Compile a Paul McCartney compilation.

There is no way that I could do a best of solo McCartney is one disc. The man has written and recorded way too many great songs since 1970. I don't know how many great albums he has made but every record that he has put out has had something great on it except for Wild Life. I am sorry but I simply can't stand that record. I have never gotten it. That comment however is coming from someone who thinks that McCartney II is a masterpiece! Here is my top 33-38 songs.
1) Another Day
2) Uncle Albert
3) Give Ireland Back to the Irish
4) My Love
5) Helen Wheels
6) Band On the Run
7) Jet
8) Junior's Farm
9) Listen to What the Man Said
10) Silly Love Songs
11) Let Em In
12) Maybe I'm Amazed From Wings over America
13) I've Had Enough
14) Getting Closer
15) Old Siam Sir
16) Coming Up From McCartney
17) Tug Of War
18) So Bad From Give My Regards to BroadStreet
19) No More Lonely Nights
20) Spies Like Us
21) Press
22) Once Upon A Long Ago
23) Don't Get Around Much Anymore
24) My Brave Face
25) Put It There
26) Hope of Deliverance
27) The World Tonight
28) Young Boy
29) I Got Stung
30) From A Lover to a Friend
31) Jenny Wren
32) Dance Tonight
33) Ever Present Past
and if there is room, 1985, Nobody Knows, Big Barn Bed and Lonely Road

 

To me, it's not even close -- latest 4.

McCartney is very charming and unpretentious, but half the songs are just sketches. Ram is musically brilliant, but has some god-awful lyrics. Wild Life is pretty darn BAD, despite my personal soft spot for a few tracks. Red Rose is strong, well-crafted, and well-performed -- but some of the songs are pretty slight.

The weakest of the latest 4 is Driving Rain, but it's a victim of CD-era sequencing; if it was trimmed down to its best 40 minutes, it would easily be better than Wild Life. In fact, the best of Driving Rain ("About You," "Back In The Sunshine," "Lonely Road," "Rinse The Raindrops") has all the looseness and ragged excitement that he tried to capture on Wild Life, but the songs just weren't there. Flaming Pie is as well-crafted as Red Rose, but with better songs overall. Memory Almost Full is as adventurous as Ram, but with MUCH better lyrics. Chaos & Creation is mostly self-played like McCartney, but instead of two classics and some nice filler, you get five classics (by my count) and all the others are very good or decent.

If these last 4 albums had been released in the 1970s, they would have sold millions and he would have actually built his tours around THEM rather than Beatles oldies; if that had happened, thirty years on we'd be waxing nostalgic about how great they were.

 

Well put, though I disagree a little bit in terms of Ram's lyrics. Apart from one or two songs, I think they are very interesting and thought-provoking.
Imo, Driving Rain got jammed up. Too many songs on an album - including the trashy Freedom, and another bunch of them were trite leftovers. As for Chaos, Pie and MAF, wow, what a trio.

 

Here's the rock the house McCartney compilation, also a bunch of songs he should be performing live.

I've Had Enough
The Mess
Getting Closer
Coming Up
Jet
Cafe On The Left Bank
Big Barn Bed
What It Is
Smile Away
Rockshow
Rockestra Theme
Only Mama Knows
Juniors Farm
Girlschool
Hi Hi Hi

This is the kind of comp I would want to see.

 

I generally love the lyrics of "Ram" too, although "Smile Away" kind of makes me cringe.

Paul loosened up a bit and played around on that album while still remaining interesting and engaging.

I'd gladly take any lyric on "Ram" over "hold-a me tight...hug-a me right...treat-a me right...huga-me right...hold-a me tight...ight ight ight..."

 

Excellent point; that particular gem from RRS escaped me when I was making the comparison!

 

Just a 1-cd set from me:

1. Maybe I'm Amazed
2. Junk
3. Oo You
4. Uncle Albert
5. Monkberry Moon Delight
6. Ram On
7. Back Seat Of My Car
8. Mumbo
9. Dear Friend
10. Power Cut
11. No Words
12. You Gave Me The Answer
13. Put It There
14. Return To Pepperland
15. Once Upon A Long Ago
16. My Brave Face
17. World Tonight
18. Little Willow
19. Flaming Pie
20. Vanilla Sky
21. How Kind Of You
22. That Was Me
23. 222
24. Ever Present Past

 

Hi everyone,

Thought I’d resurrect this thread with a slightly different twist. I don’t think too many artists could really fill a 3 disc compilation, but I agree with a couple of previous posters that McCartney certainly could. In terms of structure, I loved the concept behind the 3 disc Bowie compilation ‘Nothing Has Changed’ – it goes in reverse chronology, foregrounding more recent stuff that most casual fans might skip over in favour of better known ‘classics’.

