Paul McCartney: Pipes Of Peace (Columbia)

JUST WHEN you thought it was safe to like Paul McCartney again, along comes an album that makes Ram look like Abbey Road. It isn't that Pipes Of Peace is insipid; that, at least, would live up to McCartney's 'Silly Love Songs' persona. Instead, Pipes, following as it does upon the heels of the remarkable Tug Of War, seems to indicate that McCartney is, at heart, every bit as shallow as his severest critics have thought him to be.