tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8609845966536781209.post1637522122917618574..comments2024-03-21T13:36:13.830-07:00Comments on Alan's Album Archives: Paul McCartney "Kisses On The Bottom" (2012) (News, Views and Music 141)Alan's Archiveshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01409065548353514714noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8609845966536781209.post-75609790463049721652018-04-08T16:02:25.852-07:002018-04-08T16:02:25.852-07:00I also have to say that my review of this album wa...I also have to say that my review of this album was a lot kinder than anything I read when it came out and everyone thought McCartney had gone mad. I also have to say I don't actually know another fan who likes it (indeed I'm the only one who doesn't outright hate it and that includes people who like this era of music), but fair enough if you do! 8>)Alan's Archiveshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01409065548353514714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8609845966536781209.post-18555575792534166812018-04-08T16:00:23.630-07:002018-04-08T16:00:23.630-07:00No no no no no noooooooooooo I think you completel...No no no no no noooooooooooo I think you completely misunderstood my point there Mrs Bear. I make a claim a few times on this website that Paul was in a largely unique situation as being pretty much the only person involved in rock and roll who didn't want the rock and roll cobwebs to play this era of music away. That was my comment based on the fact that Paul chose the absolute worst examples of the genre to re-record for this album. It would have been far more in keeping with tradition if Paul had gone with the genuinely excellent songs hidden away on B sidesand album tracks which as a connoisseur he would have owned and maybe got a new fanbase into them instead of the obvious cheesy songs he chose. Paul was indeed a fan because of his dad, but it didn't always work like that (Pete Townshend's dad, for instance, had a lot more success playing that sort of music). No my problems with the album are the following: Paul is a creator first and foremost. There is no sign of creativity on this album beyond the two songs he wrote himself - had he written a whole album in this style it would have been better. The arrangements are awful. He sings terribly in a weedy falsetto that doesn't give even these terrible song choices a start. I see looking back at this review that I hoped this was as anomaly but I think in retrospect its clear his endless touring before this has robbed his voice of a lot of its power (the 'New' album for instance uses all sorts of electronic trickery to hide it). I understand why he'd want to make this album given that he'd just fallen in love. He of course has every right to record whatever he wants as you said in a previous post. But why inflict such a shoddy work on fans and ask us to pay for it? It's that which angers me. The Beatles used to do two things that Paul does not - offer value for money and surround Paul with enough people around to tell him 'no, this idea is a bad one'. This albums resulted in the worst excesses of both. It also saddens me that rather than take advantage of the pure instinctive musicality we know Paul has and displayed so much on the Fireman album 'Electric Arguments' he chose to throw this all away on a project that's a mere filler marking time album. You are right I do not like this music but that is not my problem with it - as I said in my review I am not the target audience for it. But it does annoy me when someone does not meet their usual high standards. I am also a huge fan of Cab Calloway, however he's not rock and roll in any musical sense, just the rebellion and daring aspect. Alan's Archiveshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01409065548353514714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8609845966536781209.post-22876597464193873092018-04-08T12:33:55.721-07:002018-04-08T12:33:55.721-07:00time as The Beatles were making their various arti...time as The Beatles were making their various artistic strides. I loved a lot of that old music. I still do. For me, growing up when and where I did, and getting the cultural input that I did from old movies and from my older relations, this sort of music came totally naturally and lovingly to me. Having been born in 1942, Paul, I would suspect, has some similar feelings. I don't think that, to Paul, what you refer to as "easy listening" music was in any sense invalidated by the rock music that he came up through. I assure you that, at least for those of us remaining within a certain age range, the better examples of this material can inspire just as much heartfelt affection and passion and a sense of meaningful artistry as rock'n'roll music evidentally does for you. I don't think that Paul ever intended to stand for a sweeping away of this music - hence, no betrayal is involved. I think that KOTB is a nostalgic loving visit to his old home and his oldest loves and his family, who still, I gather, mean a lot to him. I believe