You
may pay through the nose, but nobody does these big deluxe sets better
than McCartney. There are booklets, reproductions, photos, archival
treasures and a guitar pick, enough reading and perusing to cover the
better part of a day. The box itself is a manufacturing gem, lovely
quality paper and packaging. It's filled with Linda-snapped images from
intimate settings, and virtually every bit of publicity churned out by
the official McCartney company back in the day. Then there are the five
CD's and two DVD's worth of listening and viewing. Better set aside two
days.
But why Flaming Pie? Most people can't
even remember the 1997 album, let alone name one song featured on it. It
certainly has nowhere near the acclaim of Band On The Run, Ram, or even
the later gem Flowers In The Dirt. Well, it turns out to be one of
those peaks McCartney hits every few years, when he needs to get back,
get off his comfortable throne, and make some music that lives up to his
name.
The mid-'90's were a quiet period
for McCartney, at least in terms of new studio albums. His latest was
1993's Off The Ground, a somewhat lifeless affair with strained
songwriting. He was still very busy though, having done a classical
album, an ambient one as The Fireman, and gone on a world tour, with a
live album following. After that, it was his old band taking his time
and the headlines. The Beatles Anthology hit TV screens in 1995, and the
accompanying CD collections put the group back at the toppermost of the
poppermost. The band was as big as, well, The Beatles again, and the
group members spent tons of time together reliving the old days in
interviews, and even recording two new songs using old Lennon demos.
It
was that experience that inspired McCartney for his next album. He
remembered how the group used to knock off a new song in a three-hour
session, and not worry it to death. He vowed to make his sessions
simpler and faster, and more relaxed. He also enjoyed being a Beatle
again briefly, and vowed to work with Ringo again sooner than later.
Plus, he liked Jeff Lynne a lot, who had produced the "Free As A Bird"
and "Real Love" sessions, and wanted to work with him again.
With
the Anthology albums at number one, McCartney realized even he couldn't
compete with The Beatles, so he laid low, vacationed and wrote a few
new tunes. It took about four years to get Flaming Pie finished and
released in 1997, but in truth each session had only lasted a couple of
days. McCartney went for the simpler approach, and instead of lining up a
band, he mostly worked solo or with one other musician, mirroring the
first solo sessions he'd done on 1970's McCartney album. After all, he
could play almost everything.
Lynne produced
about half the album, and joined in on guitar, keyboards and vocals,
with McCartney covering the rest. Some tracks stayed simple and
acoustic, just Paul and guitar, in the "Blackbird" style. When he felt
like a guitar duel, he got his 19-year-old son James, who did a fine
job. And he rang up an old friend, Steve Miller, with the two jamming
away, Paul on drums and Miller on guitar, to start. The only time he did
give up the drum stool was when Ringo dropped in for a couple, because,
you know, he's Ringo.
There was surprisingly
limited interest in the record on release. Yes, it hit #2 on the British
and U.S. album charts, but that was more through reputation and
leftover Beatle buzz. There were no hits, despite several singles and
videos being released. But the deep state McCartney fans (they are out
there, believe it), swore there were some classics on it, if you
listened more than once or twice.
And that's
exactly what I found, living with this box for a few days. "The World
Tonight" showcases an edgier McCartney side, guitar rock similar to high
period Wings songs like "Let Me Roll It." "Young Boy," the best of the
Steve Miller cuts, is one of those ridiculous earworms he makes, light
and breezy and instantly hummable. "Calico Skies" and "Little Willow"
are acoustic gems that sooth from the first note, timeless songs you can
imagine some British minstrel singing at the king's court a few
centuries back. The capper though was "Beautiful Night." McCartney
always knows when he's hit a home run, and he dug into it with gusto. It
starts out simply enough, but explodes near the end, in the style of
"Live And Let Die." George Martin comes aboard to add brass and strings,
Ringo hits that classic drum sound, and as a cherry on top, joins Paul
on vocals, as close to a Beatles song as we could hope for, a "Hey Jude"
moment.
Then you get going on the box set
bonuses. There's a disc of most of the songs done as acoustic home
demos, either guitar or piano. Then comes a disc of studio run-throughs,
early attempts and rough mixes. Disc four is my favourite, a collection
of recordings that didn't make the album, including a leftover Miller
jam issued as a b-side, and a wacky production done with poet Alan
Ginsberg called The Ballad Of The Skeletons. The best thing here is the
inclusion of the "Oobu Joobu" sessions, a limited radio show he produced
that featured some of his unreleased music, experiments and out-takes.
A
fifth CD, and the two DVD's get a little tiresome, as they collect all
the promotional material created for the album. These are interviews and
documentaries that do provide lots of access to McCartney and his
recording techniques, but there's too much repetition among the various
mini-docs, electronic press kits and official videos. Well, at least
they tried to give it all, as in the past McCartney has been criticized
for not including everything. There are some highlights, including a
solo performance on a British TV show, with live Paul drumming and
singing along to various video Pauls in TV monitors. And a revealing
interview by David Frost is the only mention of Linda McCartney's
then-recent cancer diagnosis, which was playing behind the scenes during
the album's launch.
So yes, Flaming Pie
is one of the better McCartney albums, and only includes a couple of
those embarrassing lyrics that he seems to think funny. In this case,
the whole "Flaming Pie" song, a take on John Lennon's made-up story
about how The Beatles came to be named ("a man on a flaming pie"), is
just a goof, although it does rock. And one of the Miller cuts, a blues
jam, only proves McCartney can't do the blues. But there are several
really great songs, it's a grand overall listen, and there could be a
couple of numbers here that would make it to your personal McCartney
mixtape. And if you don't want the massive doorstop edition, there's a
two-CD set that should satisfy your ears
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