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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | "Andrew Hickey" <stealthmunchkin@lycos.co.uk> |
| Subject | Re: Back To The Eggo |
| Date | Wed, 27 Aug 2003 16:53:30 +0100 |
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>> What about Flaming Pie or Flowers In The Dirt?
>
> Both homogenized and patchy IMHO.....as long as McCartney continues
> recording shit like Flowers In The Dirt's "Motor Of Love" he will
> never regain his stature as the true pop genius he once was.
Patchy, yes, but both also contain some of his best work - I certainly
wouldn't call them homogenised. If anything he tries to do *too many* things
on them (although my opinion of Flowers is probably helped by the fact that
I have it on vinyl, and so don't have to put up with the atrocity that is Ou
Est Le Soleil).
Flaming Pie, in particular, has some *horrible* material (Beautiful Night
for example), but also stuff like Calico Skies, which I think is McCartney's
best song of the last 30 years.
Actually, on a side note, I think the main problem with McCartney's writing
(other than his need for an editor, which he hasn't really had since the
Beatles split) is that he doesn't recognise what his own strengths are. A
lot of his ballads recently have been 'emotional', building to ridiculous
peaks and so on (No More Lonely Nights for example), but if you listen to
his *very* best stuff, the music is very sparse and quite distant - For No
One, Blackbird, Calico Skies, Eleanor Rigby, Here Today and so on. It
doesn't try to force an emotion on you - it works because the music has an
abstract beauty and when the lyrics are added *then* you feel an emotion.
Whereas the other stuff - My Love, Maybe I'm Amazed or whatever - while nice
enough almost bludgeons the message in. I really noticed this when I saw
McCartney live earlier this year - the acoustic set was *SO* much better
than the rest of the show, and it was because he was mostly doing that
sparse, acoustic stuff.
I would *LOVE* to hear an album by McCartney just on acoustic guitar...
--
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