Paul McCartney & Youth as the Fireman: Electric Arguments

Paul McCartney was the musician behind some of The Beatles most experimental ideas (such as the tape loops in "Tomorrow Never Knows") yet he often doesn't get credit for his experimental side because he's also known for being the author of a great number of ballads which while they are often quite great would never lead one to thinking that their writer was in any way an "experimental" musician.

Sadly many people have pigeonholed McCartney as a soft rock balladeer because of songs like "My Love" and "Silly Love Songs" but the truth is that's only one aspect to who he is as a creative musician.

McCartney has released some pretty experimental music with the most far out examples being the previous two albums he did as "The Fireman" (a collaboration with a producer named Youth) and the Liverpool Sound Collage (working with Youth and Super Furry Animals.)

McCartney has mostly kept his vocal based pop music seperate from his experimental ideas. Electric Arguments changes that. Those not familiar with McCartney's more experimental work may be flat out shocked that something this "spaced out" is actually an album by McCartney. One of the biggest revelations is his vocals. To put it simply, he doesn't sound like himself. At least not like the voice we are all so familiar with. He has changed things up significantly and each track seems to have a different twist on his vocal approach.

On a few tracks he actually sounds very, very old. He is 66 years old but he somehow actually sounds much older than that on some of these tracks. There's a real gutteral Tom Waits-ish approach to a lot of these vocal tracks. And then you remember "Why Don't We Do It In The Road?" from 1968. Getting wild with his vocals isn't a new thing for him, but it is something he hasn't done enough of during his solo career.

This raw vocal sound really adds a weight to songs like the ragged rock opener "Nothing Too Much Just out of Sight" and the second track, the acoustic guitar based "Two Magpies" where McCartney sounds his oldest (it fits the song perfectly.) He also has a sort of old wizard voice on "Travelling Light" which is a rather poignant Moody Blues-ish sounding song.

Then there's songs like the country/gospel/Ween sounding "Light From Your Lighthouse" which includes a pretty bizarre vocal sound. It's an extremely catchy song. The type of song that would be perfect for a mix tape and/or a movie soundtrack. Play this song for someone and ask them who they think it is. I doubt too many of them could correctly answer "Paul McCartney."

"Sun Is Shining" is a highlight for me. It reminds me of the band Spiritualized in the way that it creates a hypnotic feeling with repeating motifs. The song's title is perfect for it's content. It sounds like the sun is shining when you listen to this song. Plus the build up and release around 4 minutes is really beautiful.

"Dance 'till We're High" sounds a bit like a Christmas song but I mean that in the best possible way. It's amazing that each of these songs were apparently written & recorded in a single day. The amount of creativity is amazing. Remember, this man is 66 years old. While most musical artists his age have long ago resorted to doing nothing but playing their "old hits," McCartney is still creating great original music. If he had changed the lyrics to be about Christmas - I can imagine this song being a huge hit every year during the Holidays (when many radio stations deem it necessary to play Christmas music 24/7.) I think it's definitely a better song than "Wonderful Christmastime" anyway.

If you have a taste for spacy experimental pop music then I recommend you give Electric Arguments a listen with an open mind. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the extremely high quality of this music.