McCartney III: aLbum review

 Let's talk Paul McCartney's new album, McCartney III - The previous two self titled albums were released at times when the artist found himself at crossroads in his career - McCartney came in 1970 just as the Beatles were falling apart, and McCartney II arrived ten years later just as Wings were about to be grounded.

'Well I can find my way, I know my left from right.'

 

This time out circumstances are somewhat different, though like the previous two McCartney albums this was recorded during a time of great  upheaval. Macca had planned on spending 2020 touring the globe but the pandemic found him confined to barracks and so given his workaholic condition and the fact that he has a  state of the art recording studio at his Sussex home he wrote a bunch of new songs, completed some old ones and here we have it, McCartney III. For Macca lockdown became rockdown.

'Chasing the morrow, getting ready to run'

It's a damn fine album too, that mostly sticks to the concept of the previous two McCartney albums with the artists doing almost everything himself - playing all the instruments, supplying the vocals, both lead and harmony and producing, mixing and even making the coffee. The album also follows the same pattern as the other McCartney albums with several instrumental pieces, a smattering of strange little ditties and the odd masterpiece thrown in.

Beatle fandom is a strange thing and there are some people who will knock this album - they tend to criticize McCartney because his voice is not as powerful as it once was, but that's bullshit and if you follow that lead them you may as well knock Macca for having more wrinkles than Beatle Paul or for having greyer hair than the Wings frontman. 

I'm comfortable with senior Macca and no matter what his detractors say he has remained consistent since those early days on Merseyside. He's still capable of turning out the most saccharine of tunes as well as pulling off something so left-field that he leaves the young turks standing. He's also not averse to singing about fixing fences to protect the chickens. Years ago he was fixing a hole to stop his mind from wandering and now he's ruminating about fixing the fence by the acre patch. All he wants, you know, is a home in the heart of the country.

'Dinosuars and Santa Claus will stay in tonight.'

McCartney seems to be chasing the strangest ideas throughout the album and coming up with some incredibly original tunes which contains that melodic gold that he's known for. Perhaps the strongest track is , Deep Deep Feeling which is astounding in the way vocal layers are built over a minimalist beat. I love that one

Track listing:

Long Tailed Winter Bird

Find my Way

Pretty Boys

Women and Wives

Lavatory Lil

Deep Deep Feeling

Slidin

The Kiss of Venus

Seize the Day

Deep Down

Winter Bird/When Winter Comes

 

And so McCartney's late career golden patch continues to shine bright and McCartney III continues a run of great albums that truly reward the listener with repeat spins. For now, I'm off to find the sun when winter comes.

Back to Black - Coloured Vinyl: Any good or a useless fad?

Regular readers of this blog will know that collecting vinyl records has become a passion of mine over recent years - Music has always played a big part in my life, but I, like many others of my age found myself switching from vinyl to CD sometime in the mid 1980's, and for many many years I didn't even own a record player. It was, most thought, a dead medium.

However, here we are in 2020 and incredibly vinyl has not only made a comeback, but is the bestselling physical medium for music sales. Whilst CD's are slowly fading away, vinyl records are booming and the equipment required to play these records has never been more affordable or technically better. These days you can set up a pretty decent system for less than £500 - I know I did and the sound I get it superb.

Another trend in new vinyl is with the vinyl itself - most new vinyl is now thicker and heavier than the old records we were used to, as a result it sounds better and is far more durable. New vinyl is usually 180g in weight and the pressing techniques used in record plants ensure the best possible sonic reproducion.

But what of coloured vinyl? It's becoming far more popular. Coloured records, transparent records, splatter records that look amazingly cool draw attention and look awesome spinning on the turntable.

But how do they actually sound?

Pretty good to be honest.

The raw material used to produce a record - polyvinyl chloride arrives at the pressing plant in granule form. Usually these granules are black in colour. These granules are then melted down and made into a soft dough like substance. These dough balls are then placed into the mould of an hydraulic press and the record is pressed. To make a transparent record the process is the same but the granules used are not the typical black ones but transparent. The melting and pressing remains the same. However because much more of the black granules are ordered by record companies then the quality control requirements for the black granules are usually much higher than for the transparent. This is why transparent records have historically suffered from static much more often than the standard black records.

Now coloured vinyl is slightly different and requires an additional step in which pigment powders are added to the transparent granules. Now this means that the pigment particles within the record can often be traced by a stylus and produce background noise when playing the record. Splatter record of even multi- coloured records take this a step further and multiple pigmentation powders are added to the granules. This can unfortunately increase background noise in the record even further.

But how bad is this background noise?

Well, the plating process (putting the music onto the disc) for coloured records is exactly the same as for black records, so it is the mastering stage that is the most important step, and no matter what colour the record is good mastering is good mastering. So whilst, coloured vinyl may not be as good as black vinyl most of these imperfections could only be noticed by highly sensitive meters and not the human ear. On the other hand bad mastering can not be hidden no matter what colour the vinyl.

And so in the final analysis the sound quality between a good traditional black record and a good, well mastered coloured record will likely remain inaudible to most listeners.

So add a little colour to your life.

Essentially Vinyl - The Boomtown Rats: A Tonic for the Troops

If there's one thing above all else that pulled me into the vinyl resurgence, and believe me I am now a total vinyl nut, then it is the chance to rediscover my youth. Searching second hand and charity shops for old vinyl is a pleasure indeed.

This album, Tonic for the Troops, is a a perfect example of this. I owned this album when I was a kid and finding a copy last week was amazing - I felt my heart skip a beat as the years fell away and I was a snobby nosed teenager again.

The closing track on this album, Rat Trap was a No1 single back in 1978 - this was the summer of the movie Grease and the track replaced the song, Summer Nights in the top spot. I still remember seeing the band on Top of the Pops when lead singer, Geldof ripped up a picture of John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. This was a subversive act at the time -  Years later, Sinead O'Conner said it was this memory that provoked her to famously rip up the picture of the Pope.

The Boomtown Rats were one of a handful of bands during the fag end of the 70's who changed music. Back then the cool kids all had a collective mantra and that was that whatever was happening in pop music was crap. Too bad then that Rat Trap was replaced two weeks later at the top spot by Rod Stewert's, Do You Think I'm Sexy. Only The Beatles, it seemed, were truly bigger than Rod.


Still Tonic for the Troops remains a great album - sounding like Springsteen filtered through a punk/new wave prism. And Rat Trap is still an awesome track, but then there's not really any filler on this album. Another stand out track is I never Loved Eva Braun, in which Geldof imagines himself as Adolf Hitler  -

 O yeah I conquered all those countries
They were weak an' I was strong
A little too ambitious maybe But I never loved Eva Braun 

 - It's a strange song but the sense of humor pulls it through. It's bloody funny is what it is. Just imagine old Adolf crooning as Berlin burns. Poor Eva.

Side 1 - Like Clockwork, Blind Date, I never Loved Eva Braun, Living in an Island, Don't Believe what you read.

Side 2 - She's so Modern, Me and Howard Hughes, Can't Stop, Watch out for Normal People, Rat Trap