Let's open this review with a little bit of trivia - what was the first solo album from a Beatle? If you're thinking McCartney, well no - it was the first solo album after the announcement of the break-up, though, so you're not necessarily incorrect. Those more astute may guess George Harrison's Wonderwall Music, and that's pretty damn close, but still no cigar. In fact, Wonderwall is the second Beatles solo album, and it's this green piece of cut-out bin fuel that predates all of them. Unexpected, right? Paul McCarntey's soundtrack to The Family Way is the first Beatles solo album by almost two years, releasing in January of 1967. It was just a side project at the time, as it was made during a big break period for all The Beatles, and it would be business as usual soon enough (by the time this album came out, the lads were hard at work on a weird about about some kind of club band or there-other). With all that being said, it's absolutely no surprise that many pass this thing over in favor of Harrison's Wonderwall Music being the first Beatles solo album, as this thing might as well have been made by Bernard Webb before it was made by Paul McCartney.
At only 2 real songs (each one sort of a collection of musical segments from the film), The Family Way isn't necessarily an in-depth album, although seeing that it's a film soundtrack from the 60s you may be expecting that - this was before the days of Jack Johnson and Head when film soundtracks became listenable outside of novelty. Paul McCartney, admittedly, did write the main musical motif for the film, although if you ask me that sounds like all he did. The rest of this is largely inoffensive but banal orchestration courtesy of our main man George Martin. While Martin clearly has talent in orchestration and arranging, it doesn't do a whole lot to save the end product here - both parts of "Love in the Open Air" are nearly indistinguishable to me, and frankly this results in an album that is, at best, left on in the background while reading or playing Bejeweled. I'm sure it's not Paul's fault, especially considering that this is more a George Martin album than any real Beatlesque product - the more I listen to this, the more I suspect that having Paul's name plastered on the front cover was merely a sales gimmick.
This is serious completionist only material - even George Harrison's Wonderwall Music soundtrack is far more engaging and creative than this throwaway product. Is it outwardly bad? Not really, but if you've heard one album like this you've heard them all. Even in comparison to some soundtracks at the time this is disappointing - The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly had its soundtrack release the year prior, and Ennio Morricone's iconic soundtrack is still enduring to this day. Not even Martin's fine scoring is enough to keep this interesting - hell, his score on Yellow Submarine is also better. Unless you are desperate to hear everything tied to a Beatle's name, stay out the way of The Family Way.
RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯
Listen to The Family Way.
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