ilash's Full Review: McCartney II [2 Bonus Tracks] by Paul McCartney
To my ears at least, Paul McCartney’s post-Beatles seventies body of work remains a startlingly underrated and under-appreciated collection of top notch pop/rock music - as I’ve made fairly clear with my reviews of all of his seventies albums. With the eighties though, everything changed. Except for one or two exceptions, Paul’s eighties albums found the former master of melody at his most uninspired and lazy. The eighties had uniformly catastrophic effects on just about every great musician from the sixties or seventies but that doesn’t make it any easier to excuse Paul’s descent into safe and tired adult contemporary schlock. Mind you, at the onset of the eighties however, that was all still to come. No, the bland, boring McCartney had not yet made his debut but 1980’s McCartney II introduced us to something far, far worse: a Paul McCartney that was outright unlistenable. It’s hard to believe that the unmatched master of the pop hook could ever release anything that was anything less than basically listenable but –BOY – did he show us with this album. So, what on earth happened that managed to cause this rather terrifying turn of events, you ask? Well, to put it simply, Japan happened.
It’s a fairly infamous story but, for those who don’t know, allow me to elaborate. During the Japanese leg of Wings’ massive 1979 world-tour, Paul was arrested by the Japanese authorities for possession of (a rather large amount of) marijuana and spent ten days in prison - bringing the tour to an abrupt and rather unsatisfying conclusion. Soon after this traumatic incident, Paul decided to disband Wings and return to the studio, in much the same way as he did after the Beatles broke up, all on his lonesome. The problem is though that is that unlike last time, he didn’t return to the studio all by himself. Nope, this time he brought synthesizers along for the ride. Now, in the hands of say, Pete Townshend, synthesizers can really enhance a piece of rock or pop music but in the hands of Paul McCartney, well, that’s something else altogether. The songwriting on this album is already fairly weak but the addition of hundreds of annoying computer generated blips and beeps and some heavily processed and quite lifeless vocals make this album painful to listen to. So much so, in fact, that I won’t be dwelling too much on the actual songs here because just the thought of actually having to listen to this album enough to actually write decent critiques on the individual songs, fills me with this very intense and quite tangible dread that I’d rather avoid, if it’s all the same to you.
Anyway, as if being unlistenable wasn’t bad enough McCartney II sounds like a collection of all of Macca’s mistakes in the seventies. You want the harsh coldness of Back to the Egg – this album has it. You want the under-baked incompleteness of Wild Life – look no further. You want the bland, lazy songwriting that marred Speed of Sound – yup, it’s even worse here. You want the inconsistency of most of his seventies works – well, okay, this album is actually very consistent: consistently awful, which is, to be fair, nothing to proud of. These things may have been detrimental to their respective albums but there was generally plenty else to enjoy back then but not so with this disaster. Here, not only do these factors combine into a virtually unredeemable mess but, with the addition of annoying electronica, things only become that much worse. So, aside for the fact that I don’t want to write in-depth reviews of the individual songs in fear of my health, these songs all suffer from the exact same problems (see above, in case you’re not catching on yet) so examining them separately would prove to be an exercise in redundancy. Well, all of these songs, that is, except for four.
Now, don’t get me wrong these four “exceptional” songs aren’t good in any shape or form but they aren’t quite as irredeemable as the rest, I have to admit. Firstly, if you like overly long, overly dull and overly robotic “ballads” then you should absolutely adore the album’s two ballads, One Of These Days (no relation to the Pink Floyd instrumental of the same name) and the “hit” single Waterfalls. They also have the distinction of being the only two songs here that aren’t ruined irrevocably by the electronic factor and, to be fair, if you’re in a particularly bored and detached mood, they can actually be quiet… pretty (I just can’t bring myself to say “moving”). The other two songs, on the other hand, are spoilt by the E-factor (you’ve just got to love these revolting catchphrases don’t you) by, unlike everything else here, there does some to be something to them otherwise. Dark Room actually strikes me as being a song that might, in fact, have been fairly catchy and basically enjoyable had the production and “instrumentation” been different – not a classic, but good enough. Coming Up, meanwhile, is a full-fledged classic when taken out of the context of the album and performed live with it’s catchy chorus and almost-anthemic atmosphere. It stinks here but, really, that goes without saying. Oh and if you have actually bought this masterpiece of an album on CD, you would find another decent track included in the bonus-tracks section. Goodnight Tonight may be a stupid, infuriatingly tacky disco song (but then aren’t most of them) but in comparison to the rest of the album, it’s an absolute gem – and a major one at that. It should have been included with Back to the Egg because that is when it was released but its presence here does nothing but help this smoking pile of… well, you get the picture. The other bonus tracks are, in case you’re wondering, pretty much as bad as the worst stuff on the actual album but one, Check My Machine, actually manages to go on for no less than ten-minutes. I challenge anyone to listen to that in its entirety without forming suicidal or perhaps homicidal thoughts by the tenth minute. And of course, no jury in the world would convict you if you happened to act on the latter. Yes, it really is that bad.
What can I say, if I haven’t managed to dissuade you yet from buying this album then there really is no hope for me as a reviewer (or perhaps for you as a reader) but don’t forget that even Paul himself wrote off these electronic albums (yes, there is another one!) as, well, you still know, don’t you? I simply cannot recommend avoiding this album enough, no matter how great a McCartney fan you may be.
In short(er), then:
Best Song: If you include live versions of the songs: Coming Up. If you include the bonus tracks: Goodnight Tonight. Otherwise, One Of These Days.
Worst Song: Which part of “uniformly awful” don’t you understand?
Most Overrated Song: Nope, this album deserves to be despised as it so rightfully is.
Most Underrated Song: No. Just no.
Overall verdict: WORST ALBUM I OWN, says it all, don’t it?
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