THE BOYS OF DUNGEON LANE is alright, not great—par for the course of late-period Paul McCartney solo albums. Due to Sir Paul’s now-advanced age, Paul-does-no-wrong fans are being extra protective and sticking their collective fingers into pairs of ears worldwide.
DUNGEON LANE was hyped as McCartney taking an album-length look at his childhood/early teen years in Liverpool. Less than half the album is devoted to this subject matter. The rest includes standard love songs, two musical numbers apparently created for the now-dormant IT’S A WONDERFUL LIFE musical, the okay intended-for-live-performances Come Inside and a thankfully non bombastic closing song Momma Gets By, a distant cousin to Lady Madonna which digs a little deeper lyrically than most of what precedes it.
Andrew Watt, who’s now his generation’s answer to Don Was in the 90s (producer who tries to make heritage acts modern-friendly), produces sympathetically, with nods to Rick Rubin, Jeff Lynne and 60s George Martin—plus recording Paul’s voice to obscure the upper register quaver now unavoidable in his live shows.
Here’s my Spotify playlist of Paul looking back on his youth:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/067gJQ0mMOoErDKld0jFqs?si=l9vcLB5HQNawpzZeU6dgAQ&pi=R2rXk8S_Q9qct
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