Music/DVD Review: Paul McCartney’s Memory Almost Full
Listening to Memory Almost Full, Paul McCartney’s Starbucks (Hear Music) album, it’s hard to believe the 65-year-old McCartney is still producing songs so vibrant and so exhilarating. You don’t hear his age in his voice, but you can hear his age in his lyrics.
The songs bounce from buoyant pop-melodies to personal retrospections. And then there are songs like “Ever Present Past” (download it) that are determined to be both. The DVD features the “Ever Present Past” music video, with a brown and white color scheme and dubious, but still fun choreography. It’s not the eccentric, entertaining video for “Dance Tonight” that also appears on the disc, that’s for sure, but few songs are as entertaining as “Dance Tonight,” video or no video.
The song “Dance Tonight” (download it) was the first single released from Memory Almost Full. The effervescent mandolin chords and charming whimsy in McCartney’s whistling make it an easy-to-enjoy single, but it’s still not the most fun. That award goes to the song “Nod Your Head” (download it), a “Sgt. Pepper”-esque rock song that in its mere two minute and 17 second runtime quickly gets the listener to do just what the title tells him or her to do. If you don’t believe me, you can watch the audience react to the “Nod Your Head” in one of five recorded performances for the accompanying DVD.
The best thing about McCartney’s disc, its one that can work across every spectrum of the music industry today. It’s an album that I found myself listening to in it’s entirety without skipping a single song. The songs I point out above are great for the iTunes crowd, single-download listeners looking for mixable music. And “Nod Your Head” has 30 seconds that are perfect for a cellphone ringtone. I didn’t think a disc like that could really exist, but this evolution of Mr. McCartney certainly proves otherwise.
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