For me both McCartney and Wild Life are sort of 'Indy' albums with an almost anything goes attitude and better for it. I also feel the same about the White Album and I hold all three albums in great esteem. Paul can be as polished as anyone in his other stuff and pull this off as well. Genius.
And paid a fortune for the George vinyl box which I have not pulled the trigger on yet. It is a hefty tag for strictly a "collector piece" for me and will never be played......
I ordered the TOW and POP deluxe packages through Amazon.Ca (remember that deal?) and then Bullmoose. The box sets I received from both vendors and some big dents in the outside. I ended up sending them back a number of times to try to get unblemished sets. Bullmoose was helpful but I never did get an unblemished Pipes of Peace and I gave up. Maybe I was being nitpick but I'm paying a lot of money for this kind of thing. I'd like it come in pristine condition. Anyway, when all is said and done, it took about a month and half from release date for me to actually listen to them. That being said, I'm just going through Amazon US from now on. If there's a problem with the product, they rectify it quickly and I have a replacement in my hands within the next day or two. It's hassle free. I can usually get a better price shopping with my points, too. Right now I'm spending $68 to get the Flowers set. For what it's worth.
In an old thread where we were rating Paul's solo albums, I joked that "Motor Of Love" would be a classic -- if only it weren't for the lyrics, the performance and the production! Seriously, though, I think there's a nugget of a great song there -- he mostly needed better lyrics and the production needed to be dialed back a bit. Musically, it's a very nice Beach Boys pastiche in parts and I find it far more interesting to listen to than "Dear Friend" (not to draw parallels that aren't there). I absolutely love the bridge of "Motor Of Love" ("There was a time, when I was down...") -- if the whole song had that sense of purpose, I'd like it a whole lot more.
Hefty, yes, but put it in context. It's 30% less than amazon's price and each disc in the set comes out to just over $18 - that's actually fairly reasonable for vinyl in 2017.
When critics bashed McCartney for being rough and unfinished, he went for the full "Abbey Road Revisited" experience on Ram -- and the critics said THAT was overblown turd-polishing. So he went back the other way with the rough-and-tumble Wild Life -- but maybe too far the other way! It lacked the homespun charm of McCartney, and some of the lyrics made you wish they were instrumentals! He didn't really start to right himself in the public's eyes (and ears) until RRS and "Live And Let Die"; part of the reason Band On The Run is so beloved (despite arguably not having aged as well as some other albums) is because the road to redemption was SO long getting from 1970-1973.
Yeah, Venus & Mars sounds terrible. The first time I heard the "Letting Go" single mix - which sounds GREAT - it just about killed me as it was a window into what that album could have sounded like. Oh well.
Requesting permission to like them both. Dear Friend works much better if you think of it as more of a "meditation" or "rumination" or "piece" than as a song. To me, it's a guy, sitting in a room, contemplating something - yes the same set of thoughts over and over as someone ruminating on something would often do, running it over his mind from different angles, trying to make sense of it. I think it captures the deep pain and insecurity he felt about that relationship at that time. I completely understand why someone would not like it or think it's boring or over-long, though. Had I not discovered it at the time I had, I'd have likely felt the same. But, for some reason, it came to me at the right time for me to accept it in the manner in which (I think) it was produced. That is to say it hit me in the right way at the right time for it to mean something to me. Granted, he could produce something very similar today and it could hit me in completely the opposite way and I'd wind up hating it. Music is very personal that way.
The recent remaster cleans up some of the sludge in the mix but clarity is still lacking for a great album (IMHO).
I think "Motor of Love" is OK. I don't dislike it but it's sort of a "nice try, maybe tried too hard category" to my ears but I have always loved "Dear Friend". Talk about Paul opening up and exposing real emotion and anger at the same time. He's not thumbs up Paul in "Dear Friend". He let's some non public relations Paul out of the spotlight and let's some at home by himself Paul sneak through. I agree with Frank that I can see if others think it's too long, but because I love it I don't mind the same thing cycling around a few times. It was the standout highlight for me when Wildlife was released originally and the album is still one of my favorites, so i'm aware I'm swimming again the forum tide here. By the way, I wrote this post before I actually read Franks post. I just saw him responding to Sean about "Dear Friend" and added him to the multi quote. When I actually read his post I had to amend my post, because it's spooky how we had almost the exact same defense and ideas about the song. Maybe I can just let Frank respond to posts for me in the future and I'll just kick back.
