via disappointing press release:
While many a musician is often asked about the tunes that have influenced their songwriting, it is not a question Paul McCartney ordinarily gets to answer — until now. Paul is about to offer a glimpse into ”the songs which inspired the songs” with the upcoming release of a brand new album of those standards he grew up listening to in his childhood—plus two brand new McCartney compositions: the album, which is currently untitled, will be released on Hear Music/Concord Records on February 7th 2012.
With the help of Grammy Award-winning producer Tommy LiPuma and Diana Krall and her band—as well as guest appearances from Eric Clapton and Stevie Wonder, McCartney’s new album is a deeply personal journey through classic American compositions that, in some cases, a young Paul first heard his father perform on piano at home. As authentic and daring a musical statement as he could make, this is the album Paul has been thinking about making for more than 20 years – and probably the last thing his fans are expecting. ”In the end it was Look, if I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it,” he says.
In short, Paul believes it is about time ”the songs me and John based quite a few of our things on” received the recognition they deserve. Moreover, the record also features a couple of new original McCartney compositions in the spirit of those classics.
Matt Springer: To hear his new song before the stream was posted, you had to purchase a “premium membership” to his website, which costs $50.
Paul McCartney does not understand the Internet. the end.
Dave Lifton: Every project McCartney has done since Flowers in the Dirt has been marketed with the phrase, “It reminded me of the way we worked in The Beatles.”
Michael Parr: First Rod Stewart, now Macca? When was the last time McCartney had a top 10 record?
Jeff Giles: We’re living in the post-Amos Lee era. Everyone has a top 10 record. Shit, McCartney probably has something in the top 200 right now.
Springer: What does “post-Amos Lee” mean?
Giles: Amos had a Number One record! And it was aimed squarely at thoughtful dudes in their 30s! And you still don’t know who he is. That about sums up the charts in the 21st century, I think.
Parr: I should re-phrase that statement: when was the last time he released a record that sold like those American Songbook records?
Giles: I don’t know for sure, but I want to say that even Flowers and the ‘hits’ that came after didn’t do much better than gold.
Springer: This whole thing just goes to show how little I will ever understand Macca. I’m with Parr; it’s hard to see this as anything but a calculated move to attain a Rod Stewart level of success with old ladies. But why? Is he not rich enough yet?
Chris Holmes: How much you wanna guess he owns the publishing on these old chestnuts?
Giles: Ooh, that would be brilliant. And probably some kind of first, too.
Springer: “It’s just like we used to do with the Beatles, except I’m Allan Klein.”
Brian Boone: Springer wins Internet.
Jon Cummings: “The songs that inspired the songs” — would those be the songs that inspired “Mother Nature’s Son” and “Blackbird” and “Helter Skelter,” or the ones that inspired “Honey Pie” and “Rocky Raccoon” and “Crossroads Theme”? One of those albums I’m interested in … the other, not so much.
Dan Wiencek: I read one writer who suggested that “Rocky Raccoon” was actually conceived as a piss-take of “The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest.”
Cummings: Could be. I’m just getting worried about the amount of cover material McCartney has cranked out. Someday, not too long after his death, some idiot at Capitol is going to think it’s a nifty idea to crank out a McCartney Sings the Golden Greats TV compilation — and there’s going to be four CDs’ worth of material to rearrange and repackage. I’ll be OK if this new set is full of stuff like his take on “Singing the Blues” from the Unplugged show — but not if it’s a string-laden wankfest.
David Medsker: Oh please. you just know that someone at Capitol has forced Macca to record that series of phenomes that Tom Cruise made Philip Seymour Hoffman say in Mission: Impossible III so they can manipulate his voice as they wish.
Wiencek: Cool, I think it’d be fun to have McCartney’s voice on my GPS. “It’s sort of very turn right, y’know.”
Lifton: “Go straight for a little while, then make unexpected detours. It’s kind of like what we did in the Beatles.”
Wiencek: And every five minutes, he tells the “movement you need is on your shoulder” anecdote.
Matthew Bolin: The thing that pisses me off is that there’s a ton of McCartney (or Lennon/McCartney tracks technically) tracks that he’s written for other people that he’s never officially recorded and released himself that I’ve heard demos for that top the finalized versions. I have literally thought for YEARS should be recording an album of those songs, such as:
- Woman (not the Lennon song) and World Without Love, written for Peter and Gordon
- Yvonne’s the One, written for 10cc (McCartney’s demo kick’s 10cc’s finished version’s ass)
- On the Wings of a Nightingale, written for the Everly Brothers
- Six O’Clock, written for Ringo
- Come and Get It, written for Badfinger (yeah, there’s a version on Anthology 3, but it’s a demo he threw together in under an hour)
- Goodbye, written for Mary Hopkin
- Step Inside Love, written for Cilla Black
Plus there’s all the co-writes with Elvis Costello that only Elvis has recorded, and a bunch of others throughout his career. THAT’S an album I would actually pay money for.
Wiencek: That sounds like a pretty good album actually. There’s also “Let’s Love,” written for Peggy Lee.
Johnny Bacardi: “Let’s Love”…man, what a great song, at least as Peggy Lee sang it. I just recently heard it for the first time, so I haven’t had 30 years to get tired of it either!
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