Album Review: Various - The Art Of McCartney

What could possibly go wrong? The 11-year project of producer Ralph Sall, The Art Of McCartney features the timeless songs of Paul McCartney – Beatles, Wings and solo material all included – covered by “the World’s Greatest Artists” including Kiss, Brian Wilson, an immensely gravely Bob Dylan, The Cure and, erm, Steve Miller – twice.

Sall took responsibility for nominating which tracks many of the artists covered, which may explain a number of off-the-cuff performances (Wanda Jackson, I’m looking at you) that hardly suggest a life-long love of the originals. Some of it is poorly judged, such as Barry Gibb’s retro comedy experiments and The Cure’s hopelessly lost Hello Goodbye. Much of it is ugly, with many instances of geriatric former wild men overcompensating their lack of youthful vim with colostomy bag-rupturing histrionics, as Roger Daltery, Sammy Hagar and ‘80s metal poodles Def Leppard all confirm they’ve devolved into cartoon parodies. Some of it is just downright unsanitary, as the bestial groaning of Billy Joel would normally be associated with a man wrestling extreme constipation.

Against the odds, Heart appear to be one of the less rigor mort-icised acts here, Yusuf (formally Cat Stevens) steers clear of the schmaltz and with some gently rippling guitar Corrine Bailey Rae’s Bluebird is splendidly soporific. But despite these faint glimmers, it seems inevitable that curious historians will one day ponder what exactly McCartney did to deserve this.