Paul McCartney – Pipes of Peace Review

Another piece from the pop-rock period for Paul McCartney, and a dire one at that. The 1980s affected everyone. Mostly, it turned 60s legends into mawkish heads of music who could coast on past prides and release tame, pop-adjacent music as the new generation passed them by. Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and McCartney, too, it would be a rough run for those creative powerhouses who made a name for themselves in the decades prior. Two tracks featuring Michael Jackson and a preceding album both capitalising briefly on the death of John Lennon and finding the space for a Stevie Wonder feature. The transition from writing of the current day, and writing after being informed by it, is heard here. His toot on the tubes of tranquillity is fine enough, but Pipes of Peace is far from the charm we know McCartney is capable of writing.  

He may face criticism for the lighter-than-light writing at times, but there is still heart to be heard throughout this release. The problem for many of the Pipes of Peace songs is not the writing, but the predictability of the tone. The Other Me creates a turgid contrast, the McCartney in public view and the Fab Four member behind closed doors. Not even McCartney is sure of the difference by the sounds of it. Even when he figures out what improvements he would make, they are of the generic variety, the sort of change you write on a post-it note, stick to your wall, and forget when it flutters off and onto the floor behind your computer tower. Pipes of Peace hears McCartney ask for change in his personal and professional life but, simultaneously, burrows into the soft rock hole he had made with Tug of War. At least the instrumental variety kicks in, however briefly, on Keep Under Cover. There is safety in the sound McCartney makes, and when there is protection from the possibility of new sound, problems appear. 

So Bad sounds tailor-made for Colgate advertisement purposes, where the only part of the relationship still working is a shared love of dental hygiene. That slowed tempo, the high-pitched voice, the slightly funky bass line, all of it comes together well, but has nothing to say beyond the obvious, repeated love. Jackson pulls apart the one thrill to be found on The Man, with the instrumental section spinning from cool grooves to early morning chat show filler. Sticky, sickly love songs are no problem. McCartney is a master of them, and the tone is crucial. What he suffers with here, then, is an overwhelmed studio presence which is playing catch-up with the synth and pop sound of the 1980s. He breaks from it occasionally with the grooves of Hey Hey, a standout track not because of anything incredible but because it moves away from the sore songs preceding it.  

McCartney manages to keep some sincerity within Pipes of Peace, album closer Through Our Love has the gliding strings come to their inevitably high emotional point with a definite charm. It is expecting McCartney to do this, that is the problem. Pipes of Peace gives listeners exactly what they want from the songwriter, who does not sound all that interested in challenging his sound. He did not do so for much of the decade. A tremendous shame, but it fits into the soft pop, easy-listening circle which was popular at the time. McCartney is a chaser of contemporary sound, even when it proves detrimental to his writing, to his tone. Pipes of Peace is one of the few McCartney projects which cannot shake the dated feeling, the thud of earnest comments on love turned into passionless pop noise is a damnable low.