
The McCartney Years
3-DVD set
Rhino Entertainment
Available now
The recently released 3-DVD package The McCartney Years is an ambitiously expansive collection of music videos and concert footage from Paul McCartney‘s post-Beatles career. The first two discs are comprised of videos/promo clips of more than 40 songs, including most of the big hits (“Band on the Run,” “Silly Love Songs”), but even more appealingly, many lesser-known pop gems (“Off the Ground,” “Hope of Deliverance”) that didn’t make their way into the classic rock canon because of a change in popular music tastes. McCartney’s knack for primarily guitar-driven, melodic rock doesn’t quite burn up the Billboard charts the way it did in the 1960s and “˜70s
For the videos, McCartney seems to relish the opportunity to get into character, always giving his all as an actor, lip-syncing with the best of “˜em. But let’s face it “” McCartney won’t go down in history as a master thespian, mime, or male model. His genius lies in his music composition, melodicism, musicianship and singing.
McCartney has an endless supply of hooks, and while he’s been rightly bashed, at times, for being overly sentimental and schmaltzy, he rarely gets props for his post-Beatles masterpieces. “Put It There,” “Heart Of The Country,” and “Waterfalls,” among others, are easily on a par with the high standards set by the Beatles.
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