McCartney makes beautiful 'Chaos'

You can forget about his last comeback record. "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard" is the best solo record of Paul McCartney's career. And while it may not chart as high as Wings ever did, Sir Paul shows up big this time around.

The entire record sounds like late-period Beatles; the production, the arrangements, everything. That's not meant to be appreciated in a retro-revivalist way, but to acknowledge that "Chaos" is something new in the pop realm that constitutes as good, timeless music that comes from a place that anyone can pretend to call home.

"Chaos and Creation" is about staying power. The opener "Fine Line" is simply a pop masterpiece, and "Jenny Wren" is surely meant to be the sequel to "Blackbird." "Follow Me" and "Friends to Go" can immediately take their place alongside classics like "The Fool on the Hill" and "Something."

And what's even more remarkable about this record is that McCartney plays every instrument. He gets by with a little help from his friends here and there for strings and samples, but mostly every bass line, guitar lick, drum beat and piano part is 100 percent Paul. He's been playing with an absolutely smokin' band for the past few years, but this time he told them to take five. It's something he's never done before. The liner notes even detail the make and model of every instrument.

He's been featured in every guitar, bass and drum magazine this month. Don't tell Ringo I said this, but the Fab Four would've sounded just as good with Paul behind the kit. As McCartney told Bass Player Magazine, "One aspect of playing all the instruments ... is that the feel is basically the same because it's all coming from one person, which is interesting." Eat your heart out, Lenny Kravitz.

It's a wise choice, and it makes every song that much more authentic. Most Beatles fans can easily pick out which songs were written by McCartney and which ones John Lennon penned, even being able to discern between a "Paul verse" and a "John chorus" when they co-wrote numbers. If you fancy the McCartney-esque Beatles more, then it should be against the law not to have this record.

McCartney's been in the worldwide pop lexicon for 40 years. The man knows a thing or two about tugging on your heart through your ears, and this album is a continuation of that. Elvis preceded him as the King of Rock 'n Roll, and Michael Jackson came later as the King of Pop. So where does that leave McCartney? As the Pope of Pop Rock. And that's something even Jacko can agree with, seeing how he snuck in like an ivory weasel and bought the rights to The Beatles' back catalog out from everyone's noses.

And most surprising is how young his voice sounds, surely not that of a 63-year old. Let's all pray that Paul never stops making music, especially for our kids' sake. Our parents probably said the same thing 30 years ago.