Paul McCartney

Paul McCartney, is, without doubt a hero. An incredible hero, who has all too often peddled smug domesticity as Love and in doing so, has increasingly alienated himself from 30 years worth of pop music fans. However, as his recent divorce cace showed, he remains well-loved and respected.

In retrospect, McCartney's best SOLO work was early in his career but every once in a while, he's managed to create sublime music...and when he was good, he was very, very good, as his Greatest Hits (see below) compilation shows. Despite squandering much of his formidable talents, millions of us are aware that he always threatens to write one more great song...and that is an achievement in itself.

Albums:

McCartney

Since the release of Anthology, it's apparent that several if the songs from McCartney, Paul McCartney's first SOLO album were from the bad tempered Let It Be sessions...and this home-recorded, simple reply to the break-up of The Beatles seems even more lonely and isolated.

Ram

McCartney's follow-up, Ram, was a delightful piece of nonsense, with McCartney revelling in the chance to mock his former bandmates...and show how effortless it was for young Paul to rattle off a good tune. The trouble was..his lyrics were...dodgy.

Wings Wildlife

Just six months after Ram was released, McCartney hastily recorded and issued Wings Wild Life, the first notes from his new touring band...and totally confused the public. The album bombed...but it in hindsight, it wasn't half bad.

Band On The Run

Acknowledged as probably McCartney's best-sounding SOLO album, was it the album that actually stopped the tantalisingly publicised Beatles reunion of 1974?

Tug Of War

McCartney's slow response to John Lennon's death saw McCartney turn to Beatles producer George Martin to help him make sense of the tragedy.

Paul McCartney's Greatest Hits

Love him or loathe him, there's no doubt that McCartney kept making great singles through the Seventies...and some of the Eighties.

Paul McCartney's Greatest Hits

The new, comprehensive video collection

DVDs:

Movie:

Give My Regards To Broadstreet

Like Michael Jackson & Prince, who also wrote, starred and produced their own movie follies during the 1980s, Give My Regards To Broadstreet is a curio...but analysis reveals a quite different story.

Documentary:

Wingspan: an Intimate Portrait

2001

With Linda McCartney passing in 1998, Paul McCartney initially threw himself into a number of projects, one of which was this retrospective of Wings.

Always a problematic band, they really were Paul McCartney...and wife...and Denny Laine...and whoever else...nobody ever seemed to want to stick around for long!

So, with Linda gone...and Denny Laine (er...banished...he's not in any of the interviews, nor is he referred to), Wings...is kinda...Paul. The documentary is, as it says, an intimate portrait, in which McCartney is interviewed by his...daughter, Mary (and the director is her husband, Alistair Donald).

The DVD

Not the normal type of documentary, these are family stories, about Paul's state of mind when The Beatles broke up, bringing up the kids, how it fitted in with the music etc. Sentimental...and never hard-hitting, it's a project to make public his mourning for Linda.

The soundtrack

LIVE In Concert:

There's a fairly good selection of LIVE concert performances in the 2007 video collection, The McCartney Years, see above.

Get Back

Japan pre-concert interview

"...The 22 songs performed are on here a solid mix of Beatles classics ("Got To Get You Into My Life", "The Long And Winding Road", "Let It Be", "Hey Jude"), solo hits (the only full uninterrupted from start to finish live performance of "Band On The Run", "Live And Let Die"), and then new recordings from his 1989 album "Flowers In The Dirt" ("Rough Ride", "Put It There", "This One").

With his youthful vigor as well as eternally boyish charm and good looks, Paul makes these oldise sound new again, and it also enables the (then) newer tracks to hold their own solid ground against the classics everyone knows..." Anthony Nasti

LIVE At The Cavern

Initially broadcast LIVE on the internet to bring in the new millenium on December 14, 1999, McCartney & his one-off band, including: Pink Floyd's David Gilmour (guitar) & Deep Purple's Ian Paice (drums)...rock The Cavern, the Beatles' Liverpool base back in 1962 with an invited audience of 300, playing tracks from his Rock'n'Roll roots album, Run Devil Run.

Most of the songs aren't particularly well known, mostly obscure hits and b-sides of more famous ones...so there's little reason to list them...but beware, this is a short concert:

thirteen songs in 39 minutes +
a 20 minute interview with Paul about why he chose those particular songs

Back-In-The-US

"...Paul McCartney's tour could have been called "Beatlemania: The Next Generation." Young and old alike come out to his concerts....In addition to performing many Beatles songs, he dedicates "Here Today" to John Lennon, "Something" to George Harrison and "My Love" to Linda McCartney. However, don't get the impression that the concerts are somber remembrances of past glories. All of the songs, old and new, are performed with passion, vitality and a sense of fun..." Mike Vegas King

LIVE In Red Square

"...The Beatles were banned for decades by the Soviet government, which regarded their music as the epitome of Western decadence and propaganda, and the fans' only access to the group was through the occasional photo or black market album.

