In most cases, this is karaoke. The familiar melody and arrangement is there...but WHO the FUCK is lousing it up with the bad vocals?
For better or worse, McCartney's songs are indelibly stamped by his voice. Unless you're going to radically change it...yowl some extra soul syllables, twist it into C&W, emote in a voice even more distinctive than Macca's, the result will be tolerable at best, and annoying at worst.
The only track that I thought was at all interesting or unusual was Bob Dylan's croak of "Things We Said Today," which borrows heavily from the minor key arrangement and tempo he and his band gave his original, "Things Have Changed." Was Bob going to use his crooner voice? His black bayou voice? OK, turns out he's using his "Things Have Changed" voice. Interesting. That's about all.
I remember Billy Joel telling me, "If I imitate anybody, it's McCartney." So he got a chance to imitate McCartney and sing "Maybe I'm Amazed." Jeez, at least this wasn't a duet. You know, these old acts (Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra) get to a point where they do the dreaded DUETS album. (shiver) I don't want to think of Paulie and Billy sharing licks (figuratively) on "Maybe I'm Amazed." That would be more horrifying than amazing.
I like Billy Joel and I'm always glad when in the course of his fat and bald years, he actually does something BESIDES his own old songs. I know he can't or won't write anything new. But it IS a change of pace when he sings a Dylan song or something by Paul.
That brings up another point. IF you are a fan of any of the acts on this bloated disc, and really want to hear 'em cover a McCartney tune, that's what you'll get. Me, I barely want to EVER hear Daltrey, Dr. John, Jeff Lynne, Brain-Dead Wilson or Hairy Chronic Jr. so, no, their boring Macca-roons only ruined the songs for me. Fans of those guys might be happy JUST hearing the "great" voices.
PS, in this PC-Cunt era, where women march about their equality and make demands more often than they change tampons, this fArt disc is conspicuously short on female vocalists. Marianne Facefull was busy? Sinead O'Connor doesn't want to help out the Irish Mr. McCartney? Aretha couldn't carry her weight into a recording studio? We got an anemic Corinne Bailey Rae do a tepid version of "Bluebird" which, come to think of it, is a tepid, stupid song.
Considering McCartney's pretty bad lyrics, it IS hard for even a distinctive singer to do anything INTERPRETIVE with his stuff.
How often did I listen to a familiar song only to think, "What's wrong? Oh yeah...it's not McCartney singing."
"Hi Hi Hi" by Joe Elliot? "Junior's Farm" by Steve Miller? What's the point? A lot of these acts are well past their sell date, so Heart's "Band on the Road" is menopausal and Cheap Trick's "Jet" lacks sass or tang. Why they chose "Jet" I have no idea. How predictable, Daltrey's take on "Helter Skelter." How pointless to hear "Long and Winding Road" from the faded, boring Yusuf the Cat.
Some critics lauded Chrissie Hynde's "Let it Be." Let it go, folks. Chrissie Hynde was once sort of sexy in a sullen way, and had a dismissive way with a lyric. She is NOT the one to sing an emotional song like this, and she stinks at it. Did she have the hiccups? Why the fuck is she singing "Mother ma-airy comes to me, speaking wah-urds of wisdom, Let it ba-eeee." Seriously, what the FUCK is wrong with the bitch? I liked her back in the "Chain Gang" days, and now she's got autism or something? Early stage Alzheimer's?
McCartney's annoying strain-soul voice on "Birthday" was annoying enough...did we need Sammy Hagar hollering "Dig it," before launching into a cornball rave-up? "All right! Come on now! Get it! Just like that!" Thanks for the ad-libs Sammy.
Allen Toussaint's "Lady Madonna." Hey man, I loved it when you did it decades ago and you were FATS DOMINO.
Speaking of cool oldies performers, Dion's got his shades on and tries "Drive My Car," but it sounds like he's lost it and the vocoder has it. Something very screwed up with this track.
Predictably, if you remember there was once a crappy candy-colored film version of "Sgt. Pepper," Barry Gibb's "When I'm 64" is particularly teeth-gnashingly CUTESY and obnoxious.
You could predict that the King of Nasality, Willie Nelson, would destroy "Yesterday." This guy's cover versions have never made sense to me. He's ok doing his own C&W stuff, but sorry, Grandma Moses, I don't find anything all that great about your unadorned, plain-voiced whining.
The one track, other than Dylan's, that had me wondering, "What the FUCK will this be, and how awful," is Alice Cooper's "Eleanor Rigby." No, he doesn't singing it like a grave-robbing rat-faced fiend. Too bad. He's what, nearly 80 or something? He sang it blandly. If you didn't see his name on the credit, you might think it was some other nobody jerk like Paul Rodgers or Jamie Cullum (both do crappy jobs here).
On previous lousy compilations of Beatles stuff, standard unauthorized cobblings, you get the usual uneven mess of blacks, women, has-beens and punks soiling the songs. To its credit, there are few conspicuously idiotic "ethnic" attempts made on Macca here. One of them is Toots Hibbert's shitty reggae version of "Come and Get It." It's followed by lazy fat B.B. King doing "On the Way." Gee, well, it's nice to know how it would've sounded if they'd asked Randy Newman. Only Randy might've made it a little funnier and more ironic, and that would've helped a great deal. Because not a single track here is treated like a joke, but the album IS a two-disc FARCE. This is why there are torrents giving shit away. You don't pay for shit.
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