In the sad sweepstakes for Worst Paul McCartney Solo Album, it would have taken a lot to zoom past the cutesy London Town, the self-conscious Driving Rain or the undercooked Wild Life — to say nothing of the synthy disaster that is McCartney II.
Paul McCartney got there with Press to Play, released on Aug. 25, 1986, an oh-so-typically-1980s Hugh Padgham-helmed “event” that stands as perhaps his least listenable offering. In some respects, you can blame the production values. Listen closely, and you might find the first frail flowerings of a creative rebound for Paul McCartney here — even if the old-man attitude seems a little heavy handed on tracks like “Angry.” But, more often, you’re stuck with things like “Good Times Coming/Feel the Sun,” which was as lightweight as anything on the second side of Wings albums like London Town and, maybe more particularly, Red Rose Speedway — since it too featured a series of half-finished ideas masquerading as a medley. “Talk More Talk” and “Pretty Little Head” are, even now, largely nonsensical.
Yet McCartney is, bless him, incapable of making a completely awful record. (Even McCartney II had “Coming Up.”) On Press to Play, this grace-note role is played by “Strangehold,” a gem nearly lost amid the plasticine echoes of drum-machined monotony.
Putting that aside, however, what Press to Play really represents is the smoking crater following a creative tailspin that began with Pipes of Peace, the leftovers from his uneven 1982 release Tug of War, and then the shockingly wrongheaded Give My Regards to Broad Street — which found Paul McCartney rerecording Beatles and Wings favorites for the soundtrack to a movie that no one saw. To be honest, even the passing fancies of Tug of War couldn’t break a string of unfathomable failures. At this point, McCartney hadn’t put out an unbroken sequence of songs worth listening to since side one of Back to the Egg.
Do yourself a favor, though, and go back to “Strangehold.” Paul McCartney finds a smart little reed-honking groove, then barks out the lyrics with a whiskey-shot of vigor on this minor classic. For all of the times he’d gotten lost in billowing clouds of whimsy — or in the case of Press to Play, billowing clouds of Fairlight synths — he very nearly pulls off a “Jet”-level anthem here.
Next, he’d romp through the oldies-filled Choba B CCCP, and finally start to get his mojo back with the snarky impetus of Elvis Costello, a Lennon-esque figure who would help McCartney score minor hits with “Veronica” and “My Brave Face” over the next few years.
In truth, though, Paul McCartney’s current musical renaissance wouldn’t come into full bloom until after reuniting with the surviving Beatles in the mid-1990s. Ever since, he’s been on a creative tear that — save for that aforementioned 2001 stumble, Driving Rain — has continued unabated. First, however, he had to get this overproduced dud out of the way.
My only quibble with “Strangehold”? Positioning it as the lead track on the often exhaustingly mechanized Press To Play should have had Paul McCartney brought in on false-advertising charges.
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Wild Life and McCartney 2 are terrific. And your critique is stuck in the past.
I thought they were both dreadful.
Well you’re wrong.
Very wrong!
The wrongest.
Actually, I’m not wrong. It’s called an OPINION. Look it up sometime.
Yeah, “Wild Life” was pretty vapid for Macca. M2, not so much.
McCartney “has continued unabated”? I hadn’t noticed. The man hasn’t had a solo Top 40 single on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S. since ‘My Brave Face’ peaked at #25 in 1989.
As far as albums go, the last one I enjoyed was “Tug Of War” but since then, well, no. Paul’s problem seems to be recording too much material and constantly playing live. If he slowed down and took the time to craft something special, who knows what could happen … again.
I don’t think he was talking about commercial success.
What a bizarre comment. How many people over 40 do you see in the top 40? NONE. And in fact, Paul did cowrite a no. 3 song with Kanye this year but that was extremely rare for an older artist. McCartney has produced a string of good to great records since Flaming Pie (and a dud or two). I doubt you’ve actually spent any time with his late-career work.
I do agree that Paul spends a lot of time touring, time I wish he used in the studio – but the man has given all of us so much, he can spend his time how he sees fit. Plus I still go see him every other visit through my town and he is a great performer.
However, while My Brave Face was a big hit, Paul has had a Billboard number 1 jazz album, several chart topping classical projects and continues to score minor hits in other parts of the world where ageism may not be playing against him. For instance, Hope of Deliverance, which came out after My Brave Face is one of McCartney’s biggest ever hits in Latin America.
