Paul McCartney, old and new

This October saw a burst of media attention for the release of a new album by a 71-year-old singer/songwriter, rather unusual in a field dominated by people in their 20s and 30s. However, this wasn’t just any singer/songwriter; this was Paul McCartney, who has been called the most successful composer and recording artist of all time. McCartney is best known for having been a member of the Beatles, along with John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, and for writing much-covered songs like “Yesterday,” “Eleanor Rigby,” “Hey Jude” and “Let It Be.” But McCartney has also had an extremely prolific career in the 43 years since the Beatles broke up, writing numerous hit songs and selling tens of millions of records. He has received numerous honors and awards, including a knighthood from the Queen of England, and is widely considered one of the greatest writers of melody ever. Paul McCartney began his solo career in 1970 with the self-titled ‘McCartney,’ on which he played all the instruments. Though the album was patchy, it included “Maybe I’m Amazed,” almost universally regarded as a classic. This set the tone for his 1970s work; most of his albums included a few throwaway tracks, but they also invariably included some great songs. While critical reaction was often mixed, his commercial success in this decade rivaled that he had achieved with the Beatles, especially after he formed his new group, Wings, which he performed with till the end of the decade. Among the many classic songs and chart-topping hits he released in this period were “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,” “Live and Let Die,” “My Love,” “Band on the Run,” “Jet,” “Helen Wheels,” “Listen to What the Man Said” and “With a Little Luck.” The group went on stadium-filling concert tours and released ‘Wings over America,’ a chart-topping live album that included Wings songs along with songs McCartney had written for the Beatles such as “Lady Madonna,” “Blackbird” and “The Long and Winding Road.” The Wings hit “Mull of Kintyre” became the biggest selling single ever in the UK up to that time. Wings disbanded in 1981, but McCartney’s solo success continued with solo hits such as “Coming Up” and the album ‘Tug of War,’ which featured “Take It Away” and his chart-topping duet with Stevie Wonder, “Ebony and Ivory.” He had another No. 1 hit with “Say Say Say,” a duet with Michael Jackson. In the mid-1980s, McCartney’s commercial profile began to slip and his critical reputation hit a low point, though he revived it somewhat with 1989’s ‘Flowers in the Dirt,’ which featured songs “My Brave Face,” co-written with Elvis Costello, and “This One.” However, it was in the wake of the Beatles’ ‘Anthology’ project in the mid-1990s that McCartney really seemed to regain his songwriting muse. Beginning with 1997’s ‘Flaming Pie’ and continuing through albums like 2005’s ‘Chaos and Creation in the Backyard’ and 2007’s ‘Memory Almost Full,’ he has had a streak of solo albums that have received generally favorable critical reviews and have included such memorable tracks as “The Song We Were Singing,” “Little Willow,” “Fine Line,” “Jenny Wren,” “Dance Tonight” and “That Was Me.” He has made forays into classical and electronic music, the latter in the guise of The Fireman, a duo he formed with the producer Youth. He explored his musical roots with 1999’s ‘Run Devil Run,’ a high-octane album of covers of old rock and roll songs by artists like Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent and Elvis Presley, plus a few originals such as the excellent title track. Last year, he released ‘Kisses on the Bottom,’ an album of old standards such as “It’s Only a Paper Moon,” plus “My Valentine,” an affecting McCartney original with a video featuring Natalie Portman and Johnny Depp. Having travelled back to the musical past on ‘Kisses on the Bottom,’ Paul McCartney has decided to take a more contemporary approach on his latest album, the appropriately titled ‘New.’ He worked with four different producers, including Mark Ronson, who worked with Amy Winehouse, and Paul Epworth, best known for his work with Adele, resulting in a diverse, energetic album that showcases McCartney’s still excellent compositional skills. The title track and first single is a catchy, upbeat pop tune somewhat reminiscent of his Beatle-era classic “Got to Get You Into My Life,” and the second single “Queenie Eye” is a propulsive rocker with some of the interesting musical and melodic shifts that characterize many of his best songs. The album’s opening track, “Save Us” is another upbeat rock tune, as are the slightly psychedelic “Alligator,” the catchy “Everybody Out There” and the Wings-flavored “I Can Bet.” However, McCartney also takes things down a notch from time to time, such as on the guitar-based ballads “Early Days” and “Hosanna,” the former a look back at the beginnings of the Beatles. On other tracks, McCartney gets more experimental, with touches of electronic music on tracks like “Appreciate” and the spacey closer “Road.” Fans of McCartney’s piano ballads should keep listening after the end of “Road” for the hidden track “Scared.” As a whole, ‘New’ demonstrates that Paul McCartney’s musical inventiveness and melodic genius have not deserted him, even after half a century in which he produced some of the most memorable tunes ever written.