Entertainment For Lively Minds
Press To Play.
Posted by hurlyburly on 28 November 2010 - 1:05am.
Is it time for a re-evaluation on Paul McCartney's 'Press To Play' album? I hadn't listened to it for about 10 years and had recalled it being almost unlistenable. After reading some bits and pieces saying there was a few hidden treasures on it i decided to try it again. In one sitting. Obviously the production is painfully Mid-80s and the hooks are..buried deep. But i did get the impression this time around that McCartney's intention was to make the listener really make an EFFORT to find its worth. I made the effort..and am exhausted..and unsatisfied.
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Possibly not his best work...
but this video is an interesting period piece. It was discussed on a recent Word thread whose name escapes me. Maybe someone else can provide the link. Essentially the discussion was about how much more of a palaver it would be to film something similar today.
regardless of the song...
he looks a sod of a lot more 'dignified' with the hair that colour, no?
Agreed.
Have never feared the 'silver threads among the gold' myself. That said, someone like Macca deserves a lot of credit for retaining some kind of serviceable grip on reality despite his uber-fame and the madness that surrounded the Beatles. As such, he can be cut plenty of slack when it comes to questionable hair tinting choices ;-)
I posted the Press YouTube clip
on Mr. Hepworth's thread about making cheap videos.
Press To Play was probably the point where I realised that Macca wasn't bulletproof and was just as capable of making crap albums as anyone else.
He has come back from this low point, however.
I'll drag the album out shortly and re-evaluate it.
A difficult album
Even McCartney thinks it isn't a particularly good album. He made the point in an interview a few years back. There was also a problem with Eric Stewart's contribution. Stewart thought he was producing, McCartney had him down as co-writer. There's an acknowledgment of Stewart's "special contribution" on the credits.
It is a very 80s sound where technical was taking over from technique. The sound stage drawings in the lyric book seem to put sound over the songs.
Press: Delete
A musician friend contributed to some of the sessions for 'Press to Play'. They were going nowhere, lousy 80s sounds, it was frustrating. Then Macca went away for the weekend, and the session musicians thought they'd have a go without him. They completed several tracks, and when Macca returned they asked him to have a listen. No, he said emphatically. Delete the tracks.
It was his album; they were out of order. But doesn't it say so much about him needing a foil, as on 'My Brave Face' with Costello.
Someone needs to say, This, Paul, is shite.
That's often been said...
Apparently he doesn't take well to criticism from 'hired hands' when, perhaps, they're the very people who can see the work from the point of view of a skilled outsider.
And that's his fate
Not many people can say no to McCartney. In the Word review of the new biography of him, the story is quoted of Hugh Padgham (the producer on Press to Play) suggesting something and Paul asking him how many number ones has he written? George Martin was able to give advice on the Tug of War sessions. Elvis Costello clearly managed to get his respect to an extent. Nigel Goodrich on Chaos and Creation did it but interestingly he didn't get to produce the next album.
One of McCartney's more arrogant statements is his view that people who criticise him haven't got the talent to have number one hits and therefore their view isn't valid. He fails to see the counter argument that most of his fans don't have the talent to have number ones so why is their opinion valid?
In a recent interview Paul admitted that he was no longer looking for collaborators. He realises that John was the best he could ever have had. It does occur to me that Press to Play is the first album of material completely written after Paul started to come to terms with John's death. Using a co-writer in Eric Stewart was perhaps looking for someone to fill a psychological void. John was no longer in his song.
Dire 1980s
Paul isn't shite as he was bass player in The Beatles.
As for 'Press To Play' the problem isn't Paul it's the crap era it was made in and, if the production is indeed 'painfully mid-1980s', you won't catch me listening to it or indeed anything else from the dire 1980s.
The beginning of the end
There are three McCartney albums I don't own and this is one of them. The thing about Press To Play though is that in some ways McCartney's solo career never recovered. Up until this record, Macca singles were still going top 10 in the UK & US, he was still on the pop zeitgeist that he kicked off in 1962. After Press To Play, there was a bit of re-establishment that took place: The All The Best compilation and the promotion of Flowers in the Dirt which became the first of his "return to form" records. It's hard to be zeitgeisty when you're returning to form.
Always liked this track though. Here's Macca on the Tube - none more eighties...
King of No Pop
With regard to Paul and his chart placings around this time the industry's use of the single format was entirely geared to an LP/tour/tour merchandise/MTV video cycle.
This was a process which compromised the single format to such a degree that a programme like 'Top Of The Pops' became superfluous.
'Thriller' anyone?
We all live in Michael Jackson's world now.
With the exception
of Michael Jackson himself, of course.
In answer to the OP
No. This is a crap album with vile 80s production and weak songs of interest only because it was made by an ex member of the Beatles, demonstrating that their whole was greater than the sum of their parts (See "Imagine" and other horrors).
That's it.
It would have
been improved by the presesnce of non album single 'Spies Like Us'.
Yes its THAT bad