Their reaction to his 2003 visit is a mixture of frenzy and rapture; in interview after interview, what one fan calls the Beatles' "gentle intervention" is credited with helping to bring down the whole Soviet system, simply because they represented a creativity and freedom that had been almost totally silenced. And that's all before McCartney plays "Back in the U.S.S.R.," which inspires a response that simply must be seen and heard to be believed..." Amazon blurb

The Space Within US

This time Sir Paul presents his LIVE show with a hook-up to two astronauts orbiting the earth.

The Space Within Us trailer

Paul's definitely getting better onstage...and this is a dynamite performance but beware, there's lots of strange editing with interviews and lots of crowd shots getting all emotional.

Roots Albums

Paul McCartney has recorded 3 albums of Roots, Rock'n'Roll:

CHOBA B CCCP a.k.a. Back In The USSR
Unplugged: The Official Bootleg
Run Devil Run

Books

McCartney biography by good friend, Barry Miles 1998

"...Very thoughtful and detailed book. Tells a story that everyone has heard before (The Beatles recording process and fame) but sheds a new light on the more human side of all the Beatles, of course especially Paul. Lots of touching moments between John and Paul and their uncanny ability to create music together. A very rewarding read..." Melissa Aukstakalnis

Paul McCartney Paintings 2000

"...Paul (McCartney's paintings) carry schoolboy-naughty titles like 'The Queen After Her First Cigarette' and 'Bowie Spitting', often display bright, simple colors, and have the kind of surprised pleasantness - for example "Ancient Connections" - which is often associated with children.

That said, his work is actually pretty good. Its diversity (there are abstract paintings, figurative paintings, portraits, surrealist ones) is a plus, as is the execution, which reveals McCartney has a keen eye for colors and shapes (composition and detail, i.e. the more technical side of painting, are of lesser interest to McCartney, who said: 'I like the primitive approach, so if I learn to sail I don't take sailing lessons: I get into a boat and capsize a lot. It's actually very much my philosophy and it works equally well in painting and in music.')..." M1974

Blackbird Singing: Words & poems by Paul McCartney 2001

"...Paul's music is...good for a rainy day when you can smell the wet dirt, or a foggy morning when your imagination starts to wander...I always probably would have said that it's his sense of melody and chord structure that I really like but reading Paul's lyrics naked here, without the clothing of the music, I realize that I also really love the playfulness of the words themselves.

This is a great book if you're a Beatles fan or a McCartney fan, because it'll make you come to the songs in a new way. You can see how inventive McCartney really is, not just musically, but also lyrically..." C. Fletcher

High In The Clouds: An Urban Funny Tale

by Paul McCartney & author Philip Ardagh Illustrations by Geoff Dunbar 2005

"... My seven year old daughter and I purchased the book yesterday (and) within a few pages we were drawn into it... almost immediately after meeting Wirral, the main character (a squirrel)...he is thrust into the adult world by the sudden loss of a loved one. Wirral...begins a journey to find the magical world Animalia that he has been told exists only in fairy tales...Around the world he goes...meeting friends and discovering the world... running up trees and saving girls...protecting the planet...one small squirrel step at a time..." Gertrude

Classical Music

I have no pretentions whatsoever that I could offer an opinion on classical music other than that:

cellos, violas & oboes sound really cool &
sometimes classical music sounds great in movie soundtracks

...So, it's with total ignorance that I present Paul McCartney's classical music work.

Trance Music

McCartney has also experimented with modern electronic dance music, releasing at least three of the collaborations under pseudonyms.

Short Films

McCartney has also won 2 BAFTA Awards (UK equivalent of an Oscar) for shorts he created with illustrator/ film-maker Geoff Dunbar and collaborated on two more.

McCartney also directed a short film on the band, The Grateful Dead.

Artwork:

original prints: www.frontrowgallery.com

book of his paintings: Paul McCartney Paintings

Linda McCartney:

Linda McCartney released several books:

a collection of photographs from The Sixties &
several books on Vegetarian Cooking
(posthumously) an album of her collected works with Wings

N.B. Paul McCartney fans should make sure they hear The Rutles "Eine Kleine Middle Klasse Musik" from the Anthology album (about 2/3 of the way down the page). Just the Amazon snippet is hilarious.