Track Listing
1. Fine Line
2. How Kind of You
3. Jenny Wren
4. At the Mercy
5. Friends to Go
6. English Tea
7. Too Much Rain
8. Certain Softness, A
9. Riding to Vanity Fair
10. Follow Me
11. Promise to You Girl
12. This Never Happened Before
13. Anway
| Details | | Producer: | Nigel Godrich, Paul Godrich | | Distributor: | EMI Music Distribution | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | n/a |
Album Notes
Special Edition DVD Component
Documentary - Between Chaos and Creation.
Studio Performance Video - Fine Line.
Animated Piece - Line Art.
Instrumental Tracks - Anyway, At the Mercy, Riding to Vanity Fair.
Menu Piece - How Kind Of You
Personnel: Paul McCartney (vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, cello, melodica, flugelhorn, piano, Wurlitzer piano, harmonium, Moog synthesizer, glockenspiel, bass guitar, drums, shaker, tambourine, percussion); Nigel Godrich (acoustic guitar, piano, loops); Rusty Anderson, Brian Ray (acoustic guitar); Jason Falkner (electric guitar, classical guitar); Millennia Ensemble, Los Angeles Music Players (strings); Pedro Eustache (duduk); James Gadson (drums); Joey Waronker (bass drum, bongos, shaker); Abe Laboriel Jr. (tambourine, wood block, percussion).
That 2005's CHAOS & CREATION IN THE BACKYARD arrived as a dramatic return to form for Paul McCartney is something of an oversimplification. The fact is, dodgy orchestral and electronic side projects aside, solo Macca's only true fallow period was the mid-'80s, and the three albums prior to CHAOS were all solid, not un-Beatlesque affairs. That said, it's impossible to deny that this is one of Paul's finest post-Wings releases. He mines Fabs-friendly melodies and arrangements unabashedly (occasionally with tongue firmly in cheek), and who better to do so?
Part of the reason for the album's resonance is the presence of Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich, the first man since George Martin with the gall to make McCartney work for his money. (Paul's basically a one-man band throughout, for the first time since McCARTNEY II.) A deeper reason lies in the obvious emotional depths McCartney plumbs, leaving his trademark happy-face/Silly Love Songs persona far behind and betraying an unprecedented level of melancholy and introspection. Revisionists who claim the spirit of the Beatles died with Mark David Chapman's bullet in 1980 should only wish that, had John Lennon lived, he'd still be making music as aesthetically relevant as this 25 years down the line.
Editorial Reviews
...[W]hat we're hearing is an artist honestly following his muse... - Grade: B
Entertainment Weekly
4 stars out of 5 - [With] richly layered song patterns that meander with deceptively aimless purpose from beginning to end, often sounding as though they're coalescing on the spot...
Uncut
4 out of 5 stars - ...[T]he freshest-sounding McCartney album in years....
Rolling Stone
3 stars out of 5 - 'How Kind Of You' and 'Vanity Fair' cleverly pit Macca's perma-optimistic lilt against mournful, downbeat tapestries.
Mojo
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