Paul McCartney Archive Collection - Flowers In The Dirt*

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Sean Murdock, Sep 18, 2015.

  1. Lewisboogie

    Lewisboogie “Bob Robert”

    Thanks for that. Now, will we get "Motor of Love" before the release?
     
  2. scotty j.

    scotty j. Forum Resident

    Location:
    Columbia, MO, US
    I think you really hit the nail on the head here. The shadow of John Lennon's martyrdom loomed large over Paul McCartney during the 1980's and well into the 1990's. Paul was deemed irrelevant simply because he wasn't John Lennon and his music was being being evaluated solely on those terms. That's the endless feedback loop of the media, too: John was the artist, Paul was the vacuous establishment. Yes, Paul's choices between 1983 and 1985 probably didn't help that impression. At the same time, my impression this kind of comparison was a burden placed on Paul that he really struggled with and didn't fully overcome until the 2000's. I think the media also eased up after George Harrison's death. That and time... the hurt and heartbreak of John's murder wasn't so palpable any longer, and thus, less of a felt need to continue to prop John up as a the saint.
     
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  3. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Thanks! But, again, I'm having a problem with the math equation that I must solve (for s):

    [​IMG]

    Anyone?

    ;)
     
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  4. Wingsfan2012

    Wingsfan2012 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Junior's Farm, IL
    Good morning all, just a few days away......now that Amazon US in the past few years has become the biggest seller of physical music/movie product in the US, a quick glance at their charts...

    #23- The "Flowers" 2 CD version at $13.99 (Arnie it went back down....)
    #64- The "Flowers" Deluxe box set holding steady at $117.99
    #84- Abbey Road vinyl edition- Those kids buying up that album on vinyl continues..............
     
  5. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Crazy, just crazy: from $13.99 to $17.10 (or whatever it was), and back and forth. But never any price in-between, like $14.75 or $16.05. Why? ;)
     
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  6. Eska68

    Eska68 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Mainz, Germany
    You're wrong, unfortunately. The download is for "This One", not for "π.σ. Love Me Do" :)
     
  7. Wingsfan2012

    Wingsfan2012 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Junior's Farm, IL
    "Ours is not to wonder why".......

    "Oh Woman Oh Why"???
     
  8. mindgames

    mindgames Forum Resident

    Location:
    -
    A 16,2 MB file for a 128 kbps mp3 because of the 2953px high quality artwork included... Sigh...
     
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  9. daveidmarx

    daveidmarx Forem Residunt

    Location:
    Astoria, NY USA
    Well, this is in line with the value Paul places on including photos over music in his Archive releases.
     
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  10. mindgames

    mindgames Forum Resident

    Location:
    -


    There won't be much benefit from a higher bitrate for this track, big gaps in the frequency range, but here is the YouTube upload.

    Paul McCartney: Lead Vocal, Harmony vocals, Piano, Emulator 2, Bass Drum, Linn Drum
    Recorded and mixed by Eddie Klein at Hog Hill Mill, East Sussex, 29th December 1986
     
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  11. Claudio Dirani

    Claudio Dirani A Fly On Apple's Wall

    Location:
    São Paulo, Brazil
    The demo thing seems to be a regular mistake on those releases. Check it out: George Harrison's Vol 1 of outtakes categorized several outtakes as demos. Confusing.
     
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  12. Claudio Dirani

    Claudio Dirani A Fly On Apple's Wall

    Location:
    São Paulo, Brazil

    It should have been included as a bonus track. The early Rough Ride and Figure of Eight, as well. Can't get the reason those tracks have been ignored. So far, only Distractions (demo) covers the non-Costello sessions for FITD.
     
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  13. Arnold Grove

    Arnold Grove Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    "Demo" derives from "demonstration" (as in "demonstration disc"). So I guess any version of a song could be considered as a "demonstration" of how the song COULD have sounded.

    Or maybe they just don't like the words "Alternate take" or "Outtake".
     
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  14. Sean Murdock

    Sean Murdock Forum Intruder Thread Starter

    Location:
    Bergenfield, NJ
    It's a nice demo; I'd love to hear a "band demo" from the sessions, before it got overcooked.
     
  15. DeeThomaz

    DeeThomaz Senior Member

    Location:
    In The Felony Room
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  16. milo

    milo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Yeah, I generally agree with this. I was the only high school kid I knew that was a Paul McCartney fan, heck I even got the DJ to play my Spies Like Us 45 at the school dance. But looking back I think after losing John the dream was over for the general public, and interest in the other Beatles waned.
     
  17. mindgames

    mindgames Forum Resident

    Location:
    -
    Higher bitrate through YouTube and re-EQ-ed, major upgrade if you ask me: MEGA

    Do we need to do everything ourselves :p?
     
  18. Marry a Carrot

    Marry a Carrot Interesting blues gets a convincing reading.

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Ringo doesn't get enough credit for writing the first draft of these lyrics in "You're Sixteen."
     
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  19. Frank

    Frank Senior Member

    This One Demo - Nice to have officially (it's been "out there" in full for a while), but I like the released version better.

