@Callipygion
Allan Klein made sure that the rock music press turned against Paul when he released his first McCartney album in 1970. (He also paid them to write glowing reviews of All Things Must Pass, but that’s a different conversation 😉.) Then a drugged-up John, egged on by his appalling wife, blurted out all his grievances to fanboy, Jann Wenner, and Paul’s reputation as writer of ‘granny shit music’ was cemented by Rolling Stone.
Wenner instructed his writers to bin the positive reviews of McCartney 1 that were about to go to press (Paul was one of the first artists to produce an album on which he had played every instrument, and they had first of all lauded this as an amazing accomplishment) and to write instead that the album was crap.
Rolling Stone was incredibly influential and John Lennon was incredibly bitter, and Paul’s critical reputation hadn’t recovered by the time John was killed. Ironically, John hated Wenner for publishing the interview as a book (he regretted doing it by then and wanted it to disappear quietly), but that didn’t stop the Ono creature from teaming up with Wenner to trash Paul’s career when John was dead.
It’s hard to come back from that type of smear campaign, and it obviously affected Paul’s confidence and self-esteem. Worse still, he had to deal with the psychological and emotional devastation of John’s murder (and to read in the press that it should have been him) and then watch his wife die. Is it any wonder that he struggled for a few years?
Still, he is finally getting all the accolades he deserves, and at 78 years old has a number 1 album, which in itself is an astonishing achievement. In 200 years time, people will still be playing his music, which is mind blowing. Only Mumsnet has to catch up. Maybe they will have done so by then.