McCartney II (1980)
1. Coming Up
2. Temprary Secretary
3. On the Way
4. Waterfalls
5. Nobody Knows
6. Front Parlour
7. Summer's Day Song
8. Frozen Jap
9. Bogey Music
10.Darkroom
11.One of These Days
12.Check My Machine *
13.Secret Friend *
14.Goodnight Tonight *
* CD Bonus Track
 
The "II" in the album title is an
indication that this is a "sequel" to 1970's McCartney in that he virtually plays every
instrument on this album by himself. Whereas the original was a rather
sweet, rustic affair, this one bombards the listener with McCartney's
apparent new best friend - the synthesizer. Sadly, in many respects,
this album sounds so dated that it's worn thin with age, whereas the
first one, ironic enough, became better with subsequent listens.
Most of the ideas here have enormous potential. Therein lies the
problem since one really doesn't want an album of "ideas", but rather an
album of "songs". The one thing this did have in common with the
McCartney album is that this could have
been so much better had more time and care went into the actual production.
A song like Waterfall for example, has a very sweet catchy chorus
that's a joy to hum along to, yet the song itself is rather
patchy and lacks the proper production that would make it a decnet song.
Then, consider the hit single Coming Up. It has all the right
notes and catchy riffs that make a song a hit. Well, about halfway
through the song's radio rotation, a live version started getting
substituded during radio airplay, and the new one sort of "pushed out" the
studio version. I've never known of an event where something like this happened. It
justifies the problem with the songs - good songwriting, lackluster
production.
Ironically it's the instrumentals that come off very favorable. It's
almost as if more attention and care were given to songs such as
Frozen Jap and Front Parlour even though they, like
everything else, simply have too many heavy keyboards resonating
throughout. There's a few annoying songs that bring the whole album
down several notches. Temporary Secretary is a prime example of
how to completely annoy someone with a tedious, screaming chorus,
whereas Bogey Music has McCartney trying (I think) to do very bad Elvis
impersonations.
The bonus disc contained an almost two year old single Goodnight
Tonight, that was pleasant, although a bit disco heavy. Also on the
bonus disc are two of the very very worst Paul McCartney songs ever,
Check My Machine and the ten minute flop Secret Friend.
He's not even trying to be melodic on these. If anything, the
whole album shows us that Paul could definitely take almost any
instrument, muddle things together and come up with at least some
good ideas. There are several here, but they are a bit too scattered
and the bad songs on this album are really bad. Really really bad.
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