Concord Music Group gets Paul McCartney Back Catalogue

ABSOLUTELY!

I would love to hear a "Volume 2" of this endeavor as well.

C

 

Well...it looks as though this is one of the few ways the recording industry found to keep going. The deluxe stuff and the remastering thing create a kind of buzz to hardcore fans and newbies. And there's always the alternative of saying no to the discs a let them collect dust in the shelves.

 

fwiw, the pre-show music for Paul's current tour featured a number of Twin Freaks-like mashups that were not on the previous release. It seemed like the new numbers were predominantly Beatle-Paul numbers getting the treatment (which I assume would make a release of it far less likely), but perhaps the material will be "out there", if it isn't already...

 

One thing that certainly will be worth is the repackaging thing. You know, how come we haven't got decent booklets for McCartney, Ram and Wildlfe? They belong to an era when Linda was documenting every step of Paul and the kids. It's not as if she stopped along the way. But there are beautiful photos from these early years that I'm looking forward to get on the new CDs. Plus, there will be lyrics, hopefully, on every album. Some of Paul's albums have no lyrics attached at all: McCartney, Ram, Wildlife, Wings At Speed Of Sound and Back To The Egg. Almost forgetting: Electric Arguments as well.

 

I wish Concord well. This could be great news.

Buried in the WSJ coverage was this information:

1. Macca has sold 9.4 million since 1991, including 357,000 last year.

2. The Beatles remasters sold 13 million units globally.

Big numbers in this day and age.

 

I apologize in advance for harshing the buzz in the thread, but I'm looking forward to seeing what Concord does with the Macca catalog. This is fascinating news and I hope they do it right and include all the great tracks that have been mentioned here. And I won't give it another thought until they're released. Fresh air, boys, fresh air!

 

Just for the pleasure to share,here is a gift for all the mccartney fans, long live to WINGS

<link deleted>

 

I expect to be in a minority of one here but I'd really love to hear the original versions of Party Party and Good Sign. Both tracks were remixed for release and the originals have never been heard. An extract of a Party Party rehearsal appeared on the Put It There doco and was very enjoyable indeed. And it sounded very much like it was what formed the basis for the awful "dance" mix(es) that eventually got foisted on us.

I've said it in a previous thread but I'll say it again here: I believe issueing each album as a two-disc set with an entire CD of out-takes, live recordings, demos, B sides is a FAR better option than merely remastering what we already have and issuing 4-disc boxed sets.

 

Faaaaaaaaaaantastic !!!

Thanks Etcetera

 

How about a Ram special edition? Maybe ship it in a metal box, with various outtakes, a DVD-A and some prints? Charge a premium price and make it a limited edition. The fans will love it.

 

If you were writing press for Concord how would you describe the album? "McCartney's mostly-forgotten, often ridiculed, easy-listening album that is really just okay, but has nevertheless developed a very small cult following among Sir Paul's most obsessive fans."

As press release hyperbole goes, I would say calling Thrillington "highly regarded" ranks pretty low on the Pinocchio-meter. It is highly regarded by some music fans and critics. (Calling Broad Street a "landmark" album is another matter--although no doubt someone will chime in and say they always regarded it as a landmark).

I'm not a list-making/rank your favorite albums kind of guy, but I'd say it's among my four or five favorite post-Beatles McCartney projects. Offhand, I'd say I like his first two solo albums, Band On The Run and Chaos & Creation better. Actually, I'm not even sure about that. I find most of Paul's post-Beatle albums rather spotty and in need of editing, and Thrillington is one of the few that I can listen to the whole way without wanting to hit "skip" or lifting the needle. That's just me though. I would not go so far as to say the album is "WIDELY" highly-regarded, but then the press release doesn't either.

 

What about the outtakes boxed-set?

 

Dunno. Haven't heard a peep on that one in awhile. Should still be on the table though. But you never know with Macca. Might've pushed it back since the catalog is coming out now instead of later.

 

Hear, hear!

 

I'd like to see the albums come out like this: with bonus tracks of officially released b-sides and singles and viable outtakes (the kind previously palnned for "Cold Cuts" album) that were recorded during the sessions of each respective album. For one-off recordings not associated with any particular album, I'd like to see them separately released in a rarities collection. Also, a set of previously unreleased live recordings would be OK, but we've probably had enough live stuff released on concert DVDs and CDs over the years. They could all be housed in one box, ala Genesis.

 

I bet you the first thing out will be a greatest hits comp sort of thing.

 

Actually, I DO think it was a landmark album. Remember that up until only a handful of years earlier you couldn't even get McCartney to TALK about the Beatles let alone contemplate revisiting that material.

To hear solo versions of songs he'd apparently forgotten all about was, at the time, as remarkable as hearing him perform 1985 and Letting Go now.

Whether he did a good of those re-recordings is another matter but, yes certainly, I think Broad Street WAS a landmark.

 

I wonder how these remasters will sound compared to those nice U.K. remasters from a few years ago?

 

Fair enough. Landmark has many possible connotations, and I think you make a good case that enough of them apply to the album that it is a fair description.

 

The thing I liked about the album were the new songs on it. They were really great, though there were only three of them. The re-recordings weren't so bad mostly, but unnecessary and not an improvement or even very interesting as re-interpretations. Long and Winding Road might be the exception. That had a different feel from the original, certainly, but it was reborn as gag-worthy lounge schmalz - worse even than Phil Spector's butchering job which McCartney had complained about.

Landmark perhaps in that he dared to touch the sacred canon of the Beatles songbook. But I think the album was an incoherent mismatch of song selections long past and recent.

 

As long as there would be a regular CD, i.e., not just DVD-A, I'd buy it.

 

I'm not excited yet, but curious how it all will work out! Will there be vinyl? Decent remasters? Decent packaging? (Why another Band on the Run by the way; why not started with his first solo-album?) How many outtakes per album will there be?

 

Absolutely agree. I certainly don't think the album is as bad as it's been painted (I think much of the mud from the film also stuck to the album) but I do think it's important to remember what it was like being a McCartney fan in 1984 and wondering if he'd ever even discuss some of those oldies again, let alone PLAY them.

 

I am really excited to get these!