Something" as "great", but the rest, he said, "just don't do much for me". Harrison added that, unlike Lennon, Starr and himself, McCartney was probably too "isolated" from other musicians, such that: "The only person he's got to tell him if the song's good or bad is Linda." In a December 1970 interview with Rolling Stone editor Jann Wenner, which was re-published the following year as the book Lennon Remembers, Lennon dismissed McCartney as "rubbish" and "Engelbert Humperdinck music"; he said that his primal therapy-inspired album John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band would "probably scare [McCartney] into doing something decent". Lennon rejected Wenner's interpretation of the back cover portrait as a possible reference to Ono's recent miscarriage; instead, he read it as an example of the McCartneys slavishly following his and Ono's lead by releasing a family-oriented album. McCartney was followed by two sequels, McCartney II (released in 1980), and McCartney III (released in December 2020), both sharing the same recording technique as this album. Critical reception Contemporary reviews On release, McCartney was widely criticised for being under-produced and for its unfinished songs. In addition, according to Nicholas Schaffner in his 1977 book The Beatles Forever, McCartney's attempt to use the Beatles' break-up to promote his solo album, while presenting himself as a happy family man, "apparently backfired", since "many observers found the whole thing contrived, tasteless, and rather vicious." Madinger and Easter write of the album receiving a "critical lambasting" and that the "general sentiment" among reviewers was "something to the effect of 'He broke up the Beatles for this?!?'" Richard Williams of Melody Maker suggested that "With this record, [McCartney's] debt to George Martin becomes increasingly clear ..." Williams found "sheer banality" in all the tracks save for "Maybe I'm Amazed" and described "Man We Was Lonely" as "the worst example of his music-hall side". 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."