We shouldn’t forget McCartney’s contribution to Sound City: Real to Reel. His song Cut Me Some Slack was the stress track and that album made the Billboard Top 10 and number 1 Hard Rock charts.
Paul scored and performed one song as part of Destiny, which was the biggest selling video game of last year. His song Hope for the Future was heard over the credits by millions of game fans.
Your wrong. Fortfiveseconds co written with Rihanna top five. Take a good listen to “new” topped at #3 2013.
Don’t feed the troll, folks. Ray either hasn’t listened to anything from Paul since ToW or he is just funnin’ us. New is one of Paul’s all time best — and that is saying something
Ray1950 – thank you. I was 16 when “Tug Of War” came out, and I love it still. I think George Martin behind the wheel made it a masterpiece. “So Bad” was incredible, but I never got into “Pipes Of Piece” or anything after that, except “Flaming Pie”. Even that could have been much better if it had been given priority.
He has had many no1 or top 5 albums since 1989-Flaming Pie and Chaos and Creation have some great McCartney tracks. The singles chart has been of no relevance for about 15 years now.
His latest, the album “New”, is really worth checking out if you haven’t already. It really worked for me!
Press To Play is one of the great albums of the 80s. Much better than Flowers In The Dirt (Costello notwithstanding) and better than pretty much any album he’s done since. “Stranglehold” is one of the weaker tracks. What about the power-pop glory of “Move Over Busker”? The gorgeous story-song “Footprints”? The classic McCartney love song “Only Love Remains”? I like the two more experimental tracks you mention, too.
I do agree with you on one thing–“Stranglehold” isn’t the best opener to the album. In fact, I prefer to pretend that side 2 is side 1, and vice versa. I think the album flows much better that way (and “However Absurd” is rather ponderous as the album closer).
Flowers has REALLY dated badly. At least PTP has some quirky tracks that hold the interest.
I agree with you on Flowers dating badly. What Paul and Elvis should do is put out an album of their best demos from those sessions and/or stripped back versions of My Brave Face, Put it There, Veronica, etc. That would be a great album.
I think, with Paul having been a Beatle, the bar is set higher for him. On any of his proper albums, he has probably always produced at least half an album’s worth of songs that would be deemed great if they were recorded by lesser artists. I’m sure that, when Paul has finally left us for good, his solo musical legacy will remain a relatively safe one for new potential fans to explore.
Couldn’t disagree more. Granted, Press To Play is very dated and a weak album in the McCartney catalogue but it does contain the beautiful ‘Footprints’. ‘Stranglehold’ is an example of an over produced 80’s dud if ever there was one. At least ‘Pretty Little Head’ is interesting with cool bass lines.
McCartney 2 is my second favourite Macca album after Ram. It is highly creative, never boring, and has dated remarkably well. McCartney 2 displays McCartney’s eccentric colours in all their glory. ‘Temporary Secretary’ has even become a club favourite and introduced the Mac to a whole new audience.
No. Only Love Remains is the only “lost gem” on PTP. Press is a good song by virtue of its sound, its lyrics not withstanding. Strangehold like Good Times Coming In is good, not great. Ditto Footprints. The rest is filler.
Flowers in the Dirt has much better songwriting on it, absolutely. My Brave Face crushes anything on PTP
Have to disagree again, (each to their own tho) Only Love Remains is pretty bland and uninspired for the man who once wrote Here there and Everywhere and Maybe I’m Amazed. My Brave Face suffers from more poor 80’s production but it does have that great Hofner bassline. Veronica is by far the best Macca/McManus collaboration imo. Costello was no John Lennon that’s for sure, but who is?
I actually love the songs on Press to Play and it was the first new Beatles-related product to come out after I had become a massive fan. This one is easy – keep Paul and Linda’s voices as recorded in ’85 and let his touring band replace the musical elements of that album. Synths are replaced by organ, maybe horns, drum machines are replaced by Abe on real drums and so on. It might be a relatively expensive fix for McCartney but it would allow people averse to ugly sounding 80’s albums to discover some really strong McCartney compositions.
