Yankee toes and Eskimos

Continuing my trip back in time through the album charts

25/12/20 : McCartney III - Paul McCartney

Paul who?  Ah, THAT guy!  I've never had too much interest in any of his solo stuff - and whenever I hear it these days I'm reminded of his excruciatingly dull Glastonbury set which I endured the first time I was there.  "I've not played this song since 1973" - yes Paul, and there's a very good reason for that.  So I was not expecting to like this one bit.

The first track has quite an interesting sound to it - maybe I'm going to surprise myself and like it?  Ah no, it goes nowhere and spends far too long not getting there.  And that's a bit of a theme to the album for me - there are germs of an interesting idea in most of the songs, but he just noodles around with it rather than developing it.  I didn't hate it though - but I wouldn't say I liked it either, although I might make an exception for "Seize The Day" which I found myself toe-tapping along to.

We're straight in at #1 in the charts this week - he managed three more weeks in the charts before disappearing.  The next new entry is Shed Seven, all the way down at #31 - I guess most people try to get their albums out slightly earlier before Xmas.  A very Xmassy touch is added by Eminem's re-entry at #7 - Music To Be Murdered By, which is probably quite appropriate for some families at this time of year.

Wikipedia has more on the album than I was expecting, with the critics saying it was his best work in years - I can't claim how accurate that is, but the fact that I didn't hate it makes it believable.  It was surprisingly successful commercially - his first #1 here for 31 years and it also got to #2 in the US.

"Customers also listened to" albums by Wings, John, George, Ringo and Julian - no Yoko though!  I actually thought this quite a frustrating listen because I found myself almost liking it and then surprisingly wanting myself to like it - but he just didn't come through for me.  And that was totally not what I was expecting from the lad!

18/12/20 - Unforgivable!
2021 - over and out!