McCartney (Deluxe Edition)

Paul McCartney retreated from the spotlight of the Beatles by recording his first solo album at his home studio, performing nearly all of the instruments himself. Appropriately, McCartney has an endearingly ragged, homemade quality that makes even its filler — and there is quite a bit of filler — rather ingratiating. Only a handful of songs rank as full-fledged McCartney classics, but those songs — the light folk-pop of "That Would Be Something," the sweet, gentle "Every Night" the ramshackle Beatles leftover "Teddy Boy," and the staggering "Maybe I'm Amazed" (not coincidentally the only rocker on the album) — are full of all the easy, melodic charm that is McCartney's trademark. The rest of the album is charmingly slight, especially if it is read as a way to bring Paul back to earth after the heights of the Beatles. At the time, the throwaway nature of much of the material was a shock, but it has become charming in retrospect, even pointing the way toward the homegrown charms of lo-fi several decades into the future. [Hear Music's 2011 reissue of McCartney is available in two separate expanded editions: a Special Edition with two CDs, and a Deluxe Edition that adds a DVD and a hardcover book. The bonus disc contains the ragged, unfinished outtake “Suicide,” an instrumental version of “Oo You” called “Don’t Cry Baby,” a rough piano demo of the unheard tongue-in-cheek music hall song “Women Kind,” a version of “Maybe I’m Amazed” from the 1974 TV special One Hand Clapping (a video of which is on the Deluxe Band on the Run), then three songs from McCartney performed live at Glasgow in 1979: “Every Night,” “Hot As Sun,” and “Maybe I’m Amazed.” The DVD contains a documentary on the making of the album, the music video for “Maybe I’m Amazed,” Concert for the People of Kampuchea versions of “Every Night” and “Hot as Sun” from 1979, and is capped off with readings of “Junk” and “That Would Be Something” from 1991’s MTV Unplugged. It’s a ramshackle hodge-podge but it has considerable charm and is a fitting way to expand McCartney.