Paul McCartney - Memory Almost Full
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Free Music Notes for Memory Almost Full
Free Music Review: More of the Same - Magic and Maturity
Hit: 5 Stars
Someday - probably long after the passing of every currently living generation - the music of The Beatles will be appraised in ways uncolored by our particular cultural associations and expectations. For now though, this work can only be evaluated in the afterglow of (or backlash against) Beatlemania.
Anyway, that's how I see it right now. These songs have all the strengths - and all the weaknesses of any work by that Sixties band. And if you're sad that you'll never hear certain voices harmonize again or experience the creative twists of those special collaborations, you just might hear part of that same sadness in these songs. It's there in the weariness of "Dance Tonight" and the lyrics and melodies of songs like "You Tell Me".
If you're at all sad about what the years have swept away, you just might find an echo of your feelings in the desperate longing of "Only Mama Knows" - or in the bewilderment of "House of Wax". Of course, those of us who can remember seeing the Fabs live on Ed Sullivan do not tend to associate dark thoughts with their music despite songs like "Helter Skelter", "For No One" or "I'm Down". One reason for that is that sadness and anger were mostly there as counterpoint. And humor was rarely absent.
"Mr. Bellamy" is nothing but a Beatles Song. It's perfectly strange with that odd, Liverpuddlian balminess that's in addition to the craziness of the title character, proud, isolated and driven by his own "delusionary state" to the verge of self-destruction. But it's also beautiful in ways both comforting and eerie.
If future generations find value in the music of the Beatles, it may be because they were so successful in blending and transitioning between emotions and tones in so many surprising and gratifying ways. Their dissolution as a band must have been caused in part by the impossibility of their continuing to meet the ever-rising expectations that each success brought about.
Thirty years after the breakup, the expectations have hardly subsided. No effort by Paul or Ringo can escape their impact. What's especially impressive about "Memory Almost Full" is both how Paul is able to face these expectations so directly and how he surmounts them - almost like a champion surfer riding a fast, tall whitecap until landing agilely on his feet with his board now held high.
There's plenty of fun and whimsy. There are some beautiful pieces of melody. There are some arresting affects such as a chorus in "Feet in the Clouds" that manages to sound both angelic and robotic at the same time. Maybe some bits seem too "light" and maybe some seem to be trying too hard to be "heavy". Still, the album hangs together on its own merits as much (or more) than any Beatles album where virtuosity and versatility were always more emphasized than thematic consistency. These songs are pretty much all about the passing of the years with touches of triumph, generosity, and nostalgia intermingling with feelings of loss, bewilderment and thrashing angst.
There was a time when I somehow felt cheated that time and tragedy had made it impossible for me to ever experience new Beatles music. This is a great creative effort by a complex, driven, and astounding talent that helps me understand (in several ways) how wrong that feeling was.
Free Music Review: ...the closest thing you'll get to McCartney, the man, artist, and living legend!
Hit: 5 Stars
It was 43 years ago today...when the Beatles conquered the music charts with timeless classics, and stole the hearts of pretty much everybody on the planet. Almost half a century later, two of the founding members, John and George, are deceased, and here we have the third founding member, Paul, still releasing records. Who knew?
What's different about Paul's latest album, Memory Almost Full, is that the aging artist is more aware of his status amongst musical legends, and yet isn't frightened to face the audience with a song like the wonderful The End Of The End, where he explains what he would like to happen on the day he dies, "on the day that I die, I'd like bells to be rung, and songs that were sung, to be hung out like blankets..." The staightforward comment sets a certain theme to the album, which to some might seem dark and sad, but not at all. Let's not forget that Paul has lost his former bandmate George and wife of 30 years, Linda, just over the past 10 years.
Memory Almost Full is Paul's love message to the fans that have adored him since it all began, the younger fans who follow in his footsteps, and his old friends. The opening track, Dance Tonight, is an ode to Paul's earliest work circa McCartney, a nice, catchy accoustic number where Paul declares that everybody should just have some fun; in other words, an excellent way to begin an album. The album also features some of Paul's best work in recent times. Ever Present Past, one of my favorites on Memory, is a delightful slow rocker and surefire hit, if it's ever released as a single, where Paul sings about how he dealt with his famous past and how it "flew by in a flash". The splendid Gratitude is where Paul pays his respect and many thanks to the fans and everybody who's loved him over the years. On the medley that includes Vintage Clothes, That Was Me, and Feet In The Clouds (an obvious homage to the b-side of Abbey Road), Paul indulges further in self-reflection creating one of Paul's greatest contributions to modern rock. Mr. Bellamy could be Paul's first psychedelic experimentation since Sgt. Pepper's. It's a cross between Eleanor Rigby, and John Lennon mind benders like Tomorrow Never Knows, a track so good it could easily fit on Revolver, Abbey Road, or even Sgt Pepper. The dark hard rockers Only Mama Knows and House Of Wax, which is another of my favorites, show Paul's ability to pen powerful rock songs, with some banging guitar solos to go with it, echoing his classic Helter Skelter from 1968's The White Album. Of course, no Paul album could go without sweet ballads, which in this case comes to us in the form of You Tell Me, and See Your Sunshine, a warm bluesy song which ranks up there as one of Paul's finest songs ever.
