The Boys Of Dungeon Lane - Paul McCartney (2026)
The Week That Has Been
Another week of 2026 releases. One more week after this probably. I just figured we needed to remind ourselves that there’s always something new worth the time, no matter how much is already out there.
- highly original new soul from Hemlocke Springs
- Genesis Owusu’s post-genre art rock and soul
- calm and beautiful ambient from Marielle V Jakobsons
- not calm cinematic post rock by The Anaton Project
- Paperclip Minimizer and a flash back to an electronic music heyday
- yet another awesome record from Kevin Morby
And now, back at age 84, Sir Paul
You recently got an email about Lindsey Buckingham, and frankly that was just bad planning. While I do have thoughts and opinions on Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac, he’s probably one of the least interesting examples of older artists surviving and thriving into the 21st century.
The most interesting of these to me–obviously, if you know me–is Bob Dylan. But close behind him is probably one of Dylan’s only peers in terms of longevity, influence, and unrelenting creative energy even into his 9th decade.
The world-conquering success of the Beatles when Paul was still fairly young left him in a position where he could basically do anything he wanted. While he did start a new band, Wings, he also released his own home studio projects where he played all the instruments and did exactly what he wanted. The quality control wasn’t always the best on those albums, but you could argue that a bad Paul song is still better than most other songs. As he’s gotten older, he’s leaned back into that do it yourself aesthetic and given us a number of remarkable records.
The Boys Of Dungeon Lane is an autobiographical project about the street McCartney grew up on, and he returns as he often has to that all-by-myself method of production.
The songs are unimpeachable. He’s still a master of the rules of the pop song, partly because he had no small part in writing those rules. And if that was all that was on display here, it would still be an accomplishment. What sets this release apart from other old-guy-new-album projects, is that even after all these years you can still hear the twinkle in Paul’s eyes. The guy just loves to play, loves to create, loves to share.
Nobody would blame him, either, if the music behind the songs was the boilerplate of 60s and 70s pop that had been been his bread and butter for ages. But even here, you get surprised by how utterly modern this record sounds. The instrumentation is seldom what you might expect.
Tracks like As You Lie There is genuinely heavy in a modern sense, with a driving bassline and overlaid piano and guitar building throughout.
Mountain Top is a clever and playful nod to the Beatles’ psychedelic era, but is also so much more.
Salesman Saint, a plaintive story about his parents, features old-timey sounding horn charts but still flashes thoroughly modern production.
I could go on. I really loved this one, but even this isn’t selling it very well. Go listen and tell me if you think I’m wrong.
