Released: 2018

Genres: Pop Rock, Art Rock, Baroque Pop, Piano Rock

The Musiquarium’s Egypt Station Review Score: 6 out of 10

After a period of experimentation with 2013’s modernized New, a few collaboration singles with Kanye West (Only One, All Day and Four Five Seconds), and a massively successful world tour, McCartney was experiencing a renaissance of sorts in the mid 2010s. On Egypt Station, McCartney goes back to doing what he does best, with an album that unfortunately sounds safe and boring compared to what he was doing a few years ago.

Most of Egypt Station sounds like your typical McCartney piano ballads and acoustic rock songs, with none of them particularly standing out, though none of them are as bad as the misplaced Ryan Tedder-produced Fuh You, which is one of McCartney’s worst songs, filled with that generic mid 2010s pop sound that deserves to be buried six feet under and never dug up again. The two ambient Station interludes don’t really add much to the album and feel superfluous.

Compared to 2013’s New, which had Paul McCartney sounding reinvigorated and fresh, Egypt Station sounds quite regressive, with an overly long tracklist with little variation or experimentation. Outside of one track, it’s a fine enough album, but nothing to rival recent albums, like New or Chaos & Creation in the Backyard.

For credit breakdowns and historic release details, view Paul McCartney on Discogs.

Back to the 2018 Album Reviews Guide or the Paul McCartney Reviews page.

Written by Brett Nippard