A cocktail of punk, new wave, and disco had intoxicated the youth’s mind in 1979. Rock and roll was leaving the icons of the older generation behind in exchange for new approaches to music. Paul McCartney was at the center of this punk band hitlist. His post-Beatles band, Wings, was the definition of mainstream stadium rock. McCartney was always at the forefront of musical innovation but it seemed like rock and roll was progressing without him.
Wings had gone through many different phases over the years, but the core group had been together as a band for eight years at that point, and was soon to break up. Once he got back to his farm in Scotland after Wings’ last tour, he was bored with the cycle of album, press, tour, repeat. McCartney rented a tape machine and a synthesizer and began to create. Upon listening, his friends told him to release it as an album. Like his prior album “McCartney” from 1970, he played all the instruments himself, so he kept the naming theme. “McCartney II” was released in May 1980.
The opener “Coming Up” is this new direction distilled into one three minute song. McCartney’s voice is put through layers of vocoder and at some points it sounds like he has been sped up. “Temporary Secretary” is based on a three minute synth loop McCartney made, that arpeggiates at a high pitch. Verses that are coated in vocoder float on top of the looping rhythm. After each verse, he sings the hook. But how he sang it was unique for the time. He only recorded singing it one time and splices this throughout the song. Electronic bands into the new millennia have been influenced by this choice. The synth loop has been used in DJ sets and been sampled countless times, and the vocal method has been used by bands like Radiohead and Aphex Twin.
In the middle of the album McCartney experiments with a few instrumentals. “Front Parlour” uses a synth loop, and “Frozen Jap” sounds like the electronic dance music coming out of Japan. As for the final two songs, “Darkroom” uses vocoder to create high-pitched looping vocal lines from McCartney, stretched between unsettling synths and confusing lyrics. “One of These Days” is one of McCartney’s most beautiful ballads. For the first time on the album, his voice isn’t going through any effects. Its placement at the end of this experimental album is striking.
“McCartney II” sits in an interesting place. It influenced many artists in its years, but barely made an impact outside their circles. It combines wailing synths and vocoder to make an unsettling, avant garde sound, but it still sounds accessible today. McCartney created the first mainstream electronic pop album, and doesn’t get enough credit for his influence on the genre.