Macca

[poliphilo]

Paul McCartney is playing Glastonbury this year. I'm in two minds about the guy.

I admire the unrelenting creativity, but so much of what he does is naff. Not so long ago he brought out a book of poems; it was god-awful. More recently he had a one man exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. The paintings were big and splashy and amateurish. If he hadn't been who he is, the curators wouldn't have given him the time of day.

There's a freak-show element to his extra-curricular artistic endeavours. He keeps making an ass of himself. It's like no-one at the court of King Paul has the nerve to say, "well, yes, it's very nice, Paul; so why don't we just stick it up on the fridge?"

When the poetry came out, he excused himself with a story about how Allen Ginsburg had said that the Eleanor Rigby lyric was a great poem. Ho hum. Sorry to be brutal, but Ginsburg was a creepy old groupie and it isn't.

Is he still competing with John? John's little books and little drawings had wit and flair. Macca's don't. The only field in which the two men were ever equal is music.

But McCartney's music has never been as good since the Beatles died. I have waited and waited for the great solo album- but all he's given us is lots of pretty little songs.

It happens to a lot of artists. They outlive their greatness. They slough off the cocoon of genius and emerge with talent.

Comments

[archyena.livejournal.com]

I think part of it might be that he is Paul McCartney and you should give him the time of day because of it. He doesn't struggle with things, or at least not nearly as much as he ought to, because people will show them in a gallery simply because they were done by Paul McCartney. That sort of patronization is why I don't show my art to a lot of people at all, it generates a stagnation that only smug self-satisfaction or artificial competition can create.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

In most of his interviews Macca seems like a fairly level-headed bloke. His choices in life- wife and family instead of the endless self indulgence he could easily afford- have been admirable. So why can't he see through the flattery?

I'd like a peek at your art. Do you have anything posted anywhere on the Web?

Re: what, you mean you didn't run out to the store and buy "wingspan" the day it came out?

[four-thorns.livejournal.com]

when i worked at the bookstore, that was one of our "featured albums". as if it wasn't annoying enough on its own, one of our managers would sing along to "band on the run", except she thought it was "man on the run".

i have an odd sense of deja vu writing about this.

Re: what, you mean you didn't run out to the store and buy "wingspan" the day it came out?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

No, I never owned a Wings album. I kept waiting for then to do something really special- and they never did.