In a favourable assessment, for the "NME", Alan Smith wrote that while on first listen he found "McCartney" "too harmlessly mild", his view had changed with time, such that: "Listening to it is like hearing a man's personal contentment committed to the sound of music. Most of the sounds, effects and ideas are sheer brilliance; much of the aura is of quiet songs on a hot summer night; and virtually all of the tracks reflect a kind of intangible roundness. 'Excitement' is not a word to use for this album ... 'warmth' and 'happiness' are." In his combined review of all the former Beatles' 1970 solo releases, Geoffrey Cannon of "The Guardian" dismissed it as an album that had "no substance". Cannon continued: "Paul reveals himself in it as a man preoccupied with himself, and his own situation. The music is boastfully casual … He seems to believe that anything that comes into his head is worth having. And he's wrong." John Gabree of "High Fidelity" magazine similarly bemoaned the expectation that "we should dig his every little noise" and found the reasons for the album's failure evident in the "Let It Be" film, where McCartney appeared to be "the only Beatle who has stagnated as a human being", as well as "incredibly arrogant" in his treatment of his bandmates. Gabree added that "Perhaps the greatest disappointment lies in the songs, although most of them could have been saved by better performances, especially the instrumentals."