Paul McCartney: Unplugged (The Official Bootleg)
Artist: Paul McCartney
Title: Unplugged (The Official Bootleg)
Acquired: 1990s, used CD store
Rating: 7/10
Paul McCartney was the most naturally gifted musician in the Beatles, and that has always been simultaneously a great strength and weakness. Able to make music-making look effortless, he has succumbed too often in his career to a lack of effort. A natural showoff who clearly loves to perform, but seemingly unable or unwilling to bury his worst ideas, for every "Maybe I'm Amazed" or "Jet" there are about ten "Mary Had a Little Lamb"s or "Bip Bop"s. He clearly enjoys doing what he does, but caveat emptor, it will be left up to you, dear listener, to sort the wheat from the chaff.
So, allow me to step in as your proxy here, and fill you in on Macca's 1991 CD "Unplugged (The Official Bootleg)." This is actually not so bad. Originating from a time when the show was still quite fresh (it had premiered a little more than a year earlier), the CD benefits from the seeming informality of not only the performances, but importantly, the setlist itself - there is a complete absence of "And now here's another one from our latest album" moments. In fact, the newest song here is a cover of the 1971 tune "Ain't no Sunshine."
There are actually a number of things that make this a fairly unique Paul McCartney live album, the least of which is the incidental fact that the performance is "unplugged." Of the seventeen tracks here, there are only six Beatles songs, and McCartney somehow resists the temptation to play "Yesterday," "Let it Be," "The Long and Winding Road," "Hey Jude," or any number of other songs that at some point became considered mandatory at Paul McCartney concerts. The only number here that feels a bit too obvious for an "Unplugged" show is "Blackbird," which we can forgive, because of course it's a great song. Also of note is the intimacy of the performance - the audience seems so quiet and attentive during the show that McCartney actually betrays a bit of fairly understandable nervousness at one point, flubbing the opening line to "We Can Work it Out" and stopping to try to get some additional crowd noise going - this was not the kind of ambience he was so well accustomed to by that time.
If I had to name some highlights from the disk, I would point out covers of "San Francisco Bay Blues" and a spirited "Hi-Heel Sneakers," a rearranged version of "She's a Woman" that drops it a fourth and replaces the stilted backing of the original with a more laid-back approach, and a rendition of "Every Night" that is good enough to overcome a slight case of overarrangement.
But really, the main highlight here is the relative lack of lowlights. I can only really single out the should-have-remained-unheard would-be-charmer "I Lost My Little Girl," and since the performance here is barely over a minute long, it's more of a venial than mortal sin. I can't say there are any truly great moments, and this was surely far more awesome in person than it is on a CD, but the overall vibe here of the excitement of watching a living legend playing songs for the pure fun of it, rather than going through the same rote motions for the umpteen-hundredth time, is quite infectious. You really get the feeling that Paul McCartney could play six more shows of equally high quality to finish out the week without having to repeat a single number. Which gets us back to that whole "effortless" thing I was talking about earlier. This CD is the good kind of effortless Paul. 7/10.
Title: Unplugged (The Official Bootleg)
Acquired: 1990s, used CD store
Rating: 7/10
Paul McCartney was the most naturally gifted musician in the Beatles, and that has always been simultaneously a great strength and weakness. Able to make music-making look effortless, he has succumbed too often in his career to a lack of effort. A natural showoff who clearly loves to perform, but seemingly unable or unwilling to bury his worst ideas, for every "Maybe I'm Amazed" or "Jet" there are about ten "Mary Had a Little Lamb"s or "Bip Bop"s. He clearly enjoys doing what he does, but caveat emptor, it will be left up to you, dear listener, to sort the wheat from the chaff.
So, allow me to step in as your proxy here, and fill you in on Macca's 1991 CD "Unplugged (The Official Bootleg)." This is actually not so bad. Originating from a time when the show was still quite fresh (it had premiered a little more than a year earlier), the CD benefits from the seeming informality of not only the performances, but importantly, the setlist itself - there is a complete absence of "And now here's another one from our latest album" moments. In fact, the newest song here is a cover of the 1971 tune "Ain't no Sunshine."
There are actually a number of things that make this a fairly unique Paul McCartney live album, the least of which is the incidental fact that the performance is "unplugged." Of the seventeen tracks here, there are only six Beatles songs, and McCartney somehow resists the temptation to play "Yesterday," "Let it Be," "The Long and Winding Road," "Hey Jude," or any number of other songs that at some point became considered mandatory at Paul McCartney concerts. The only number here that feels a bit too obvious for an "Unplugged" show is "Blackbird," which we can forgive, because of course it's a great song. Also of note is the intimacy of the performance - the audience seems so quiet and attentive during the show that McCartney actually betrays a bit of fairly understandable nervousness at one point, flubbing the opening line to "We Can Work it Out" and stopping to try to get some additional crowd noise going - this was not the kind of ambience he was so well accustomed to by that time.
If I had to name some highlights from the disk, I would point out covers of "San Francisco Bay Blues" and a spirited "Hi-Heel Sneakers," a rearranged version of "She's a Woman" that drops it a fourth and replaces the stilted backing of the original with a more laid-back approach, and a rendition of "Every Night" that is good enough to overcome a slight case of overarrangement.
But really, the main highlight here is the relative lack of lowlights. I can only really single out the should-have-remained-unheard would-be-charmer "I Lost My Little Girl," and since the performance here is barely over a minute long, it's more of a venial than mortal sin. I can't say there are any truly great moments, and this was surely far more awesome in person than it is on a CD, but the overall vibe here of the excitement of watching a living legend playing songs for the pure fun of it, rather than going through the same rote motions for the umpteen-hundredth time, is quite infectious. You really get the feeling that Paul McCartney could play six more shows of equally high quality to finish out the week without having to repeat a single number. Which gets us back to that whole "effortless" thing I was talking about earlier. This CD is the good kind of effortless Paul. 7/10.
posted by RDConz at 8:55 PM
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