Rich, successful, happily married, and absurdly talented, Paul McCartney had nothing to do, so he recorded Wild Life. That would explain the frippery for which this curious record has long been ridiculed, but it's a perspective that does Wild Life--recorded in a couple of days--a disservice. In every sense it's the work of a still-young man still reeling from the '60s, unsure what to do with himself, in a still-young decade that had the same problem. Once past the thumbs-up inanity of "Bip Bop," much of it is great--like the title track, an ominous, slow-mo blues, showcasing a throat-shredding McCartney vocal and a genuine sense of doom, and the bleak and wistful "Tomorrow." Best is "Dear Friend," a red-raw ballad that throws long shadows over the rest of the album, with McCartney singing of his crushed friendship with John Lennon. --Taylor Parkes