The talented King of Rock Sir Paul McCartney mixing lyrics with the drag Queen of fashion faux pas Lady Gaga
The Beatles heartthrob is at it again, extending his tour of modern pop collaborations. Whether it’s featuring on Rihanna’s new single ‘FourFiveSeconds’ with Kanye West or now helping Gaga on her new project lately his exposure has hit the roof.
It’s not hard to see how happy Gaga is to be working with the rock legend now in 2015 as she, with disbelief, recalls her reaction at his phone call, “I’ll never forget when he called me last year to work and I hung up the phone cuz I thought it was a prank!”
McCartney differs in so many ways though from Gaga and for a long time he’s known what makes good music. The experienced musician has in his lifetime collaborated with the great Stevie Wonder for the, albeit not so great, Ebony and Ivory. Not quite bringing world peace but nevertheless a memorable metaphor for it.
He hadn’t stopped there though, far from it.
His collaborations have reached as far as the legend of pop himself Michael Jackson with Jackson’s classic The Girl Is Mine ft. Paul McCartney. To which the favour was paid back similarly with Say Say Say with Paul McCartney ft. Michael Jackson.
While some might have been misguided and some ended up as hits it’d have to be said that McCartney has always been about doing what he loves, making music. There was Johnny Cash in New Moon Over Jamaica, Lulu – Inside Thing Let Em In, Nitin Sawhney My Soul or The Bloody Beetroots feat Paul McCartney in Out of Sight.
In an age where social media has become so intrinsic to everyday life, collaborating with those voices that have become social media giants just makes good business sense. Music has such a potential to live long after the artist has passed and with one of the longest careers in the business (58 years and counting) Sir Paul McCartney is fast becoming as immortal as humanly possible.
So what if he sticks out like a sore thumb, rocking with a bunch of artists half his age I say, he adds class, something that can’t be manufactured as so much music is nowadays.
Collaborations are no new phenomenon but splicing new with old is a timeless art-form that, if done right, can be the bridge that gaps the divide.