Album Reviews
2001: Driving Rain
Driving Rain
Album: Fan Acquisition, 5/10 | Released: 2001 | Specific Genres: Pop Rock | Main Genre: Pop Rock | Undertones: Singer-Songwriter, Folk Pop, Soft Rock, Neo-Psychedelia, Raga Rock, Rock
If something’s open, it’s my heart
If decent quality pop music and songwriting comes this easy to you, you might want to put in a little more effort – you might end up with something compelling. McCartney veers between radio-friendly folk pop, slight raga psychedelia, soft contemporary and straight rock on the dramatically titled Driving Rain, and while the CD-era running time of almost 70 minutes does lead to good results in some bittersweet songs (“Lonely Road” or “She’s Given Up Talking”), it also makes space for the simply atrocious lounge rock of “Heather” or the bored-out, disoriented blues rock jam “Rinse the Raindrops”. McCartney never fails in delivering this or that tune to whistle, but this period of cleanly manufactured, over-long products just lacks something that can be heavy- or light-weight: urgency. This is by far not McCartney’s worst album, but for all its listenability, it just might be his least interesting.
Text Lambrecht 