Review: Paul McCartney's 'Egypt Station'

[rating]4[/rating]

By Ed Power

Paul McCartney has spent most of his adult life in the unhelpful position of having nothing to prove. The Beatles invented modern pop, more or less while Wings were the definitive 1970s supergroup. After that, what’s left?

These are not happy circumstances for a songwriter — a breed who typically function best when required to show they’ve still got it. But, aged 76, McCartney is perhaps in a position where he finally has point to make to the world — that he’s more than a codger dining out on old glories.

That at least is the kindest reading of the worst moment on his 17th studio album, the terrible ‘Fuh You’. Produced by hit makers Ryan Tedder (Beyoncé) and Greg Kurstin (Adele), it’s a slick attempt to get down with the kids (or as McCartney would refer to them, his grandchildren). It is glib and creepy, with a reek of desperation unbecoming of the man who wrote ‘Blackbird’ and ‘Live and Let Die’ — (incredibly his voice has been slathered in Auto-tune).

The good news is that after that nadir it’s most onwards and upwards with Egypt Station. He reminds us of his extraordinary gift for melody — one of the greatest perhaps in the history of pop — on ‘Happy With You’ (the sitar-like intro surely a wink towards the late George Harrison). Meanwhile ‘I Don’t Know’ is beautifully understated — a reminder Macca the balladeer could be as heartbreaking as Macca the chirpy Beatle.

He plugs in and rocks out on the droning ‘Dominoes’ — with its “hey hey” chorus it feels like a cousin thrice removed to Wings’ ‘Jets’ — while ‘Come On To Me’ is a blues stormer that finds McCartney in conversation with the Beatles of ‘Get Back’ vintage.

Absent throughout is the overwhelming melancholy that defined his most recent solo LPs. Those albums were wintry affairs that found McCartney looking back and taking stock. Here he just wants to have fun and, if ‘Fuh You’ is indication, bother the charts.

In other words he’s back where he’s most comfortable. Beatles fans — apparently there are still a few around — will rejoice.