Flaming Pie (1997)
1. The Song We Were Singing
2. The World Tonight
3. If You Wanna
4. Somedays
5. Young Boy
6. Calico Skies
7. Flaming Pie
8. Heaven on a Sunday
9. Used to Be Bad
10.Souvenir
11.Little Willow
12.Really Love You
13.Beautfiul Night
14.Great Day
 
This was the first record by Paul
McCartney since the legendary Beatles "Anthology" Project. Since
original producer George Martin was not up to producing the two new
songs for that project (he was now deaf in one ear), the band wisely recruited Jeff Lynne,
who had brilliantly added magic touches to George Harrison's "Cloud
Nine". Lynne gave the two new Beatles songs exactly what they called
for, and if ever there was serious discussion (there never was) over who
the "fourth" Beatle should be, Jeff Lynne definitely proved himself a
prime contender. I'm not sure of how it came about, but I'm guessing
that Paul was so impressed, that he asked Jeff Lynne to be behind the
controls for this, his newest release.
The strange, and unfortunate, thing is that Lynne only handles about
two-thirds of this album. This album sounds a bit disjointed, and at
many times, it sounds like we're listening to maybe three different albums.
Had the music not been up to par, this could have been a huge achilles
heel. Since the music is mostly brilliant, it's only a minor
infraction. The songs where Jeff Lynne's production are apparent don't
disappoint at all. As usual, his touches make the songs very
lightweight, very glossy, but very catchy and very fun. Songs such as
the title track, The World Tonight and Beautiful Night are
where Lynne's influence is the most apparent, and all of these songs
excel beautifully in giving McCartney a style that he never had before.
The second "part" to this album are the slower, simpler songs that are
very sweet and have very little accompaniment at all. The gorgeous
Somedays wins the award for the song that sounds most like a
Beatles classic, and yes, that is a George Martin string arrangement we
hear in the beautiful piece. Other songs in this vein are the opener
The Song We Were Singing, the very personal love song, Calico
Skies and the touchingly sweet lullaby Little Willow.
Hearing some of these examples of sweetness almost wishes you that he
would have recorded an entire album of songs in this style. These are definitely
highlights on the album.
The last part of this diverse album is reserved for a group of songs
that he recorded with Steve Miller. I'm not sure what the mutual
attraction was for these two to work together, but to be honest, the
songs in this category are also done pretty well. My problem is they
don't seem to quite "fit" with the other two parts of the album. Songs
such as Used to be Bad and Young Boy seem a bit too off
kilter with the other songs on the album, even if by themselves they
hold up o.k.
The whole album was Paul McCartney's attempt to simplify his sound a
bit, something he hadn't really done in well over a decade. He adds
just the right amount of touches to these songs to make this a latter
day Paul McCartney classic.
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