Paul McCartney's New CD

[Nico]

I have this...to be honest, I haven't had the time to listen to it all the way through. I hated the last album he released, "Memory Almost Full." But the one prior, "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard" was stellar.

I have a love/hate relationship with his solo stuff because, for the most part, he has some nice albums and a lot of filler. I'm a big fan of "Ram" and the first one, and I really like "Band on the Run" and "Flaming Pie." But the others I have to pick a few tunes and move on.

I truly love him though. His best stuff will always be the Beatles because he and John had amazing chemistry as songwriters. And often they didn't even collaborate outside of a few lines, but they inspired one another and were fiercely competitive. Paul said in his bio that John seemed to always be one-upping him so he'd have to try and beat him with any new song he was working on. Frigg'n adorable.

Also think it's so funny that the album he made while married to Heather Mills ("Chaos and Creation...") had songs that were inspired by his first wife, Linda, and that album was practically perfect. But the album he wrote that was supposedly inspired by Heather ("Driving Rain") was kind of a piece of crap. Highly unrecommended purchase.

[nightbird28]

I completely agree. I bought "Driving Rain" because of "Freedom" and was very let down by the cd. I never even bothered buying anything of his after it. I rarely get excited by a cd unless it's fleetwood but this album i started burning and passing it out to my friends.

[dcl1964]

I agree about Driving Rain being crappy. I felt the songs weren't finished lyrically. Chaos and Creation was a great album. Memory Almost Full falls in between them. I've noticed when Paul plays most (or all) of the instruments on his albums he seems to let his sense of melody show more (ie: Flaming Pie, Tug Of War, Band On The Run) and it makes for better albums.

[Nico]

Originally Posted by dcl1964

I agree about Driving Rain being crappy. I felt the songs weren't finished lyrically. Chaos and Creation was a great album. Memory Almost Full falls in between them. I've noticed when Paul plays most (or all) of the instruments on his albums he seems to let his sense of melody show more (ie: Flaming Pie, Tug Of War, Band On The Run) and it makes for better albums.

My theory was that Heather Mills was a dry well of inspiration wrapped in snarly, arrogant, gold-digging clothes and he just didn't feel like writing anything really substantial about the wench.

(But then it doesn't run consistent with the dodgy solo career, but still, lousy songs with Linda are far superior to even the best ones with Heather.)