I'd disagree with that assessment completely. Paul's sound changed with The Beatles: George Martin quit, and suddenly there wasn't that overarching demand to perfect each song for the album on every single level. There's also no control valve for the top pop songs only, which is why it stands out most — a George Martin version of The White Album would likely drop half the songs as not finished or try to medley them into others for bigger production. With good reception of The Beatles, Paul helped turn the Beatles' attention to another area they could work without control: the stage. Get Back was about being out of the studio… and George Martin's hands. When you listen to multitude of outtakes, you see a very different approach than the years under Martin — titles are worked on and then dropped as they feel like it, and jam sessions/noodling becomes just as valuable. Although the project is basically abandoned after the rooftop show, with minor work done afterward, it's become easy to see – thanks to Let It Be… Naked, Anthology and bootlegs — that Paul was right in saying the polish that Phil Spector put on didn't belong. However, The Beatles were breaking apart and Paul needed someone to force them to behave. He calls in George Martin and the result is another polished album, Abbey Road. McCartney contrasts that. It's not mostly done in studio, it's mostly done at home. It's not focused recordings, a lot of it seems at the whim. It's Paul's statement that he's free of The Beatles and really enjoying just playing music. EMI certainly felt it was valuable because — unlike Lennon and Harrison's first forays — it thought there could be a single and traditional promotion for the record. Critics certainly didn't know what to do about it either: it's likeable, but not great. Then, in 1971, Paul is mired in a lawsuit against The Beatles. He's accused of losing it, since McCartney is not on the same level and he's pushing away his bandmates. Ram is the album that proves once and for all he can do it himself, from a strong lead single [outside the UK] to the overall flow of the album. "Another Day" and "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" make him the first ex-Beatle to score two, and two sequential, hit singles. But he misses a band. He wants people to play with… to feel that camaraderie. In early interviews, he refers to Denny Laine as a mate of his, not a musician he's interested in playing with. Wild Life is a brand new band making a statement, with a good producer — and not enough material. He records it in a week without the back catalogue of songs, and the album's roughness leads not only to poor reviews but poor sales as a result. So what does Paul do? He spends 1972 working on the band. The university tour gives them some gig experience. The singles let him hone his craft with them one or two songs at a time. The European tour gets better, and he now has built up a repertoire of songs to consider. Red Rose Speedway was originally conceived as a double because he has all those songs, but a combination of factors — dissatisfaction with some not being finished off so easily, experience with others' recording projects, the material itself — leads him to hone it to a single. "My Love" is the shining star, and another hit. "Live And Let Die" caps that new sound with George Martin on production. Martin, for the first time, can't really get Paul to improve on it because the song is just that good. Paul, however, has now spent five years launching albums with an idea spark. Sgt. Pepper was The Beatles not being The Beatles; The Beatles was The Beatles recharged from India; Get Back was the Beatles going back to touring; etc. He decides to try something exotic and moves to Lagos for his next project, Band On The Run. That's a huge success because of the songs and the pressure he felt to perfect them. Yet it's not perfect. The 1974 recordings show something is missing. Venus And Mars and Speed Of Sound really perfect the band sound of Wings, and Wings Over America captures it on stage. London Town and Back To The Egg don't show that same amount of success — the new sound only works so-so — and so he turns back to George Martin (after being forced to release an album of home experiments). Martin's Tug Of War perfects the songs but gets rid of the one factor that wanted to keep the live energy going, Denny Laine. And so on. As for how this leads to Flowers In The Dirt: Flowers was clearly Paul's attempt to fix what failed before. He got a better co-writer, better producers (who would shake things up), and spent more time liking the songs.
Agree with this all except this. When was Paul 'forced' to release McCartney II? You make it sound as though it was done against his own free will! Also, let's not forgot Paul briefly reunited with GM before Live and Let Die - for the arrangements on a handful of RAM's (best) tracks.
I think "McCartney II" is one of those albums you can release because you are Paul McCartney. You don't tell him how to make music. It's a 'happy accident'. I love the album.
I'll be reviewing the FITD set for Paste. I can't really say much about the set itself as reviews are embargoed until closer to release date. I received the deluxe set (which surprised me) as a promo yesterday. Back when these were being released on Concord, I would only get the "special" promo versions which were 2 CDs and a DVD (so they were essentially a hybrid of the 2CD and Deluxe editions). It is rather hefty as it comes all the booklets come encased as opposed to a book form (such as BOTR). It's more like a smaller version of the WOA set. The colors on the screenprint on the case itself are very vivrant! As for the Coming Soon card, nothing new is listed on it. On one side is an "Also Available" showing the other 9 titles. On the back, it says something along the lines of Visit PaulMcCartney.com for forthcoming titles. I was hoping to see RRS on the Coming Soon card. Time will tell...
Nice info. I have a question about the Coming Soon card: Does it say that the previous Archive sets are available on CAPITOL? Or does it not state any label? I'm curious to see how the old Concord sets are now being handled.
One side: "Other titles available in the Paul McCartney Archive Collection"... then it shows pics of the other 9 from the series. (No further words or logos) Other side: (Top 60% or so is black and empty space) "For more information on forthcoming releases in the Paul McCartney Archive Collection please visit: www.paulmccartney.com" After that, it has "copyright 2017 MPL Communications Inc/Ltd under exclusive license to Universal Music Enterprises, a division of UMG Recordings, Inc." Below that it has logos of MPL and Capitol.
You have just crushed the souls of countless McCartney fans who have awaited the new "Coming Soon" card for the last 18 months. I hope that you're proud of yourself! Chip Madinger www.lennonology.com
You have Linda to thank for that bit of "humor". It still didn't sit well with Seiwell when we spoke about it back in'97.
Hmmm. I guess we need someone to order an old Archive set (after Flowers In The Dirt comes out, though) and then see if the label is Concord or Capitol. Any volunteers?