that Paul's Dad was a pre-rock musician on some level, wasn't he? (Come to think of it, so was MY Dad. Before he met my mother and left the world of music, he was a minor player in the twilight of big band music.) Of course, you have every right to prefer rock'n'roll and consider it vastly superior to what preceded it and to have been revolutionary, but even to someone like me - R'n'R IS my favorite musical genre - earlier forms are perfectly good, too. I see rock'n'roll more as an evolutionary event in the continuum of pop than a revolutionary one. In fact, I think you could make a perfectly reasonable case that something recognizable as rock'n'roll existed since at least the Twenties - it just didn't get marketed under that name until the arrival in the mid-Fifties of young white teenagers with unprecedented amounts of freedom and pocket money. (Look up Cab Calloway some time, and then tell me this guy was not a rocker at heart.) Mrs. Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10406528728746538232noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8609845966536781209.post-8338793528090960992018-04-08T12:32:20.176-07:002018-04-08T12:32:20.176-07:00You know, I just read this review again, and the n...You know, I just read this review again, and the now several months old comments appended thereunto, and it occurs to me that I really should try to address, as best as I can, your question regarding why Paul would waste his talent on this. I do not know when you were born, but I gather it was somewhat later than I was. I was, as it happens, born in 1958. I am just old enough to retain some memory of pre-Beatles rock'n'roll, largely the girl group and doo-wop and surfing variants of it, and I remember as well that, at that point, material like what Paul is doing on this album was still reasonably contemporary, though shortly after to become somewhat unfashionable. I remember at least what my little piece of the culture was like, and I suspect that my little piece of the culture was not terribly unusual for the time. In retrospect, people now, who think about the history of rock, seem to tend to think of it as having been a consciously revolutionary cultural force, with a serious intent to, as you put it, "blow the cobwebs away". Until the latter part of the Sixties, I don't think that most of us in the cultural trenches actually looked at it that way. Many of us, myself included, didn't look at it that way even after the flowering of the so-called counterculture. We didn't all reject our parents values totally, either culturally or in terms of musical taste - nor even did the early rock guys. Elvis Presley, for example, really liked Dean Martin. Paul, as you probably know, is fond of Fred Astaire, who was not only an awesome dancer, but a great song stylist. A lot of us, even after The Beatles showed up, still LIKED a fair bit of the music that Paul is doing here. Even though I was born well after the Forties were over, a lot of my cultural input dated from that decade. I watched endless old movies on TV as a child, and, mostly, they were from the Thirties and Forties and Fifties. I internalized that old music to a considerable degree, even at the same Mrs. Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10406528728746538232noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8609845966536781209.post-83903034998914189062017-12-18T20:17:12.918-08:002017-12-18T20:17:12.918-08:00I take your point Mrs Bear but see it from a very ...I take your point Mrs Bear but see it from a very different perspective and have a very different taste. If time is so precious why is Paul wasting his talent on something almost anyone else can do better? Nobody can do what he does and there are still nowhere near enough albums. Can you imagine what the response of the original Beatles fanbase who had had to sit through countless albums like this have been before The Beatles blew the cobwebs away? It's much bigger than a single album, it feels like a betrayal of everything he once stood for. And why did he choose to sing it when he was suffering the biggest vocal problems of his entire career? So unworthy of his time or talent. And so is 'Chaos and Confusion'. I'm sure I'll see you on that review too haha! 8>) Alan's Archiveshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01409065548353514714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8609845966536781209.post-88450693726150587292017-12-18T18:50:23.500-08:002017-12-18T18:50:23.500-08:00For me, this is an utterly worthy McCartney album....For me, this is an utterly worthy McCartney album. Paul is an old guy now - he is certainly closer to the end of his life than its beginning or, probably, even its middle age - and I think he should do whatever makes him happiest. We already have lots of Paul McCartney pop albums. More would be nice, but we will all survive, even if he doesn't feel like doing more of them. (Also, just for the record, I LOVED "Chaos and Creation".)Mrs. Bearhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10406528728746538232noreply@blogger.com