If you think music—particularly pop and rock, but classical as well to a lesser extent—is just about sound and image doesn’t come into play, I have news for you. Everything involves image, and when performers try to look as plain as possible, well, that’s image too. I’m always amused by purists who claim that for them, “It’s all about the music, man.” It so rarely is. Just look at Paul McCartney, the subject of this week’s program Chaos and Creation at Abbey Road. For his entire career, Macca, as he’s known to fans and detractors alike, has had a reputation for making mild music. The rocker and rabblerouser of the Beatles was John Lennon; McCartney wrote the pretty songs your mother would enjoy. But this is partly mythical (it was Lennon who wrote “Imagine” and McCartney who was behind “Back in the U.S.S.R.,” for instance) and a lot has to do with Macca’s image, that of a man contentedly married for years—and not to a “wacky” Japanese performance artist, either. read more
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