I always thought press to play would have been much much better if ‘pretty little head’ and particularly ‘talk more talk’ had been left off and the three songs not on the original release, ‘tough on a tightrope,’ ‘it’s not true,’ and especially ‘write away,’ had been included.
Yes, the 3 extras are terrific. Talk more Talk is catchy. Pretty little head reminds me of the McCartney Radio show he had for a number of years that were bizarre and avant garde-ish.
Other good songs are the wonderful Only Love Remains, Angry (especially the bass line), and I like Move Over Busker.
Driving Rain and Memories are his worst two LPs. Sad that they sandwich Chaos which is one of his best.
Disagree with a lot of this. While not his best album there is definitely more to it than Stranglehold (which is a great song). Press, Footprints and Angry are all good. To say that he was creatively dry between Back to the Egg and The Beatles Anthology is ridiculous. Tug of War is a great album and Flowers in the Dirt may be his best post Beatle album. I agree, that Pipes of Peace was nothing special, but just because he chose to experiment with things such as making a movie and Choba B CCCP in between, does not make it a bad creative period.
Production withstanding, I can find many worthy Macca cuts on P2P… Including an obvious nod to The 1967 Beatles with “Good Times Coming”. Revisit the lyrics: “I was thinking about that summer so long ago, (1967) Pack up your bags and yell ‘Geronimo’. (diving into a new phase)… That was a golden summer. Wasn’t it hot? (Paul refers to 1967 as a ‘golden summer’ in Anthology) We laughed a lot that summer, laughed a lot. (Pot? The ‘We’ll show YOU’ attitude before Pepper?) Laughing at the good times coming, Laughing at the good times coming in…. There was something about the weather, what can I say? Nothing like any other holiday. (Long studio time) That was a silly season, was it the best? We didn’t need the reason, just a rest. (Break from touring)… I’m loving you, I’m loving you, I’m loving you now. (Revisiting his past w/ Broadstreet & missing John) That was a golden summer, before the war (group fighting & breakup)… You can see what I am getting at, I hope.
I had to look at the calendar to make sure it wasn’t April 1st !
Driving Rain is the best Paul McCarteny album by far.
Totally wacky! Differing Opinions!
At first I was going to take issue with the author suggesting DRIVING RAIN as one of McCartney’s worst albums. But after giving a second thought, he may be onto something.
It’s settled science that the 80s were hard on everyone but Phil Collins. Paul, certainly no exception.
Being a big 10cc fan, I was bummed that Eric Stewart got involved with Macca just as they were both running at half strength, but that’s what happened. It’s cool if people feel differently and think that PTP has something (anything) to offer. ‘Night life’ may be my favorite Thin Lizzy album, so I understand the valid minority opinion. (Though you PTP fans, like climate change deniers, are simply wrong. It’s a harmless wrong in the case of PTP. Plus I’ve always found something charming about the title-ish track and no one here has breathed the word, ‘Press’.)
‘Electric arguments’ is the best thing McCartney has done in decades and ranks up there with BOTR. Crazy that no one’s mentioned that.
wild life has always been a favorite of mine and recently it has finally been getting the positive reviews it always deserved, most stating that wild life was way ahead of its time. maybe the reviewer should give it a fresh listen …
I can’t believe this reviewer would call ‘Red Rose Speedway’, ‘London Town’, and the Grammy-nominated ‘Tug Of War’ bad albums, while somehow gravitating toward ‘Back To the Egg’, which often gets panned.
I realize everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I believe that when a journalist is reviewing albums for the general public, his taste would be better off reflecting that of his readership.
Every ONE of McCartney’s solo albums is loved by someone as THEIR favourite album! The sifting process of history will reveal the true classics, as they come to stand alone, removed from their contemporary contexts. Having said that…. PTP is not one of his best works, but I am starting to warm to it more as they years go on. Sorry, Stranglehold is forgettable and nowhere near the best track on a generally weak album.
Wild Life is a great album – simple, fun, pastoral and unpretentious. Yes, agree that some of those other 80’s albums have been marred by their production. But I rate Driving Rain way up there – it is quite dark in places, real, melodic and adventurous too. A bit depressed in places, but that’s what makes it refreshing, when Macca as an artist can all too easily fall into light hearted whimsy. Listen to From a Lover to a Friend. Classic!