So I’ve been playing around with a similar collection for Paul and thus is what I’ve come up with. I needed to mess around a bit in itunes to get everything to fit on disc 1 and 3 (e.g. by lopping a few seconds of silence off the end of each track). The only self-imposed rule was no more than 3 tracks per album, not including non-album single cuts from the same era. Anyway, here it is:

Paul McCartney: ‘Someday – The Collection’

Disc 1:
1. Save Us
2. New
3. Early Days
4. My Valentine
5. Sing the Changes
6. Ever Present Past
7. Dance Tonight
8. Fine Line
9. Riding to Vanity Fair
10. Driving Rain
11. I Do
12. Run Devil Run
13. Flaming Pie
14. Calico Skies
15. Young Boy
16. Mistress & Maid
17. Hope of Deliverance
18. This One
19. Put It There
20. My Brave Face
21. Back on My Feet
22. Press
23. However Absurd

Disc 2:
1. No More Lonely Nights
2. Say Say Say
3. Pipes of Peace
4. Take It Away
5. Here Today
6. Tug of War
7. Temporary Secretary
8. Coming Up
9. Waterfalls
10. Getting Closer
11. Goodnight Tonight
12. Daytime Nighttime Suffering
13. With a Little Luck
14. I’m Carrying
15. Mull of Kintyre
16. Girls’ School
17. Let ‘Em In
18. Silly Love Songs
19. Beware My Love

Disc 3:
1. Listen to What the Man Said
2. Love in Song
3. Call Me Back Again
4. Junior’s Farm (DJ Edit)
5. Jet
6. Let Me Roll It
7. Band on the Run
8. Live and Let Die
9. My Love
10. Get on the Right Thing
11. Hi Hi Hi
12. C Moon
13. Dear Friend
14. Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
15. The Back Seat of My Car
16. Another Day
17. Oh Woman Oh Why
18. Every Night
19. Junk
20. Maybe I’m Amazed

 

Really nice comp.

 

Cheers!

 

Once Upon A Long Ago

1. Maybe I’m Amazed

2. Another Day

3. Uncle Albert(Admiral Halsey

4. My Love

5. Live and Let Die

6. C Moon

7. Band on the Run

8. Letting Go

9. Silly Love Songs

10. London Town

11. Mull of Kintyre

12. Coming Up

13. Wanderlust

14. Say Say Say

15. No More Lonely Nights

16. Once Upon a Long Ago

17. Pretty Little Head

18. My Brave Face

19. This One

20. No Other Baby

 

I think Paul needs to have separately available comps marketed as a complementary pair: one for the 70s material and one or two for what came after.

The issue is partly a stylistic one (the 70s sound different! also: songs created in group settings have a different vibe!), but also a listener-oriented split between
(a) Paul's years of radio dominance (and so of present-day nostalgia appeal for those who were there or for those who listen today to classic rock radio) and
(b or b/c) subsequent years where people need to be reminded that Paul made some songs they probably like and remember and a whole slew of fine songs that they've mostly never heard before but that still feel like "Paul songs".
No, I don't know how to define what "Paul songs" means. My point is that a "McCartney" comp arouses certain expectations among the uninitiated who might think of buying it and who might respond positively to it -- and a successful comp needs to deal with those expectations, either by meeting them, or by bending them carefully in other directions. If you split this second 1980-and-after comp further, you might split it around the mid 1990s, i.e., between when Paul felt he had some hope for radio success (and composed accordingly) and thereafter, when his sound became more distinctly set-apart from mass-audience aspirations.

The great challenge of a Paul comp is the rather terrifying variety of his musical productions: so many decades, so many styles... it's hard to create a coherent whole out of them unless you either narrow them ruthlessly for coherence or unless you zoom back out and include so many that variety itself emerges as one of Paul's characteristic traits and strengths.

 

PAUL MCCARTNEY: MANY YEARS AGO TODAY
CD 1:
1. Maybe I'm Amazed
2. Every Night
3. Another Day
4. Too Many People
5. Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
6. Back Seat Of My Car
7. Tomorrow
8. My Love
9. Little Lamb Dragonfly
10. Live And Let Die
11. Band On The Run
12. Jet
13. 1985
14. Junior's Farm
15. Venus And Mars/Rock Show
16. You Gave Me The Answer
17. Silly Love Songs
18. Warm And Beautiful
19. Mull Of Kintyre
20. I'm Carrying
21. Don't Let It Bring You Down
22. Baby's Request
23. Daytime Nighttime Suffering
24. Comin Up (Live)
25. One Of These Days

CD-2
1. Tug Of War
2. Take it Away
3. Wanderlust
4. Ebony And Ivory
5. Pipes Of Peace
6. Through Our Love
7. No More Lonely Nights
8. Only Love Remains
9. My Brave Face
10. This One
11. Put It There
12. Hope Of Deliverance
13. Some Days
14. Calico Skies
15. Little Willow
16. Brown Eyed Handsome Man
17. Lonely Road
18. Too Much Rain
19. Jenny Wren
20. Ever Present Past
21. That Was Me
22. The End Of The End
23. My Valentine
24. New
25. Early Days

 

Is there any currently in print version of Spies like us available?

Is there a digital version of "Spies Like Us" currently in print?

 

It's not quite what your suggesting, but again I wonder whether the Bowie model might work well for Paul. 'Nothing has Changed' came out in 3 versions - 1 disc, 2 disc & 3 discs.

The 1 disc & 2 disc versions catered to the casual fan by focusing more on Bowie's 'classic' chart-bothering era, while the 3 disc version gave a more comprehensive (and much more interesting) career overview.

That 3 disc Bowie comp totally opened up his later work for me, which I'd previously pretty much ignored. A similar comp for Paul could pull the same trick for those who haven't really engaged with his great post 80s output.