Paul’s new albums

Paul McCartney, Memory Almost Full   ***1/2 out of ***** 
Paul McCartney, I-Tunes EP  ****1/2 out of ***** 
 
No matter what Paul McCartney puts out there will be someone to slag it. No matter that his last four albums have all been strong. No matter that every one of them has had more melody and inventiveness and DIVERSITY than anything out there today. Never mind that Paul’s bass playing alone on the track “See Your Sunshine” should warrant a decent review. Idiot complacent, fat, lazy, pseudo-hip music reviewers will still test out their cleverness by calling everything he does trite and silly. Screw them. Only Mama Knows, Mr. Bellamy, and Vintage Clothes all recall the man at his Wings / Ram era best. And You Tell Me (though the vocals are questionable) could fit nicely on Revolver. Let’s hope he lives to 120. 
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Just listened to the EP available on I-Tunes.  I almost didn’t bother.  Paul’s live discs are pretty hard to take.  The “thumbs-aloft” shtick, complete with directed sing-a-longs in the chorus of “Hey Jude”, is just NOT rock and roll.  But this disc is.  The live versions of “Coming Up” and “Only Mama Knows” are unbelievably good.  One almost wishes he had just done the new album live in a setting like this, minus all the  David Kahne idiotic computer affects.  Back to “Coming Up”–I have always HATED this song.  But this take rocks its ass off.  With the synths subdued, a borrowed sample of the Peter Gunn theme woven into the mix, and no girl-vocals in the background, this just becomes a true rocker.  Who’d a thought? 
 
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