He dabbled with it on “Goodnight Tonight,” the first single from 1979’s Back To The Egg, a move that bore the faintest sense that he was grasping at straws. The Top 10 of 1980 was proof of that: the Stones returned to the disco well for the number three hit “Emotional Rescue,” Queen shamelessly ripped off Chic on “Another One Bites The Dust” and Pink Floyd, those arbiters of album rock, grafted a four-on-the-flour beat onto “Another Brick In The Wall,” so they could selling their dour narcissistic opus The Wall.ĭisco didn’t much interest McCartney.
The disco backlash of 1979 didn’t entirely manifest itself on the Billboard charts. Part of the album grooved to a heavy disco beat, part of it snarled and while they tempered their fury on 1980’s Emotional Rescue, their embrace of disco wound up setting a precedent many others followed. Sensing the shifting tides, the Stones reacted first, melding disco and punk on 1978’s Some Girls. Paul may have been unperturbed by a shot across his bow, but many of his peers took these insurrectionist threats quite seriously.
That listlessness, more than a defensive reaction to the Clash’s calls of “no Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones,” drove his desire to experiment in 1980. But as the 70s came to a close, he started to feel restless within Wings. As the most successful solo Beatle, Paul had carte blanche to do whatever he liked. Largely recorded on synthesizers in Paul’s private studios, McCartney II can appear to be a full-bore embrace of new wave, but its story isn’t quite so simple. Decades later, its cloistered, claustrophobic single “Temporary Secretary” can still startle and so can its accompanying, misshapen album. Of all these odd records reckoning with new wave, none were as surprising as Paul McCartney’s McCartney II. Other artists seemed creatively rejuvenated by these fresh sounds, deciding to weave the new with the old, creating vibrant, unexpected fusions that still possess the power to surprise. Either way, Cooper and Ronstadt made these changes with the intention of climbing the charts. One conveys a sense of panic, the other a sense of deliberation. A fine line may separate desperation and calculation, but there’s a tangible difference between Alice Cooper donning a tin foil space suit to sing “Clones (We’re All)” and Linda Ronstadt dredging up three Elvis Costello songs to cover on her album Mad Love. Usually, those terms amounted to a combination of desperation and calculation. Baby boomers facing their forties decided to try to dig the new breed, albeit on their own terms. Disco and punk, synthesizers and drum machines, hip-hop and new wave - these strange new sounds started to seep into the mainstream and not just through new acts. Three or four years after the revolution, all the upheavals of the back half of the 70s were no longer contained in the underground.
But the fact that he was on the defensive suggests just how thoroughly the times were changing in 1980. Billy looked out on the sea of mohawks and skinny ties and sneered it was all still rock and roll to him. S et the clock back to the summer of 1980, when Billy Joel’s new hit knocked Paul McCartney’s “Coming Up” off the top of the charts.
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