Paul McCartney is Cool

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Paul McCartney is probably the greatest living artist, of any kind.

I do think the value of art is totally subjective. But if you wanted to try to create a definition of what makes an artist “objectively great”, I think Paul would have to rank near the top on most metrics:

  • The level of greatness of his best work as judged by the most people

  • Quantity of his work that is good, as judged by the most people

  • Overall popularity

  • Artistic influence

  • Cultural influence

  • Level of technical “sophistication” of his best work

Who would even come close? Maybe Bob Dylan? I can’t think of any authors, or film-makers who would be close (I don’t know of any visual artists who would be in the running either, and I think that the popularity of music vs visual art among most people is also a point in Paul’s favor).

He released an album last year called McCartney III. It’s pretty good. Then, this month, he released McCartney III Imagined, which contains all the songs from McCartney III remixed by or featuring contemporary artists.

And his choice of artists to feature is what keyed me into the fact that, in addition to being the greatest, Paul is also the coolest. (In 2021 I was still on the fence about him being cool, because while Sgt. Pepper’s is cool, and Back in the USSR is cool, he also wrote a song about being handy and mending fuses, which while good is less cool).

For a project like this it would be easy to imagine him turning to old greats who he has collaborated with in the past: Stevie Wonder, Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Brian Wilson, maybe even Ringo. Or you could see him enlisting today’s biggest stars: Surely Taylor Swift or Lil Nas X would be happy to be featured on a Paul McCartney album.

But instead he (or maybe his manager, in which case he’s cool for having that manager) chose group of slightly outside-the-mainstream artists. Phoebe Bridgers. Anderson .Paak. Ed O’Brien of Radiohead. Beck. Popular enough that they might be recognizable (though it may take a Google to learn that Damon Albarn is the guy from Blur and Gorillaz). But fringe enough to be cool.

I was introduced to Fats Domino through music Paul released over half a century ago, and to Khruangbin through music he released 3 days ago. And that’s what makes Paul cool.