By SAM HOLLEMAN
With this being his first album of entirely original music in six years, Paul McCartney‘s 16th studio album, New, released on Oct. 15, with the music world’s eyes on alert.
Paul Epworth, Mark Ronson, Ethan Johns and Giles Martin worked as producers with McCartney to create this album. None of who were even around when the Beatles were shaping pop culture and the music scene.
Thankfully, they did not try to reproduce the sound the Beatles created back in the 1960’s, but rather, took the style, and infused it with 21st century music styles to create something, for lack of a better term, new.
And it works.
This album gives off an awkward vibe of new-age nostalgia that feels right. With songs such as “On My Way To Work,” which provides the very basic strings and drums-based beat, and others like “Save Us,” which takes advantage of the more-modern instrumentation. Other songs such as “Queenie Eye” and “Everybody Out There” encompass the general concept of a 21st century folk fusion sound.
This album is definitely not McCartney’s best work (given he holds “Band On The Run” and “Live And Let Die” under his belt), but it does flow as an album and a song by song listening.
Using McCartney’s past as less of a crutch and more of a sidecar passenger, the producers and the song-writing talents of McCartney we able to create a path for a man, who created the pop culture scene, to find his way back on it.
The 411
Album Title: New
Release date: Oct. 15, 2013
Cost: $14.40 deluxe version
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars