Pipes of Peace (1983) 


 


  1. Pipes of Peace
  2. Say Say Say
  3. The Other Me
  4. Keep Under Cover
  5. So Bad
  6. The Man
  7. Sweetest Little Show
  8. Average Person
  9. Hey Hey
  10.Tug of Peace
  11.Through Our Love

 

If Tug of War was McCartney’s moment of clarity—an artistic high point in an otherwise muddled decade—then Pipes of Peace is its queasy aftertaste. Released just a year later, and often billed as a “companion piece” to its predecessor, this follow-up is anything but equal. Where the earlier album struck a rare balance between sentiment and substance, Pipes of Peace tumbles headfirst into saccharine excess and never quite finds its footing.

Much was made at the time of McCartney’s renewed collaboration with Michael Jackson, especially after the success of their joint effort The Girl Is Mine on Jackson’s Thriller. Here, the pair reunite for two tracks. The first, Say Say Say, is a lightweight pop confection with just enough melodic charm to make it the album’s standout. It’s frothy, thin, and impossibly slick—but undeniably catchy. Unfortunately, the second collaboration, The Man, quickly confirms that lightning does not, in fact, strike twice. All gloss, no grit.

Elsewhere, the album’s tone wavers between the overly earnest and the outright embarrassing. The title track, Pipes of Peace, manages to stay just on the right side of mawkish—its polished production and hummable refrain giving it some staying power, particularly as a seasonal favorite. But that’s about where the goodwill ends.

So Bad is a masterclass in cloying overkill—melodically bland, lyrically infantile, and delivered in a falsetto that does McCartney no favors. Worse still is Tug of Peace, a bizarre and tone-deaf attempt to merge themes from his previous album into a sort of half-baked sonic reconciliation. It lands with all the grace of a peace march performed by a drum machine.

There’s an overwhelming sense throughout that McCartney is chasing sentiment at the expense of craft. The arrangements are glossy to a fault, the lyrics painfully on-the-nose, and the melodies—so often his saving grace—largely unmemorable. Whatever spark had ignited Tug of War had evidently dimmed here. The result is an album that feels both overwrought and undercooked.

McCartney would descend even further on his next original release before rebounding in earnest, but Pipes of Peace remains a cautionary tale—a reminder that, even for a genius, there’s a fine line between sweet and saccharine. And once crossed, it’s a long way back.

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