I haven't felt this excited about a former Beatle's solo album in a long time. Memory Almost Full not only delivers the goods that will satisfy any Beatle-hungry fan like myself, but it's also the closest thing you'll ever get to McCartney, the man, artist, and living legend.
Track picks:
Dance Tonight
Ever Present Past
See Your Sunshine
Mr. Bellamy
Vintage Clothes
That Was Me
Feet In The Clouds
House Of Wax
The End Of The End
Highly Recommended
A
Free Music Review: His Best in Years
Hit: 5 Stars
An obvious caveat here: most of the reviews of Paul McCartney's new 'Memory Almost Full' are going to come from listeners who are already fans, and I am no exception.
Having said that, I am not easily impressed by McCartney's newer stuff. Some of the albums have been quite good, such as 'Chaos and Creation', 'Run Devil Run', 'Band on the Run' and 'Tug of War'. Some have been disappointing, such as 'Driving Rain' or many of the older Wings albums. Most albums had at least a song or two that redeemed them. It seemed to me that, post-Beatles, McCartney followed his pop music muse and became a good deal less serious as an artist. Maybe this was because he did not have the cynical Lennon at his side to keep him from getting schmaltzy.
I was therefore very pleased to find, after giving 'Memory Almost Full' five full listenings all the way through, that McCartney's latest effort is perhaps one of his strongest ever. There are moments on this record that approach the Beatles-era McCartney. These happen when McCartney lays down stories both intensely personal and universal, coupled with surprisingly complex music. Examples of this would be 'Mr. Bellamy', which is to my mind kind of a modern version of 'Fool on the Hill', and 'Only Mama Knows', which alternates between classical-sounding strings and heavy rock and tells the story of an abandoned child wondering about his origins.
If this album has a theme, it would have to be the joys and sorrows of growing old. As such, it will appeal to Baby Boomers and older Gen X'ers. McCartney is either 64 or 65 this year and on this album seems to be coming to terms with his own mortality and legacy. Songs such as 'Ever Present Past', 'You Tell Me', 'Vintage Clothes', 'That Was Me', 'Feet in the Clouds', and finally, 'The End of the End' deal with this theme in a variety of ways, all of which speak to any middle-aged listener. There are a few songs that don't fit the theme, but they are enjoyable for other reasons. The opener, 'Dance Tonight' is pure McCartney catchiness. It sneaks up on you, deceptively simple, and grabs you. In the middle of the album, the song 'Gratitude' is perhaps one of the strangest, angriest 'love' songs I've heard in a while. McCartney spits out the word 'Gratitude' in a way that makes one really doubt his sincerity. It makes you wonder if maybe it was inspired by his soon-to-be ex-wife.
It also seems to me that the closing song on the album, 'Nod Your Head' was tacked on after the concept album was completed, perhaps done most recently when McCartney's marital woes really kicked in. I would have prefered to end the album with 'The End of the End', but I suppose people would have read too much into such a placement.
In any case, thanks, Paul, for a great album, the best in years. If you are a McCartney fan, you will enjoy this album. If you aren't, you might become a fan if you listen to it. Paul McCartney is not the Beatles. Unfortunately, they are gone forever. But on 'Memory Almost Full', you can catch a good deal of the old magic, as you can on some of George Harrison's best, or John Lennon's.
An unqualified five stars.
Free Music Review: McCartney's work is a mixture of dread and hopeful anticipation.
Hit: 5 Stars
I think Paul is clearly having a renaissance a la Dylan and Cash. I think "Chaos and Creation" and "Memory Almost Full" are without a doubt his best work since early Wings (though neither of them touch his first post-Beatles album "McCartney," which had what I regard as one of the best songs he ever wrote, "Every Night."). Both Dylan's "Time Out of Mind" and Cash's posthumously released fifth album in his American series are among my favorite records of the last decade. As they confront their mortality, their voices express a mixture of vulnerability and strength, an aching emotion that makes them masterpieces in my personal pantheon.
