I have found ...lots of even older folks and younger folks who think this..and think Macca’s seventies wings stuff is bad..
I had thought it was heroin though knew he was rehabbing then because he looked like he was about to fall over but a SHF who kept up with him then said..he was drunk on that tour, still played well..but seventies had those very ..long guitar hero solos. Yes, trust me a a disco club gal occasionally, disco slayed...loved the clothes, the shoes and saw no conflict with loving it along with seventies rock and pop....great r n b and funk then too. My decade.. Regardless of our disagreements some here on some Macca related things...you live in a cool, beautiful country and it was..cool you eventually saw Clapton and we’re all Macca fans here, live music, and live some Macca music though generationally different Macca music and albums ....yes, I read way back that Toronto got the great tour stops....I did visit and love Toronto...the cleanest country... You always write long, thought out posts but don’t agree with some of your ideas ...two of the the eighties Martin albums failed ...FP is a very traditional Macca album that most of his mainly traditional mainstream music loving fans liked. I myself as an outlier fan like his quirky and underdog albums.. no question MII showed Paul liked TH group, a great concert I saw, great group. Egg/singles my fav album with MII/singles close behind.... It was Anthology that did the most to raise his status..and the DR era motivated him to do steady big tours which raised his status with the public and which he continued to do till the pandemic. Goodnight tonight and egg, pseudo? That “we “weren’t rushing to buy? Blasphemy I say...This “we” was, working in a remote area away from record stores, found it visiting parents in the big city of my state...nothing pseudo about goodnight tonight, purrfect disco online dude does a great version of it..The song stomped the disco pop SLS done in 76. .....egg was more power pop than punk...though to you is sung in a punk style. I was so broke in my first low paid though sailed job in79 job that bought egg used in a record store ...I searched everywhere for those great 12 inch egg singles...killing stuff and killing b sides,
You are absolutely correct. “Dominoes” is among those McCartney solo tracks that stand with the best work of his career.
If all solo McCartney had..the Beatles pixie dust on them..even his quirky songs would be called pop rock classics...
This was an ace piece of detective work. I've gone back to the Con Funk Shun track, and you're absolutely correct - that's the basis for the Beck remix. Here's the thing, this connection makes me like the Beck remix a whole bunch more than I did. I thought that if that's the track he built, it was subpar Beck. Somehow now knowing that this was a sample and his collage skills - and not his compositional skills were in play, I perceive the product differently. We know Beck added a crucial bass part with his Hofner and some vocals.
Thank you so much for checking my theory out and for confirming my suspicions. I have to tell you that I'm actually floored to hear another artist sampled on a Paul McCartney song, even though Beck did the sampling. It's something I never imagined would happen. Other artists sample Paul, but not the other way around. It's a new world out there!!!
Driving Rain wasn't supposed to have a big tour. It was supposed to be small venues. That changed after the 9/11 concert put him forward. 2002-2003 was for big touring. 2004 was for European festivals. 2005 was a US tour. 2007 he got to do his small venues. 2008 was two shows. 2009 started the present trend of smaller tours to give him time to rest between. I don't blame him for wanting to do smaller runs. Ringo does them (although too much repetition of the same cities). Robert Plant has to recharge his voice between shows. It's not unexpected.
Im not sure about”stealong”a girl-friend. Guess the gurka were not possessions but had a will of their own. With that said I don t care much about the various personalies among various rock-stars. Most of them was/is egomanical p-s. Paul seems rather decent in this company but certanely has his dark sides as well
Yep,...true...they definitely no question all have their dark sides...as well as vices. Probably some of the dark sides of all of them was hard learned lessons from bad experiences with many different folks as well as needed in their climbs to the top. None of us know any of them personally let alone closely and of course folks have different personalities. Pattie was a wife then though possibly she had left George. Of course pattie had a will of her own but might have stayed with George if not for Eric’s interest, advances, etc. .I knew this stuff better once...but, goodness, Eric was not the first to do this and won’t be the last..then there was George and mo.. When I read this stuff as a teenager then it read like the national inquirer Hollywood US sleeze mag ,,.but I have childhood memories of Liz Taylor in the sixties...Yes, McCartney’s dark sides real and imagined have been openly roundly enumerated repeatedly for fifty years....some of the stuff about other Beatles I knew at different times, but other things came out after death...I’m sure when he and Ringo pass, stuff will come out about them as well, real and imaginary. The point in the discussion, though, is that Clapton likewise had his nadirs in his personal life and his misguided beliefs in several ways and was no more virtuous than anyone else, but ...the video shown, however, didn’t prove he thought the song was bad or inappropriate either...I always enjoyed Eric in creem and solo and have several of his albums and saw him in the seventies live which is separate from his personal flaws whatever all they may be.