    At least they deleted the "Track Number" from the meta-data this time. :D

    Full Motor of Love demo, please.
     
  20. DeeThomaz

    DeeThomaz Senior Member

    Location:
    In The Felony Room
    "Demo" is one of those words that different artists mean very different things when they use it. Some reserve it for lo-fi solo recordings, others seems to extend the term to elaborately produced studio outtakes. Ultimately, it's just semantics.

    Then there's the case of Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska, in which the "demos" became the album after the later studio sessions proved unsatisfactory. The recordings themselves didn't change (aside from whatever tweaks were done in the mastering), just how they were labeled.

    Even on this set, the "Geoff Emerick Mix" of "The Lovers That Never Were" suggests there may have been an attempt to turn the original demo into a master track after the studio sessions couldn't match the soaring quality of Paul's original vocal (I'm clearly speculating here).
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2017
  21. Brian from Canada

    Brian from Canada Forum Resident

    Location:
    Great White North
    I am not defending the film in any way — just the album. For some reason, when it comes to Broadstreet, there is an automatic assumption that the film was the only thing worth noting… when the album actually did far better than the film in terms of audiences. (As I noted above, the way Fox handled the film was horrible — beaten only by the handling of Clue in its theatrical release.)

    My high school friends all bought "Spies Like Us" on 7", so it wasn't universally disliked.

    Press To Play
    is — for me at least — the album version of the Broadstreet film: EMI must have been pushing for a release, because not only did "Press" have lyrics that were unfinished, there was even an error pressing because the mixing was improved after the album was submitted for production. "Pretty Little Head" was booed by fans for its selection as a follow-up single, but in North America it was "Stranglehold," which was actually worse… it's a basic melody that doesn't go anywhere interesting, nor do the vocals do anything either. I also think Paul did a gross mis-step with the side numbering, since the album opens stronger with "Press" and closes better with "Only Love Remains."

    But it still showed Paul was trying, and better than some others. (Compared to Bowie's Tonight, which I bought around the same time, and Clapton's Behind The Sun, Press To Play is absolute gold.) It wasn't what was hot at the time — and that blame can be split between the producers not realizing how music was shifting right at that moment, and Paul himself for still transitioning out of the "must-be-perfect" attitude that George Martin had instilled in him the previous years.

    I know some people find that criticism of Martin harsh, but when I hear the Rude Studio demos of "Sweetest Little Show," "Average Person" and "Keep Under Cover" — not to mention hearing "Tug Of Peace" — it's clear that Paul lost his energy for those recordings. Broadstreet sticks to the softer ballads for much of the record, and every book I've read on the period says that the best stuff was the live jamming that happened between takes because the band could actually rip it up.

    And I can hear that on Press To Play. "Stranglehold" could fit on Pipes Of Peace fairly well, as could "Tough On A Tightrope." But in between, we have an older side of Paul fighting to get out, and it shines on tracks like "Good Times Coming/Feel The Sun" (but more son on the full, unreleased version), "Footprints," "Pretty Little Head," "Move Over Busker," "Angry" (though I think the single mix is stronger), as well as "It's Not True" (which is better on single) and even "Only Love Remains" (which sounds better with the sax part). Because that failed, he dumped the Pepperland project and retrenched with a better co-writer to try and make the songs better at the basic level, which he admits to early on in Put It There when talking about Flowers In The Dirt: even he was dissatisfied with "Stranglehold" by the time he had to go and plug it in America.

    I dislike "Freedom" as well — and it had lost its shine by the time Driving USA hit my local American city, Toronto. But the "helping America heal" narrative does not come from Paul, it comes from the press which was trying to sell Paul McCartney as someone relevant again. And that's what I responding to most: as much as there are people who complain about his inability to get hits and stay relevant, there is a bigger narrative that is missing from the conversation and that is what was going on around Paul at the time.

    McCartney headlined the Concert For New York, and his performance of "Freedom" at the Super Bowl was superior to U2's in the way it was looked at. That played in to the response and discussion of Driving Rain and the tour which followed, as did his performance at the palace to the tour that followed that. Since then, every hit record — or activity of note — is focused on him doing something different but still having that classic Macca magic… which has not been sustained beyond a single release for very long, explaining the fluctuation in his popularity.
     
  22. Paul H

    Paul H The fool on the hill

    Location:
    Nottingham, UK
    That's an interesting perspective on the back of concerns that were aired earlier in the decade about McCartney being seen as a Has-Been riding on the coat-tails of younger artists. I wonder if that played on his mind when he made the decision to ditch the joint approach or whether it was purely an artistic decision based on his desire for more production.
     
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  23. Thrillington

    Thrillington McCartney Scholar

    Location:
    Cardiff, Wales, UK
  24. DeeThomaz

    DeeThomaz Senior Member

    Location:
    In The Felony Room
    Quite likely. I'd guess the Washington Post article. But I'd love to know for sure.
     
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2017
  25. daveidmarx

    daveidmarx Forem Residunt

    Location:
    Astoria, NY USA
    Any chance you can work your magic on Distractions? :)
     
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