Paul McCartney\u2019s solo career has been savaged by critics and the music-buying public alike, often for being too syrupy-sweet and reliant on ballads.<\/p>\n
So why does Off The Ground<\/i>, McCartney\u2019s 1993 release, turn out to be one of his unheralded triumphs? Quite possibly, it\u2019s because no one expected McCartney to put out an album this strong, even coming off the success of Flowers In The Dirt<\/i> four years prior. This was, after all, the same person who was responsible for Press To Play<\/i> and Give My Regards To Broad Street<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Yet there it is, wrapped up in about a dozen tracks — a disc that could well be one of McCartney\u2019s best, if not the best one he\u2019s recorded in his career.<\/p>\n
Kicking off with the strong title track, McCartney lets the listener know that this is more than an album. It\u2019s a musical journey. Within these songs, one will hear quite possibly one of the strongest animal rights songs ever recorded (\u201cLooking For Changes\u201d), one of McCartney\u2019s strongest ballads (\u201cHope Of Deliverance\u201d), a powerful rocker that shows McCartney had lost little of the edge over the years (\u201cGet Out Of My Way\u201d) and a tender love song that doesn\u2019t push the limits (\u201cI Owe It All To You\u201d).<\/p>\n
This isn\u2019t to say that Off The Ground<\/i> is a perfect disc, but it says something when even the weaker tracks aren\u2019t total failures. The closest to imperfection McCartney comes is on \u201cBiker Like An Icon,\u201d a track that tells of forbidden love yet seems to be spinning its wheels. Likewise, \u201cMistress And Maid\u201d is a different type of song for Sir Paul — instead of being a sappy love ballad, this shows what happens when the magic is lost in a marriage. If only it were a little more powerful in its message.<\/p>\n
Still, McCartney is able to make listeners forget any musical or lyrical missteps in his lengthy career and force them to approach Off The Ground<\/i> as its own creation, to be judged on its own merits — and this is the greatest success of this disc. Tracks like \u201cPeace In The Neighbourhood,\u201d \u201cWinedark Open Sea\u201d and \u201cGolden Earth Girl\u201d would have been lost on other albums; still other tracks, like \u201cC\u2019mon People\u201d and \u201cI Owe It All To You,\u201d would have been seen as clones of earlier McCartney solo works or, worse yet, Beatles copies.<\/p>\n
No, the real magic of Off The Ground<\/i> is that this disc is instantly approachable, and works on its own merits without relying on past glories. In the course of these songs, McCartney finally seems free to express himself without any of the baggage he had carried throughout his then 30-plus year career. For the first time, McCartney sounds like he\u2019s free, and that joy shows throughout this album.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":28887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5744],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-40387","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-paul-mccartney","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40387"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40387"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}