Chaos and Creation

When I was younger, long before Britpop came and resurrected their songwriting, long before Oasis appeared, claiming to be their new foul-mouthed incarnation, me and my friends lived for The Beatles. We played in a band that performed Beatles covers; went on a Magical Mystery Tour to Liverpool to visit the houses that John, Paul, George and Ringo grew up in; we used to test each other on Beatles lyrics and obscure trivia (did you know that Paul plays drums on the track Wild Honey Pie? Did you know about the conspiracy theories related to the car numberplate on the cover of Abbey Road ?). Terribly geeky, I know, but we were all about eleven years old at the time, so I think we could be forgiven for our pre-adolescent enthusiasm.

This level of obsession with The Beatles isn’t unusual. It’s the reason why they continue to publish books each year on The Fab Four; why barely listenable demo recordings of their early songs can still be re-released today, all bought up by an adoring public. “Phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust” sang the Clash: not from where I’m standing it hasn’t. It seems to be irrefutably alive and kicking, forty years on.

So, given my early Beatles obsession, when Paul McCartney’s most recent solo album came out in September last year, you’d expect me to have rushed out to buy it. I didn’t. I didn’t want to listen to it. It was only on the recommendation of a friend, and after much persuasion, that I decided to give the LP a chance. Why? Because right now, The Beatles overwhelmingly stand for what’s bad about music today.

The kind of people who idolise the Beatles firstly tend to be the kind of bearded musical puritans who don’t agree with ‘electronics’ in modern music. They’re obsessed with authenticity; with nostalgia for the past; with vintage amplifiers and mindlessly boring 10-CD boxed sets of music that they’ve already heard a hundred times. It’s this blinkered attitude which blinds people to modern bands who are doing exactly what the Beatles were doing back in the day – making exciting music.

Secondly, The Beatles were never that good anyway. They were good – at their best, they were unbelievebaly – but they’re entirely undeserving of the lofty pedestal on which they’ve been placed. Today, when its acceptable to perform symphonic versions of Beatles songs at the Royal Albert Hall, and when Lennon-McCartney are held up as ‘geniuses’ of the twentieth century, something has gone wrong. You only need to look at the contemporaries of The Beatles – early Bowie, The Small Faces, Van Morrison, Rolf Harris – to understand that this kind of song-writing wasn’t unique, or in any way limited to John and Paul. There were hundreds of other, less hyped songwriters from the period, producing just as exciting, moving, memorable music. The kind of people who hold up the Beatles as some kind of demi-gods often do so because they have absolutely no idea about pop culture, and cling onto the most solid and dependable rock of indubitable genius in a sea of uncertainty.

This is why I wasn’t interested when I heard about McCartney’s new LP. It didn’t interest me. I knew what to expect. Or so I thought.

Chaos and Creation in the Backyard has rarely left my stereo. I’ve been amazed. It’s as though somebody took the last side of the Abbey Road LP and extended it into a full album. It’s Paul at his best – without the whimsy, without the over-wrought fragility, without the preciousness that makes so much of his solo work too sickly-sweet to be palatable. For the most part, aside from the last few minutes of the last track on the album, ‘Anyway’, which drifts off into a King-Tubby style dub that is most unlike what we’ve come to expect from Paul, this is solid McCartney territory. Producer Nigel Godrich – who’s worked with the likes of Radiohead and Beck – was apparently brutally honest in his appraisal of Paul’s unfinished songs, whittling the album down to a core of spectacular songs. If you’re over the age of eleven and are still obsessed with the Beatles, a) you should be ashamed, and b) you’d probably purchase the sounds of Paul McCartney loosening his bowels, and will this love this LP. The rest of you might be sceptical. You might have terrifying memories of Wings and some of Paul’s even less credible solo incarnations. Fear not. This is an album that demands to be listened to.

 

© Tom Wilson / Business Magazin 2006