Album reviews and music journalists can be as harsh as they desire, but in most cases, a record\u2019s biggest critic will be the person who made it in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is a lot easier to be hyper-critical of your own work than anybody else\u2019s \u2013 it is human nature, after all \u2013 and even a songwriter as accomplished as\u00a0Paul McCartney\u00a0has had those moments of severe self-doubt.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although, particularly during the later years of the Fab Four, it was McCartney leading the charge into the studio, being in a band like The Beatles certainly offered the songwriter a sense of security. If, for example, McCartney was to be\u00a0chased through the Philippines\u00a0by a wannabe dictator with a chip on his shoulder, he had three other blokes to share that rather distressing situation with. Whereas, when he went out on his own, the onus typically rested entirely on his own shoulders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even during the age of Wings, Macca tended to bear the brunt of both praise and dismissal, thanks to his name often preceding the band\u2019s. Inevitably, then, the songwriter has spent the majority of the past five or so decades under a pretty constant level of pressure to create something that rivals the earth-shattering mastery of his Beatles-era compositions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a result, when masterpiece records like\u00a0Ram<\/em>\u00a0roll around, they are \u2013 eventually \u2013 afforded\u00a0a beloved reputation. Whereas, when an album doesn\u2019t quite hit the mark, or enters the equally dreaded realm of being too middle of the road, they tend to face far more criticism than they would have had another artist been responsible for them. Not least from McCartney himself.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n One such record was 1979\u2019s\u00a0Back to the Egg<\/em>, which would end up being the final Wings record. While it would be difficult to describe the album as being offensively bad, it didn\u2019t receive much in the way of positivity upon its release. McCartney, presumably somewhat burned out after multiple decades at the epicentre of the music industry, wasn\u2019t at his songwriting peak, and the instrumental performances couldn\u2019t make up for that fact.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n McCartney, of course, was well aware of that fact, and even during the album\u2019s production, he knew it wasn\u2019t one of his best efforts. \u201cLinda and I were so disappointed, thinking, \u2018God this is a terrible bloody record,\u2019\u201d he told\u00a0Guitar World<\/em>\u00a0back in 1997, a sentiment which was shared by much of the music press of 1979, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nevertheless, the multiple decades that have followed Wing\u2019s conclusion has allowed McCartney to reassess that album. No matter which way you spin it, it is not one of his best records, but it is hardly a travesty, either. \u201cMy son pulled it out recently and it\u2019s really not as bad as I thought it was,\u201d he shared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s not easy to do your tightest, most succinct work all the time, and I think if my work does slip it probably is in the lyrics,\u201d the songwriter continued. \u201cAnd I hate to tell you, but I put a lot of it down to laziness, where I just thought, \u2018Yeah, that\u2019ll do.\u2019 And in mitigation, I think that sometimes I probably was right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n