Rock and roll springtime take 2 (LP 3151 - 3157)

Paul McCartney  McCartney II (Vinyl, Parlophone Records, 1980) * 

Paul McCartney  Tug Of War (Vinyl, Parlophone Records, 1982) ****

Paul McCartney  Pipes Of Peace (Vinyl, Parlophone Records, 1983) ****

Paul McCartney  Give My Regards To Broad Street (Vinyl, Parlophone Records, 1984) **

Paul McCartney  Press To Play (Vinyl, Parlophone Records, 1986) ***

Paul McCartney  CHOBA B CCCP (Vinyl, Melodia Records, 1988) ***

Paul McCartney  Flowers In The Dirt (Vinyl, Parlophone Records, 1989) ****

Genre: Pop 

Places I remember: Marbecks Records; Real Groovy Records,

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Figure Of Eight (Flowers In The Dirt)

Gear costume: This One, My Brave Face, We Got Married (Flowers In The Dirt)

They loom large in his legend (The Album Collection playlists): Part 1; Part 2; Part 3; Part 4; Part 5

Active compensatory factors: A new decade and a second homemade 'solo' album hits the shops, as in Macca takes over the whole show.

I hate 1980 and I hate McCartney II (released in May, seven months before John's murder). Sorry, not sorry. I hate 1980.

Only Waterfalls emerges from this dross with any credit, so that gets my one star. The rest is synth city, electronica driven drivel. Not my scene jellybean. Apparently, John heard Coming Up and liked it enough to help prod him back into action. So, at least it had one positive spin-off. 

A couple of years on from that drug bust in Japan, John's murder, and the dissolution of Wings, meant a retro feel to Tug Of War. George Martin was back, and so was Ringo (on Take It Away). And so were the songs!

And what songs! Ballroom Dancing, Wanderlust and Take It Away, plus the terrific tribute to John - Here Today. Four great songs. Balancing those are the less successful Stevie Wonder collaborations (What's That You're Doing is a mess and Ebony And Ivory is cringey/awkward).

It worked on Tug Of War, so it should work on Pipes Of Peace as well right? Well, yes, it does, as it happens. 

George Martin produces, Ringo and Eric Stewart reappear, and a post Thriller Michael Jackson appears on two fine songs. It's all good fun on Pipes Of Peace. 

After a rocky start to the eighties (McCartney II recalibrates him and then gets out of the way, thankfully), Macca produces two fine albums. Could he do a third?

No. He couldn't.  

Just to prove he's human, Give My Regards to Broad Street is a real clunker, both as a film and an album. But I didn't know that when I bought it in 1984 shortly before the birth of my first son. 

The signs were good - George Martin on duty for a third successful album; Ringo/Eric Stewart were back again and Dave Gilmour was a guitar guest on a good song - No More Lonely Nights. What could go wrong?

Well, this: it's an album of recreations of past solo songs and Beatles songs to serve the movie. Recreations, not reinterpretations. So, we get note for note re-recordings and some naff film dialogue spliced in to create a movie ambience. It all makes for a tough listening experience that is all pretty pointless. 

I do understand Macca's urge to reclaim a song like The Long and Winding Road after the Get Back/ Let It Be sessions experience, but this is such an anodyne version. He'd have another go with Let It Be Naked and even that couldn't replace the Phil Spectorised version. Let It Be, Macca. Let It Be.

Press To Play is another one that sounds great on paper - team up with Eric Stewart (he of the Beatles inspired 10CC) as a writing partner and watch the magic happen. Except it doesn't quite do that. It's got some nice synth-pop moments but there is not one truly memorable song on the album, and needless to say - no hits! Inconceivable!  

Footnote to this album - Split Enzer Eddie Rayner appears on keyboards. 

CHOBA B CCCP is a weird one from 1988, released in the then Soviet Union. It consists of live-in-studio recordings of covers, mainly old rock'n'roll oldies. My copy is a first pressing with 11 tracks (subsequent pressings had more tracks). 

Like John's Rock'n'Roll, it's a sincere tribute to the songs he loved growing up in the fifties. The first side is too polite and by the numbers but side 2 sparks into life with a few good moments - Crackin' Up and Just Because are notable successes. Midnight Special takes a different route to previous covers and finishes off the album in style.

Flowers In The Dirt is my favourite eighties Macca album. This is the one with the Elvis Costello collaborations on it, which add some strength of purpose to proceedings. Macca took his time to get this one right and it paid off. It's not perfect but it feels fresh and is the most consistently fun sounding album of this troubled decade.

The good material comes thick and fast, starting with the Beatle-ish My Brave Face. Other favourites - We Got Married, Put It There, Figure Of Eight, and This One.

Where do they all belong? And so on to the nineties...