Paul is also confronting his own death in "Memory Almost Full" with songs like "The End of the End" and "Gratitude," but in a classically McCartneyesque way: a lot of the songs are sprightly and essentially sunny in a way that I find a little at odds with Paul's lyrics. What made McCartney so brilliant as a Beatle was that even when he was writing light-hearted ditties out of the British music hall tradition, he brought a level of pathos to his songwriting that lifted even songs like "Martha My Dear" to greatness.
I think his association with producer Niles Godrich kept Paul from surrendering to his worst post-Beatles instincts--the silly flourishes and the schmaltzy non-ballads that makes you wonder whether McCartney still has it in him. In songs like "At the Mercy" and "Friends to Go," Paul is utterly restrained without sacrificing any of his charmingly jaunty tunefulness. On "Memory Almost Full," mixed in among brilliant songs like "Only Mama Knows" and "Gratitude" are songs like "Mr. Bellamy," which begins with a truly awful moment that sounds like Paul is paying tribute to the Canadian band Rush. But moments like that are forgivable on a album that is mostly terrific and, as you suggest is full of small musical surprises throughout that seem to come out of nowhere.
I think on "McCartney" and "Ram," Paul really found his solo voice: always inventive, always melodic, but, unlike the Beatles, never trying too hard. Full of quirky changes and hidden hooks, it's the sound of a compulsively tuneful writer resisting the temptation to pander--or to go on autopilot.
"See Your Sunshine." An exquisite spiral of high harmonies (a la the late Linda McCartney), it's pure Wings. Listen also for Paul's genius bass playing, which ranges all over the fretboard and reminds me, in its hiccuping way, of his work on "Abbey Road." Then there's "Only Mama Knows," which, between bookends of "Eleanor Rigby" strings, manages to pack in a half-dozen balls-out guitar riffs and a chorus that leaps into a different key. It's the best rocker he's written since 1973's "Jet." I'm also digging the opening acoustic chords of "Feet in the Clouds"--they're straight out of "Every Night"--and the lyrics of "That Was Me," which tell the story of Paul's life in a series of vivid snapshots ("That was me / Playing conkers / At the bus stop / On a blanket / In the bluebells.")
Contributions by
Dan Klaidman and Andrew Romano
Free Music Review: Quite a surprise to me!
Hit: 5 Stars
I honestly have not really liked a Paul McCartney album for a very long time! So you could say I am not a die hard fan. But I really loved Paul McCartney in the 70's, even before I came to appreciate the Beatles. The Beatles music seemed so complex to me as a young guy, I couldnt quite relate to it yet. Of course later, I grew to love the Beatles music (especially the creativity and inovation), even if John or Paul weren't my favorite singers or musicians. They made music that had not existed to that point, progressive and alternative rock & roll that created the new rock sound everyone would conform their music to in one way or another. But as I listened to the Wings throughout the later 70's, it started to become quite boring. The songwriting and substance was really starting to lack. But Paul did drop the Wings and come back and did some good stuff in the 80's. I for one liked albums like Tug Of War and Pipes Of Peace. But after that somewhere I become disillusioned with Paul McCartney's music all together, probably along with many of the mainstream or commercial fans. The late 80's albums like Flowers In The Dirt on never really caught my attention at all. I have heard them all either portions or entire albums. It's not that Paul's voice is lacking and there are some good songs here and there, but nothing sounded that spectacular to me. The songs just were not that good. But listening to Memory Almost Full I have a very different reaction. This is good stuff plain and simple. The songs are far more creative than anything I've heard in ages by McCartney. I love the little moods he creates and the meledys are really nicely done. And did I say catchy? That was something that has been lacking from a Paul album. Honestly, I couldnt even listen to one all the way through without becomming bored or just losing my attention. The new CD I actually wanting to hear more! There are VERY good elements of good Paul solo work, good Wings, and even Beatles in Memory Almost Full. It's surprisingly that he began this project before his last CD and then put it on hold. The previous work was BETTER than Chaos & Creation In The Backyard. There really isnt any bad songs to speak of. I have read many good reviews of his other later albums but they never really turned me on as a whole although there were some good songs here and there. But still if you sit down to hear them in a full sitting, they get boring! Memory Almost Full is a far better album!! Some say that Paul McCartney does not have a big comeback left in him (with hit singles and the like). But if he makes CDs like this, you never know. It would only take one good song to get exposure on the radio and if Elton John, Johnny Cash, and Bob Dylan made comebacks later in their career, than certaintly so can Paul McCartney. People just need to get excited about his music again and this album is one that might just do it. This is a comeback!!