NOT so much mop-tops as OAP-tops now, so let’s deal with oldest of the two survivors from THAT band.

With drummer Ringo Starr you get what it says on the tin, though rather a small tin. There are only nine tracks, two of them revisiting previous songs, so the album does not have VFM – value for money. What it does have though is vim, familiarity and muscularity. The calibre of backing musicians such as Joe Walsh, Don Was, Edgar Winter, Dave Stewart, Benmont Tench and, natch, sticks-star Ringo, ensures it rattles along competently. But it is formulaic AOR and fades from the percussive promise of vigorous opening track Anthem, a standout slab of Ringo’s “peace and love, brother” philosophy.

I never believed I would ever give a McCartney album a lower grade than Starr, but as Run DMC may have hollered, that’s the way it is. The Macca-ed one delves into his childhood to songs sung around the piano in the parlour of his Liverpool home.

His selections are brave, being not the clichéd and expected standards, but they largely pale despite some exquisite arrangements with pianist Diana Krall to the fore.

The main problem is McCartney’s voice which is often at too high a register, so that Bye Bye Blackbird reminded me of a rare Ernie Wise solo slot on a Christmas special. McCartney’s trademark full-throated, fruity mellifluousness flourishes infrequently, but when it does it charms. Ac-cen-tchu-ate The Positive is a breezy feast, while My Valentine, one of only two self-penned songs, is by far the killer thriller. Succinct and evocative, it shows that the genius that conceived Yesterday, Here, There and Everywhere, Blackbird, Hey Jude, Let It Be – far superior to Lennon’s schmaltz-fest Imagine – is still at play.