PAUL MCCARTNEY
Chaos And Creation in the Back Yard (Parlophone)
LEST we forget that new albums by Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones are still big news, the press copies bear no sign of their creators’ identities. Curious postmen opening the relevant packages would have found CDs ostensibly by Pete Mitchell and the Little Wonders.
As it happens, the latter name rather suits the music the Stones make these days. Walking through the bars of Covent Garden, you could imagine a jobbing rhythm-and-blues combo labouring under such a handle. Which, of course, is exactly what the Stones are now, even if the kind of jobbing rhythm-and-blues band who can sell out special-edition Volkswagens.
Should we mind that any young band playing similar music might struggle to progress beyond the final heats of their local battle-of-the-bands contest? Probably not. Stones fans buy Stones albums as someone might send an annual Christmas card to the person who saved them from drowning 30 years ago.
In the latest, A Bigger Bang, they’ll be tickled by Mick Jagger’s habit of portraying himself as a hapless victim of his own libido (the arid, bloodless funk of Rain Fall Down, the rather better She Saw Me Coming). And, while no reasonable man expects another Beggars Banquet, it’s a comfort to some people that Keith Richards is now into his fourth decade of writing those generic songs in the tuning of G. By my calculations there are at least four of those on A Bigger Bang. Sure they’re not a patch on Tumbling Dice and Start Me Up, but on an album that outstays its welcome by 15 minutes they are more tolerable than mid-paced plodders like Laugh, I Nearly Died and the self-satisfied anti-Bush Sweet Neo Con.
If Jagger has the preening, priapic air of a man in denial of his 62 years, McCartney’s lustrous auburn barnet tells a similar story. These days, he surrounds himself with young American session musicians who get to live out their Beatle-dream in the packed hangars of the world. That works perfectly well live, but doesn’t necessarily result in good albums. (Driving Rain in 2001 spent one week in the UK Top 75.) It’s a problem that the producer Nigel Godrich was swift to address on McCartney’s 12th solo album. He didn’t go as far as to hide the hair products, but hats off for persuading Paul to sack the band. Before you even hear Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard, that fact alone is enough to fill you with optimism.
As with previous high-water marks in the post-Fabs canon (McCartney, McCartney II, Ram), it’s Macca himself who plays most of the instruments here. Blokes-together camaraderie has been replaced by minor chords on Steinways. Bad lyrics have been rewritten, often prompting arguments between artist and producer.
But with McCartney’s commercial stock at such a low, it’s probably a good time to listen to a few outside opinions. One track, Vanity Fair, even underwent nine months of nipping and tucking before Godrich countenanced its inclusion. The version here works a treat — electric piano and undulating cello offer a poignantly lugubrious setting for a tirade against an ex-friend. Indeed, one of the first things you notice about Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard is the absence of that customary blitheness. From the man who wrote Silly Love Songs, At the Mercy seems doubly stark for its depiction of love as the only source of heat in an unforgiving world. When was the last time its creator wrote a couplet like “sometimes I’d rather run and hide/ than stay and face the fear inside”? That it hangs together so well might reflect Godrich’s determination to put McCartney in touch with his old self, reducing the gap between singer and listener by stripping vocals of reverb and reminding him what a soulful pianist he is.
Much of the fun here is spotting the past glories Godrich has used as sonic templates. Jenny Wren is a cinch — a return to the small-hours ambience of Blackbird. A Certain Softness sounds like Wings’ A Little Luck with one red rose in its mouth and Django Reinhardt on lead guitar. The pastoral chamber pop of English Tea strives for the Noël Cowardness of the middle eight in I Am the Walrus , but veers closer to the loving pastiche Neil Innes perfected with the Rutles.
Whether all this is enough depends on what you expect from McCartney in 2005. If he’s never to write another Eleanor Rigby or Penny Lane, is there no point in bothering?Certainly, there’s no single song on this album that deserves the term “genius”. But I’ve heard far more impressive records that, for whatever reason, I never went on to play again. Chaos and Creation . . . has a fireside glow to which you’ll find yourself returning. I dare say you’d want to play it even if this Pete Mitchell bloke had recorded it.That’s more than you can say for the Little Wonders’ album.
SHELLY POOLE
Hard Time for the Dreamer (Transistor Project)
AN unlikely addition to the current canon of folky female singer/songwriters, Poole began her career as half of Alisha’s Attic and has written for Atomic Kitten and Rachel Stevens. Her solo debut is a revelation. The album sets a voice that is helium-light, yet strong and soulful. The ever-soslightly jazzy Out In The Open sounds like it’s drifting down a river on a sunny afternoon, while Don’t Look That Way recalls seventies Joni Mitchell. A gentle gem of an album.
LISA VERRICO
KATE RUSBY
The Girl Who Couldn’t Fly (Pure)
WITH her porcelain skin and corkscrew hair, Kate Rusby is the poster girl for a largely forgotten strand of English folk. Her new album again combines heritage values with vigour, as acoustic guitar, fiddle, harmonium, flute and whistle dance a merry jig around a voice of sweet, translucent grace. Her songs about elfin knights and wandering souls are surprisingly plausible, but she offers a tea-towel vision of olde England. She is an English rose without the thorns.
DAVID SINCLAIR
TENNANT/LOWE
Battleship Potemkin (EMI Classics/Parlophone)
EISENSTEIN hoped his 1925 silent film on the real-life mutiny of Russian sailors would get a new soundtrack each decade. He probably didn’t foresee a version by a British electro-pop institution that drew on percolating electro-disco and orch-pop drama (courtesy of the Dresdner Sinfoniker). Yes, it’s Pet Shop Boys, despite Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe using their names. Given the cinematic range of their past work, it’s no surprise that their first original soundtrack is this strong.
MARTIN ASTON
ELVIS COSTELLO
Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz (Jazz Alliance)
HE IS, let’s face it, few people’s idea of a romantic crooner. But Elvis Costello’s version of She brought Notting Hill to its sugary climax and his Almost Blue is a modern standard. Here he smoulders through eight jazz ballads. The veteran pianist McPartland accompanies as he launches into the Great American Songbook. These one-take recordings are remarkably polished. Costello’s phrasing is sharp; his My Funny Valentine climaxes with an almost operatic vibrato.
JOHN BUNGEY
KING CREOSOTE
KC Rules OK (679)
FIFE-BORN King Creosote (aka Kenny Anderson) must have been looking for something a little different in teaming up with his label buddies The Earlies. The result is a collection of sensitively worded songs, sung in an elegant, lilting Scottish accent which creates a very pleasant atmosphere. There is a touch of Turin Brakes and The Magic Numbers about King Creosote, which manifests itself most obviously in the perfectly crafted harmonies.
FRANCIS HAMLYN
