London Town

Erika (June 7, 2007)

For some reason, I really like \"London Town.\" It\'s a strange album, but I like it. \"With a Little Luck\" is great, but it\'s not the only good song on the album. \"London Town,\" \"Famous Groupies,\" \"Name and Address\" and \"Morse Moose and the Gray Goose\" are all very good too. Not McCartney\'s best, but pretty darn good.

Bruce Beatlefan (March 18, 2006)

I bypassed this album in 1978 when it was new and figured that the entire album probably sounded like the two songs that got all the airplay (\"London Town\" and \"With A Little Luck\"). In other words, I figured that McCartney\'s grand scheme was to sound as much like England Dan and John Ford Coley as he possibly could. Well, I got the CD about six months ago (autumn 2005) and have played it and become inured in all the songs, and... brother, this is one peculiar album!

First off, fans of Paul McCartney have become accustomed to his particular style of pop/rock that he has churned out with uncanny quality and quantity for nearly 20 years (at the time of the album\'s release), but in this album the typical Paulstuff, outside of \"With a Little Luck\", is very nondescript (\"London Town\", \"I\'ve Had Enough\", \"I\'m Carrying\", and \"C-C-C-Cafe on the West Bank\"). McCartney, with help from Denny Laine, remedies this by turning the entire panorama of music into his personal buffet line, helping himself to a little bit of Ray Stevens (\"Famous Groupies\"), a little bit of Michael Jackson (\"Girlfriend\"), some Elvis Presley (\"Name and Address\"), some world beat (\"Don\'t Let it Get You Down\"), believe it or not a sea chanty (\"Morse Moose\"), a side of Peter Paul and Mary (\"Children Chlidren\"), some Southern rock for dessert (\"Deliver the Children\"). This startling array of inspirations range from not very good at all (the first two mentioned) to superb (many of the rest)--but therein lies the problem with the London Town album: something is very wrong when a veteran rocker, not to mention a Beatle, issues an album whose strongest tracks are its oddities and novelties.

Two other notes: the bonus tracks are legendary McCartney tracks and deserve to be regarded as such. Secondly, relevant to nothing, the front and back covers of the album provide my two favorite photographs of the late Linda McCartney.

John (July 14, 2005)

A disjointed album. Has some highlights. With A Little Luck, where Paul must have kidnapped and hypnotized John and George to make Wings sound like the Beatles.
I'm Carrying a typical McCartney ballad/love song. Nice but maybe a little over produced.
Don't Let It Bring You Down, has Paul singing falsetto, then not falsetto, then back to falsetto but still one of the better tracks.
Girlfriend probably should have been left to Michael Jackson.
I've Had Enough is a half assed rocker.
London Town has it's moments but overall very ordinary.

OB (July 7, 2005)

An album created by a stoned millionaire on his yacht. It also helps that that stoned millionaire was a certain Mr McCartney.

Dave (June 25, 2005)

Rediscovered this album recently, listening to it for the first time in ages. Has a very folky tinge to it. By no means one of my favourites of Macca's work. But the title track is nice enough, "I'm Carrying" makes for a pretty acoustic ballad (in a similar style to "Little Willow" on "Flaming Pie") and the original version of "Girlfriend" makes for a much sweeter listen than the Michael Jackson version on "Off The Wall".

But the biggest highlight for me has to be "With A Little Luck" - Macca's voice is at it's effortless best. You can hear that infectious smile in his voice, that is evident in all of his best vocal performances. It seems he'd reached a vocal peak, which he carried through to his next album, the impressively eclectic "Back To The Egg"