don't mind the collaborations, but they are a step down from Hope For The Future...

In The Blink of An Eye is a good song, but's even lazier than HFTF, and I don't revisit that at all. The voice doesn't bother me, but the songwriting does. But I have a feeling we'll be surprised by the new album. This will be a 20 year winning streak in the albums department(if you look over Driving Rain which I still like)

 

I would put DR on the same level as OTG personally - good/average.

 

Yeah, this is off topic but:

Flaming Pie 1997 - Excellent
Run Devil Run 1999- Excellent(for what it is, a covers album)
Driving Rain 2001- Good
Chaos 2005- Excellent
Memory 2007- Excellent
Electric Arguments 2008- Excellent
Kisses 2012 - Excellent(for what it is)
NEW 2013- Excellent

Not a bad run of albums imho

 

I can barely tell that Paul McCartney is on this song. (I hear him even less in FourFiveSeconds).
To me this is not a Paul McCartney song in any way. I don't think his name should be included as one of the artists.
It would be like crediting "Birthday" as "The Beatles featuring Yoko Ono".

 

Uhm, but Paul didn't just perform in them, he is a co-writer, isn't he?.

 

I'd agree about Off The Ground being good/average. The only song I love from that one is Hope of Deliverance. All the others are alright, but nothing special.

Driving Rain otoh, is on a whole other level imo. Doubt that I like it any less than, say, New, or maybe even Memory Almost Full. Chaos and Flaming Pie I like eevn better.
I've truly never understood the disregard for that album.

 

Great story, though- another of those "If it ain't true, it oughta be" kinda things.

IMO they're both still very much lower echelon Maccaalbums though. Not quite down there with the dregs like Pipes Of Peace or Wild Life hide:) maybe, but they're not great. For me, Driving Rain seemed like quite the letdown following Flaming Pie (I understood that Run Devil Run was done in a totally different context and not really meant as Pie's follow up)

 

Then he gets mention in the writing credits, but I don't think he should be listed on the label as a featured performer. These songs should not count as "hits" for Paul McCartney.

 

This must be why "paul mccartney is the man" ...

 

I find it odd that one would consider all this to be "grasping at straws" rather than pushing his own personal boundaries while he's still capable. I'm not saying I like everything he's done recently but then I don't like everything he did in Wings either. And I'd rather he push himself than merely trot out the same old same old over and over again just because he can.

 

Even if you didn't like any of what he did with Wings, Wings made sense. In the context of a career of experimentation, the Fireman stuff made sense (although I thought it was mostly bad). The 80s collaborations made sense. The Kanye period made no sense (and I like FourFiveSeconds, by the way).

It's not a matter of liking or not liking. It doesn't feel or sound like pushing personal boundaries to me, it feels and sounds like rudderlessness tinged with desperation to get "it" (the muse) back.

 

That makes no sense whatsoever. Paul doesn't need to get his muse back. He has been for over a decade no producing some of the best music he's ever done.

 

If we're talking in decades, in the last decade he's released Memory Almost Full and New, and New was recorded 4 1/2-5 years ago at least. So, even granting there are some good songs on each ("some of the best music he's ever done" since 1962? Really?), in the last half-decade he's decidedly not produced some of the best music he's ever done. He's produced a failed video game anthem, co-written some material of questionable quality with a HipHop artist, and re-recorded a song he didn't think worthy of recording himself 50 years ago with Johnny Depp.

 

Actually, since Flaming Pie it's TWO decades, don't know what's up with my math lol.

Don't worry, it seems we'll get a new album this year.

Yeah, some of the best music he's ever done. Since 1962.

Paul had many great unreleased songs, so it doesn't mean much that he might not have recorded something before, but what's this song he recorded with Johnny Depp anyway?.

 

"Come and Get It" by The Hollywood Vampires with Paul.

 

My point was that since New he's seemed rudderless and in search of his muse. Yes, he's done some great music in the past two, three, four decades. That has nothing to do with the point I made about what he's been doing with himself since New.

I hope it's good.

 

Rihanna, Kanye West and Paul McCartney - "FourFiveSeconds" (2015)


Released: January 24, 2015
Charts: #3 (UK), #4 (US)

"FourFiveSeconds" is a song recorded by Barbadian singer Rihanna, American musician Kanye West and English musician/former Beatles member Paul McCartney. It was written and produced by West, McCartney, Mike Dean, Dave Longstreth and Noah Goldstein with an additional writing from Kirby Lauryen, Ty Dolla Sign, Dallas Austin and Elon Rutberg. Previewed by West at the iHeartMedia Music Summit on January 21, 2015, it was posted on Rihanna's official website on January 24. The same day the song was made available for digital download. "FourFiveSeconds" is a folk-pop, pop and soul pop song with an instrumentation consisting of an acoustic guitar, organ and bass guitar.

Upon its release, it peaked at number four on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart. In doing so it gave Rihanna her 26th top-ten song on the chart, while McCartney made a record by ending the longest break between top-ten singles on the chart. The song also peaked at number one on the US Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart. Internationally, "FourFiveSeconds" reached number one in Australia, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Sweden, as well as the top-three in Canada, France and the United Kingdom.

To promote the song, an accompanying black-and-white music video was directed by Dutch photographer duo Inez and Vinoodh in New York City. Rihanna, McCartney and West performed "FourFiveSeconds" for the first time at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards on February 8 held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles; the performance received highly positive reviews. The single has been covered by various recording artists, including Canadian rapper Drake and British singer-songwriter James Bay.

 

Why should it make sense??

Fair enough. It doesn't feel like that at all to me. It feels like McCartney reaching out to someone whose music he likes and who he feels it would be interesting to work with. That doesn't seem rudderless, it just seems left-field and challenging. And I like that he's still prepared to do that rather than just keep churning out Macca-by-Numbers. We'll agree to disagree on this one.

 

FourFiveSeconds: I actually quite like this although I have a real problem with the use of the word "Spazz". Clearly, it's a "UK thing" that it has objectionable tones, similar to the N word. Interestingly, UK radio played the song without deleting the offending word when it was in the charts but every play I've heard in the last few months has removed it.

 

There's a Friends episode where Rachel says "laundry spaz" that I actually physically gasped at when I first heard it, but yep it's not an offensive word in America. There was an incident recently where someone complained about a US baseball broadcast shown here where the commentator said it, and Ofcom had to explain it was down to cultural differences.

 

I just can't get past the lyrics, especially when Paul sings them live, although the music is quite enjoyable. I would be really interested in seeing Paul's original lyrics for the song, before it was given to Rihanna.

 

It was something like this;

Mother Mary just came to say
Oh I believe in yesterday (whoo!)
Maybe I'm amazed by the way you love me all the time
Na na na, na na na na, na na na na
Hey Jude