Paul McCartney
New

When historians try to make some sense of McCartney's production, they will face difficulties; this man hasn't stopped for a moment from 1958 to today.

At seventy-one, one can still title an album New, new sounds and new music in defiance of the prevailing old style that doesn't suit this eccentric artist at all. Other illustrious colleagues have taken refuge in the safety of past inspiration, see the excellent Elton John of these times, but not him, and he relentlessly continues to seek something new even by incorporating contemporary sounds. But with McCartney, it's a real paradox; contemporaneity owes its sounds to him and his generation, so in the end, he quotes himself, his career. The last decade of Macca was marked by an excellent album in the old manner, "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard" (2005), but the roots of this new album are in the subsequent, not memorable to be honest, "Memory Almost Full" and even more so in the project of the duo Fireman; extensive use of electronics, filtered voices, sweeping choirs, and many different instruments (the bouzouky played by Rusty Anderson) blended and inserted into new contexts, the mandolin riff of the delightful "Dance Tonight" proves it. "New" is not a typical Paul album; for instance, the much-loved piano with its languid, enveloping chords is relegated to appearing in "Scared", a ghost track that closes an album where there is room for the almost hip-hop of "Appreciate" (who remembers "Pretty Little Head" from 1986?), the solemn opening of "Save Us" and the compelling "Everybody Out There" where the more attentive and knowledgeable of the subject will notice the resemblance to a forgotten Wings song from 1980, "No Values", revisited and corrected.

If current bands were capable of writing an "Alligator" (amazing melody), an "On my Way to Work", perhaps even Paul would take refuge in his past, but an "Hosanna" and a "Road" are worth all the past, present, and future production of Coldplay and various associates.