Jason Maloney reviews
Paul McCartney:
Chaos & Creation In The Backyard
Distributed by
Parlophone
- Year: 2005
- Cat No.: 3379612
- Rating: 8/10
Forever living in the shadows created - and still perpetuated - by former glories, Paul McCartney.
may be one of only two people remaining in the world who can
claim to have been a Beatle but there are surely times
when he wishes his solo albums could be judged on
merit alone. Each time he emerges with new material,
the inevitable comparisons with his past and
references to work which cemented his historical
status in modern music will weigh heavy.
In truth, he often proves his own worst enemy; prone
to lazy, cosy blandness and frequent lapses in quality
control, Macca is almost predictably unpredictable. As
a new album looms on the horizon, even ardent fans
wonder which McCartney it will be on this occasion -
the thoughtful, considered artist doing justice to his
talent and legacy...or the throwaway, saccharine
former legend passing off some half-baked tunes and
dire lyrics?
Well, despite the dreadful and umpromising title,
Chaos & Creation In The Backyard is not another Off
The Ground or Press To Play. The album's producer,
Nigel "Radiohead" Godrich, ensured that if nothing
else all traces of fluff and cack-handedness were
filtered out. He made his charge work harder at his
craft, and more unforgivingly, than anyone had made
him do since the days of the Lennon/McCartney
partnership.
By forcing the star's matey live band out of the
studio, not only was the recording atmosphere
dramatically altered but virtually all instrumentation
is by McCartney himself; a throwback to 1970s lo-fi
solo debut set as well as the period in 1968 when
tensions within The Beatles were at such a height that
the Fab Four's No.1 single The Ballad Of John & Yoko
was actually a two-hander with Paul playing the drums
and guitars in lieu of Ringo and George. Amazingly,
the results often sound as though they are from that
late-60s era rather than the 21st Century.
Opening belter (and first single) Fine Line shows the
way in no-nonsense fashion, piano to the fore as a
deceptively typical latterday McCartney midtempo jaunt
suddenly lurches into another gear. For all the
qualities of critically-acclaimed releases such as
1989's Flowers In The Dirt or 1997's Flaming Pie, they
missed one crucial ingredient - Macca banging away on
the old joanna. Whether hammering out divine power
chords as on Fine Line or coaxing lovely melodies of
the calibre of Promise To You Girl and Anyway, this is
Paul McCartney in his element. The ivories form the
basis of every track here, bringing a welcome return
to the definitive style he excelled at during his '60s
and '70s pomp.
There is, however, a slight drawback. In the pursuit
of regaining some artistic depth and consistency,
genuinely commercial and memorable songs are
admittedly at a premium. Many of the 13 compositions
reveal their beauty after a handful of listens, but
the immediacy is lacking in much the same way it was
on 2001's Driving Rain. That record was fatally undone
by a chronic absence of hummable material, not to
mention ill-advised forays into hapless pretension.
This is a much stronger and appealing set than its
predecessor, concentrating on McCartney's innate
strengths as arranger and wordsmith and letting
Godrich take care of the rest.
A different running order might have been wise, since
the album's weakest moments are sequenced early on;
leaden efforts How Kind Of You and At The Mercy temper
the deftness of Jenny Wren (Blackbird revisited in
every sense) and English Tea's cheeky self-deprecation
("very twee, very me."). The ambitious (and endlessly
re-written) Riding To Vanity Fair offers a darker,
dramatic interlude while the handful of love songs
towards the end create a feelgood factor somewhat
lacking earlier on the CD.
Gone, then, is the chirpy hit machine so derided in
the 70s and 80s. Gone, too, the chummy old rocker just
content to knock out some new stuff inbetween
lucrative World Tours. The 2005 model McCartney,
freshly determined and cojoled into fierce creative
self-examination, is an altogether more serious
proposition. Fine Line is his best individual solo
turn since Maybe I'm Amazed. As a whole, Chaos &
Creation In The Backyard needed a few more bonafide
classics to be a complete success but he hasn't
sounded this vital on record for more than three
decades.
Review copyright © Jason Maloney, 2005.
The full list of tracks included are :
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
