Sir Paul Founders Without Wings

McCartney II by Paul McCartney

Following what was derided as soft-rock on London Town and a hodgepodge of forgettable tunes on Back To The Egg, Sir Paul McCartney in 1980 returned to his favorite group of musicians for a follow-up. Himself. Recorded in Scotland, Macca played every instrument on every cut himself with only backing tracks by then-wife Linda as an outside influence.

The album launched a hit in Coming Up, but failed to capture sales success among other than the McCartney faithful. After quickly leaping to gold status with 500,000 units sold in only several months, McCartney II soon lost sales traction and has yet to be certified platinum by the RIAA. That is a span of more than twenty years in which the album has languished with less than one million units sold - a tremendously disappointing performance for one of rock's legends.

Get Back To Where You Once Belonged

McCartney had gone the uber-solo route before, recording McCartney at his farm in Scotland and again playing every instrument. As this was McCartney's first solo release after leaving The Beatles, the album enjoyed more sales activity than its successor, although the batch of songs was not particularly well-received with the exception of Maybe I'm Amazed.

A decade long struggle to regain music credibility followed. McCartney's new band, Wings, suffered through some embarrassing moments, but also created some of the decade's best pop music, including a string of Top 40 hits that ensured McCartney's place as the best selling songwriter of all time. Following hit album such as Venus and Mars and Band On The Run, McCartney led Wings through an ambitious pair of albums, 1978's London Town and Back To The Egg the following year.

Despite more hits on London Town and a flock of world class musicians guesting on Egg, critics began disparaging McCartney's music again, claiming he had gone softer than mushy scrambled eggs. Even the presence of Pete Townshend, John Bonham and David Gilmour failed to save the album, which became the last studio album Wings would ever record.

Isolation had worked well once before. In 1973, coming off critical boos to two successful Wings albums, McCartney and a stripped down band moved to Kenya to record Band On The Run, one of the decade's top albums. McCartney, reeling from the light sounds of London Town and the glitz of Back To The Egg turned his gaze inward and came up with a stinker of an album filled with experimental (for him) music.

Lend Me Your Ears And I'll Sing You A Song

Still holding his crown as music's best balladeer when McCartney II was released, there are several songs here that would not be out of place on any Wings album. Especially notable is One Of These Days, a simple folk tune reminiscent of Mull of Kintyre without the bagpipes. Waterfalls is also a lovely song capturing McCartney's lighter side. The single flopped in the U.S., after following the odd release of a studio and live version of Coming Up. Radio and listeners preferred the live version, which peaked at number one on the U.S. charts, so it is fair to say that the album itself did not launch any major hits.

McCartney was listening to contemporary music at the time, though, and shot for a synth-heavy dance sound on other cuts. He succeeded at times with Coming Up and somewhat with Goodnight Tonight, although the latter features a Linda-heavy backing vocal track and a sound that is now woefully dated. Critics hated Temporary Secretary, another wanna-be dance track, that sounds as if the EveryGirl from Another Day dropped some crystal meth and fell into an all night rave.

The experimentation was all that saved McCartney II from a critical drubbing. All Music Guide praises the album's adventurousness, but still reserves several barbs for the album's uneven tracks. Stephen Holden, writing at the time of release in Rolling Stone is more brutal, McCartney II is an album of aural doodles designed for the amusement of very young children.

Indeed instrumentals such as Frozen Jap, perhaps a look at his nine days in a Japanese prison for marijuana possession, do seem to be pasted into the album as filler rather than part of the song cycle albums which McCartney and The Beatles had helped create. To make matters worse, novelty songs such as Bogie Music, written by Paul for his children and later, a television show, were savaged by critics who hadn't very much liked being told off in 1976's Silly Love Songs and were not going to take this one laying down, hence, Holden's and other comments.

It's Getting Better All The Time. Or Is It?

Beatles producer George Martin managed to resuscitate Macca's solo career two years later with Tug Of War, and Sir Paul managed to keep in the limelight by recording duets with Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, but McCartney II was really the beginning of the end of a period that saw the former Beatles music credibility continue to slide. Self-indulgent projects such as Give My Regards To Broad Street would yield the occasional hit, but McCartney often failed to tap in to audience desires and suffered declining sales throughout most of the rest of his career. Since then, only Flowers In The Dirt, featuring several songs co-written with Elvis Costello and 1997's Flaming Pie have managed to simultaneously capture critical and commercial success.

So is McCartney II an album one should buy? Probably not. The most poignant and best songs from the album are captured on various live and greatest hits efforts. Sure, if the CD is around at your local used shop or available on half.com for a reasonable fee, fans may enjoy a listen or two, but the vast majority of listeners will be left disappointed.