Post by John S. Damm on Apr 22, 2017 0:08:06 GMT -5
When FITD was (first) released I too thought Paul had finally woken up from a very muddled 1980s. He didn't have a good 80s in my opinion. The early 80s were overshadowed by the death of John Lennon and I think it affected Paul deeply.
Here is a summary I recently did of why the 1980's were a disaster for Paul, if any one thinks of others things please chime in:
1. Commercial failure of BTTE in 1979 to end the 1970's when Paul was accustomed to albums shooting to #1 at least starting in 1973 on;
2. The implosion of Wings as Paul went through the motions with them on the aborted late 1979 UK Tour which, by insider accounts, bored Paul to death which is not like our boy who is at his happiest live before adoring crowds;
3. Paul's 1980 arrest in Japan that was huge worldwide news and caused the final implosion of Wings;
4. John Lennon's murder that made Paul(and George and Ringo) almost recluses for three years;
5. The complete and utter debacle of 1984's Give My Regards To Broadstreet that instantly took Paul from cool Rock Star(in the current sense) who was commercially relevant to nerdy old musical Uncle despite earlier successes of TOW and at least the singles from POP;
6. The 1985 Live Aid concert where no Beatles reunion of the three and in Paul's big finale moment with "Let It Be" his mic goes dead and he must painfully busk for about the whole thing while Queen in about its last great Mercury led hurrah and the younger U2(among other acts) just absolutely blow away the crowd while Paul looks like the bumbling senior Rock "old guy;"
7. Troubles in Paul's marriage to Linda exactly because Paul cannot handle professional adversity well and Linda makes spoken recorded tapes of her unhappiness to the ghost-writer/co-author of her cookbooks that are almost like beyond the grave statements in case something happened to her that was "fishy";
8. The 1986 Press To Play major disappointment both commercially and artistically where Paul desperately wanted to sound like those hipsters he witnessed at Live Aid the year before but ended up sounding like a Phil Collins tribute band, and a bad one at that; and
9. Paul's really lost musical period from 1986 to 1988 where he even records an entire unreleased album rumored to be called Return To Pepperland and all we get is the Beatleish "Once Upon A Long Ago" and an optimistically concise "Back On My Feet."