News The Paul McCartney album he thought invented indie rock: “An indie thing”
There’s probably a countless number of genres that Paul McCartney helped invent without thinking that hard. He may have just been following his muse and relying on his own favourite records, but some of the wild experiments he made with and without The Beatles are artistic institutions in and of themselves today. Although McCartney has never seemed to take credit for all of his innovations, he admitted that he may have had something to do with indie rock when he released his first album, McCartney.
When he first left The Beatles, Macca’s solo debut was really supposed to be much of anything. Compared to the other Beatles, who created amazing solo material right out of the gate, fans were probably confused that the guy who was so focused on perfection somehow created an album that feels like a demo tape half the time.
Even though Let It Be suffered from tracks that were underwritten and being heard in their development stages, a good half of this album feels like what could be the makings of a good song in the future but without the force behind it. Outside of ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’, most of that Beatles magic is swapped for the kind of pieces that feel closer to home demos.
Whereas most fans wondered what McCartney was on when he wrote half of this stuff, he later claimed that the indie rock movement probably started with this album, saying, “It has sort of an indie thing, what would now be called an indie thing. Me knocking around experimenting with some sounds and not worrying about how it was going to turn out. With this stuff, I wasn’t doing it with anything in mind.”
When looked at through that lens, this album is a lot more forward-thinking than even the experimental stuff that John Lennon was doing around the same time. Instead of having to work on amazing songs every single day, works like ‘Hot as Sun/Glasses’ are charming pieces of instrumental experimentation, especially towards the end where he captures the sounds of wine glasses that sound suspiciously like what David Bowie would be doing a few years later.
Outside of the biggest hit on the record, some of the most adventurous sides of the album are when he isn’t taking himself that seriously, including the massive way that he uses the sonic landscape on ‘That Would Be Something’ or delving deep into the blues on ‘Momma Miss America’.
That wasn’t really the warm reception that McCartney got when the album was released. Critical reception may have been mixed, but the most vocal detractors of the album came from his old mates, with John Lennon saying that he thought the entire project was garbage and that the quality of his own solo material would scare McCartney into making something decent.
There was already something decent lying in front of us, though. Paul McCartney had been stripped of everything that he stood for, and even after he was hung out to dry by the rest of his bandmates, he still managed to make something beautiful that wouldn’t be appreciated until years later.
