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I'm sure most people will point to Band on the Run as Paul's best, but for me, this is the one album that I can listen to from start to finish without skipping tracks or fast forwarding. And those last 5 tracks, from Lifelong Passion through Don't Stop Running---it's just the coolest music he's done since.ever. The whole album has such a cool, loose groove. There are some great individual tracks, of course, such as Nothing Too Much Just Out of Sight (which he sings the crap out of)and Sing the Changes. Yeah, Paul, let your freak flag fly. I love this.
It is amazing that Paul McCartney, as good as he is, is always better with a foil, in this case Youth. Favorite tunes include Traveling Light and Light from Your Lighthouse. This CD was an amazing surprise when I first heard snippets when it came out. To hear him explore and at times command electronica gives my Beatle spirit a boost-they were always exploring new concepts and ideas, and most times they worked, like they do here. I have not heard his other confabs with Youth in detail, but now I'm intrigued. This is the most accessible so far.
Back in the mid to late 90s, something within him stirred an interest in the quality of his work over the quantity. The Fireman is hard at work again. Paul McCartney is still in the midst of a decade-long renaissance period. This album is no exception and finds him surprising us with the caliber of his work. What an inspiring album.
This CD reveals the ever changing talent that has had a grip on us since the Beatles came to the US. Pauls use of our senses allows us to see, touch, smell, and taste the beauty that is his imagination and his music.We benefit in the act by being able to touch our own souls through his craft. It just doesnt get any better. This is a keeper.JC
Everything's on this album -- a taste for everyone, a morsel of just about every Macca style. A crowning achievement. Paul's voice is as powerful and nearly as clear as ever. One gets the sense the artist is traveling to that "final" place, but going out in Glory.
The track arrangements nicely alternate between rockers and hypnotic, soothing, and poppy music. Some songs take you back to the Band on the Run Days, some back to his first two solo albums, some to the experimental electronica-laden McCartney II, and more. Like an experiment gone wonderfully right.The opener, Nothing Too Much Just out of Sight, wails amazingly as if straight out of the White Album and moves right into the soft and jazzy Two Magpies (again, reminiscent of Blackbird), while the U-2-like Sing the Changes is anthemic and almost holy. This album is amazing, from first play. Don't Stop Running is dreamy and yet energetic, and it mesmerizes, as the whole album does. I really must. Some info on the collaborating artist, the instruments and equipment used.
All the while sounding completely off-the-cuff, natural and spontaneous. This album is beautiful, anthemic, deep, high, spiritual, sad, childlike, mature, magnificent, and energetic and eternally optimistic. Most songs run over 4 minutes long. This may be one of his finest albums ever, maybe EVEN the finest, especially being the granddaddy rocker he now is. Songs of light and soul-travel seem to dominate the theme. It is Paul McCartney epitomized, come full-circle. I love the minimalistic and childlike, primary-color accompanying concept booklet. is lamenting and longing and sad.
The Celtic Travelling Light is mature and moves right into another rocker, Highway (harks back to a BOTR sound), followed by the gospelish Light from your Lighthouse. Is this Love. Some lyrics. Electric Arguments has a youthful, exuberant, yet sad feel about it. Some liner notes or something.
I only wish there was more in the way of text. Maybe I miss the point. It's more subtle, and yet more grand -- and therefore a masterpiece. Universal Here, Everlasting Now captures in slice-of-life fashion the everyday moments forever; it is haunting -- as birds sing and dogs bark against a Revolution #9 type backdrop -- and eerie, like traveling the world in five minutes. It's amazing too the extent to which McCartney's repertoire of styles is collected here on this one album.
I almost gave this album 4 stars, only because I believed I preferred CCB and MAF, but the more I listen, the more I turn toward giving this album 5 stars after all. My favorite song is Sun is Shining (very infectious and pretty, almost hippy in its eternal Paul optimism), Dance 'Til We're High is angelic, and Lifelong Passion (with its electronica) is experimental. Lovers in a Dream is of the nature-world with its electronic animal-like sounds. I must confess the concept of this album escapes me (I must have missed out somewhere, as I read others' comments, and I must confess I've been a spotty McCartney fan over the decades). Especially knowing Sir Paul probably spat it out just like that.
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