The most Russian Beatle

It turned out somehow strange with us with Paul McCartney.

On the one hand, the half of the most successful pop music of the author’s duet in the history of 1/4 of the “four-headed Orpheus” (the term of Leonard Bernstein, if they do not lie), it has always been regarded in our country with some neglect. No, it is true: Lennon is bright, smart, wrestler, poet, satirist, died again - there is no doubt, number one, for nothing that the quartet actually ruined (it is supposed to add: “And all this one!” - and it is clear who she is, this one). Harrison is a philosopher, clever, deep, friend of Shankara. Even Ringo is kind, open, simple -minded, I wanted to reconcile everyone, I recorded good albums (!).

And the floor? Beautiful melodies for the sake of the public, ballads, lips with a bow, henpecker again (like Lennon - but worse, because ... well, because it is worse). He did not change his wife, did not get divorced, the children were full, once he was sleeping with grass in Japan and then repented to the entire planet ... Daughter is a fashion designer. In general, ugh, not a rocker.

And on the other hand, I remember very well to what state the licensed plate “Paul McCartney was wiped in our school parallel. Wings ensemble "; The Lennon Imagine got much less. And when my deskthaw neighbor in GUM is in a wild crush! - Indian "London Town" , he was not just the main person for two weeks in a row - he could all at all; Thank God, he used this opportunity in a dosage. Again, who recorded a special record for us? Not Page, not Deep Purple , not even the eternal (since 1979) our friend Elton John. Macca wrote down-and by this day those dozens, or even hundreds of our fellow citizens who earned some capital at the export of the Album “Back in the Ussr” in the rest of the world are grateful to him; This story did not last long, but it was! Again: when Ringo arrived in Moscow, there was much less noise than in the case of the floor five years later. And the drummer was not taken to the head of state, unlike.

No, it is clear: the rock musician must be a hero. Well, or in time, shouting like a bonzo or Jim Morrison. Paul McCartney was not the first, with the second he was never in a hurry, on the contrary, became a consistent vegan, wrote and sang songs, composed symphony, experimented with electronics. Recently, I released a new one-in total, by the way, the 17th is an album. The first in five years.

In general, Macca loves to attract attention, and this year he did it repeatedly - in an excellent Liverpool plot together with James Corden , in the elevator of the Rockefeller Center along with Jimmy Fallon ; He did with unchanged grace and charm-the very one that is full of a semi-articular-half-proluvid film of 1984 “Give Hello Brod Street” , not even accepted even by the agile fans, but after a very small time (and not least thanks to a delightful soundtrack with the way, by the way, David Gilmore) entered the McCartney Canon. The matured (so sin to hide - aged) Sir Paul now works in more capacious and less large -scale genres, which is reasonable taking into account the network spread of the final result. It was difficult not to understand that the album is on the ointment. So it happened: on September 7, “Egypt Station” , produced mainly by the fashionable producer Greg Kerstin (and partially - Ryan Tedder, no less fashionable leader ONEREPULIC ), was published.

The reproaches of those who did not hear “nothing new” on it are strange. Its comparisons with almost synchronously released by the beautiful pastoral album of another Veteran Paul Simon (in favor of the latter, I note) are no less strange - first of all, based on the material. If Simon took his own old songs as a basis, for a number of reasons, as it seemed to him, not received attention that they deserved, and revised them (it will still be necessary to tell about this amazing experience), then Macca sang only new material.

All compositions of the album are more or less designed in the concept of the railway route: no matter what a song, then a stop. The composition “Fuh You” , placed exactly between the dashing “Who Cares” and the transparent-romantic “confidante” , is either a grateful splash of hooligan energy, which McCartney still does not occupy (albeit hooliganism, he has soft, tender cigarettes in the night tambour. This song went the most: chronologically advanced forward for the promotion of the album, it seemed to critics of the producer Tedder to the level of his own group, which was reduced in sound. Probably, the young producers do not give a damn on the regalia even those who hired them (McCartney admitted that their relations did not work out with Tedder, and from the whole session with him he left only two songs), but, I must say, everything turned out exactly the opposite: McCu's melodic line was embarrassed and subjugated the will of the producer - this is so bright and charming song.

However, she is only particularly, one stop in the long journey, in which Sir Paul not only inevitably summed up some results, but also looked around. That is why in Egypt Station there is so much fixation on Wings experience, undeservedly half -forgotten, including multi -part suits and complex instrumental plays; Therefore, there are appeals to the rights and freedoms of citizens and hints for current political moments. And there is an amazing sense of inner freedom, scope and space, who are so unusual for actual artists, mostly thinking local and pointwise.

It is clear that the very frank artist does not want to stop, on the contrary, I want to be more and more necessary for the audience, but, as the semi-secret shot concert of McCa, broadcast by YouTube from the New York Station Grand Central , does not make sense for him to fear: he is interesting and interesting to listeners. No wonder they violently reacted not only to the Beatle songs and old hits - new ones were no less interested in them, and above all - a bald gray -haired man in a red T -shirt, who fanned right under the feet of the hero of the occasion and suspiciously reminiscent of the same David Gilmore.

Of course, the concert became a beautiful Lakmusov piece of paper that revealed all Abilities and Disabilites of our eternal hero. Of course, his voice is not the same, but his hand is hard, and the sense of humor is acute and endless. And he can be forgiven for some, not very justified goodness for the sake of the delicate preamble that sounded in front of Dance Tonight and was addressed to the current wife of Nancy Shevell, and that heart of the fingers that Nancy put her husband back in response.

One should regret one thing - that Kolya Vasin , the great bitnum of the Russian land, fell into oblivion from imperfection, the non -bittering of his reality surrounding him, and maybe from loneliness caused by the same non -bitterity of the people around him, did not live to release Egypt Station. You look, I would have changed my mind.

... Paul McCartney for our country did a lot; His place in our pop historia is huge and unshakable. That is why we are trying to somehow push him all the time, to drink him, to repent him. Because he is his own, close, dear; Because he travels on trains, like us, because he welcomes the driver of a neighboring car, stuck next to him in traffic jam, because he still sings “Back I N The USSR " . How can you not advise your own, how can you not bother him, how can you not offend, in the end? And he, slim and directly, will forgive us and will be goodbye to be a golden sleep, sparing not a very true, tired voice “Golden Slumbers” .

Honor is glory to him.