Paul McCartney (Mercury)
From a media-saturation point of view, not even Simon Cowell could compete with The Beatles in 2009.
The remastering and subsequent reissue of the Fab Four’s back catalogue may yet go down as the music industry’s last hurrah, their final opportunity to sell us back our past before Spotify and other internet concerns erase such options.
This makes the arrival of Good Evening New York City rather baffling.
The Beatles’ reissue programme was designed as the last word on the quartet’s legacy, the definitive versions of their indelible back catalogue.
But now, less than three months later, Paul McCartney has stuck out a live album of his own, two-thirds of which is made up of Beatles songs.
McCartney’s current band is a good one.
But with the final chords of the remastered Eleanor Rigby and the spruced-up Paperback Writer still ringing in our ears, these live versions more or less define superfluous.
Unless, of course, you were there.
WILL FULFORD-JONES