Glam rock, Bowie, tge sweet, bolan was the in thing then especially in England..and if wings wanted to adapt and succeed, they had to incorporate current trends...They began to incorporate some glam some but didn’t go totally glam, as wings music was varied genres and genre blendings...hi, hi, hi was somewhat glam, the rock Show song was his most glam rock song IMO. Jet lyrics had glam elements. There’s a SHF thread on this subject. Yes, especially seventies Wings but subsequent decades, Paul picked up musical styles, sometimes blended them and likewise did other genre style music and styles.
You call it 'Beatles pixie dust', I call it a special brand of musicianship and quality control that only existed between the 4 of them. F.e., they never would have allowed Come and Get It on Abbey Road. Much less release Maxwell's Silver Hammer as a single. Solo McCartney did all of these things and much more.
It was..indeed..everything you say..and even more than you say....Beatles also in the sixties...musically to the fans ..could do no wrong.,,They not only had pixie dust...they and their music..was gold and albums went gold. However, there were some older critics of their later albums in mags and newspapers that gave some of their albums...lesser reviews...but not the Beatles fans...Solo Beatles, however, though albums went gold in the seventies , a few times albums even went platinum...but were ...seen by most Beatles fans and the general public ..as never being as good as.,,the Beatles themselves..
Yep...that’s a new one to me too...Paul wanted to tour after OTG I read but due to anthology couldn’t as years before and after no big event possibly or solo Beatles album could affect Beatles album sales per anthology agreement they’d signed I read ...then Linda died..DR was always planned as a big tour I thought I had read...like flowers, OTG and WOW earlier tours... There’s several things packed in this comment and others made you’re referring too...I didn’t have time to source check it all even if it were possible to do so.....I wanted to check this stuff but got buried up too long responding to him on other basic comments...It takes lots of time to go line by line, research and respond on comments like this...I didn’t have time to find a much, much earlier post he wrote about a certain song with a completely different 180 degree view of it than here ..as read the post long ago and can’t remember what thread it was in and unsure if the thread any longer exists,
Haven't caught up with the rest of thread, but jumping in here to say a few things: Wild Life was not a rough start and I will die on that hill. In my opinion it's his best album: best musically, vocally and thematically. Sod the critics back then. As a new Beatles/Paul fan, YouTube recommended Let Me Roll It live so WOA was my first album and bear in mind, most recommendations these days come from a computer algorithm, not from a person, and that makes a difference as to where you start. WOA impressed me, especially his live bass playing. Ultimately, that's what drew me in. My 2nd album, again, guided by YouTube, was Back to the Egg and far from thinking it sounded unpolished, I was blown away. That's the album that made me go - woah - this is McCartney? OK, I'll check him out some more. My 3rd album was BOTR, as recommend by Wikipedia, because by this stage I was starting to research Paul and went with the 'most successful' album schtick and I was mightily impressed. That album showed me the variety he was capable of. However, even then I was still just a 'casual discovering fan'. I wasn't addicted or anything. I thought I could control it! lol My 4th album was Wild Life and then I was all...imma marry this dude. That was it for me. I had fallen for McCartney, hook, line and sinker and was hopelessly addicted. Wild Life was the album that taught me that Paul is a vocal and musical genius. From there I discovered the Beatles...and all the other Paul albums. So...although those charts are cute to look at and may even be helpful, there's really no rhyme or reason as to which albums speak to us, or even which one a new fan should start with. People will come to Paul's music on their own terms and form their own opinions...as it should be.
I'm not talking critics, I'm talking fans as well: Wild Life did not get a single because of poor sales. And it's the rarity of the Wings catalogue that nothing from the sessions made it to the hits packages until Wingspan — not even "Bip Bop," which is a very catchy tune that reminds of us his knack of melody. If you read my comment again, you'll note that Wings Over America is my #2 choice for introducing McCartney — only because it doesn't have the name recognition as Ram. It's truly the best way to show off what Paul was doing in the seventies, and how he was pushing away hard from The Beatles' sound. A colleague who was big into Lennon as "the artist" asked me what albums are worth it from McCartney, because I liked Art of McCartney far more than Instant Karma: same number of discs, less stuck on the same albums. My answer? McCartney (for the feeling of intimacy and creativity), Ram (because it's a solid album), Wings Over America (because it's what Wings were about as a live record), Back to the Egg (the hidden rock gem), Tug Of War (because it's also solid), Press to Play (an album that defines '80s McCartney on and off'), Flaming Pie (the third amazing album), Working Classical (to show the melodies can transfer beautifully), and Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (to prove he's still able to do it very well) That worked. But Band on the Run is not in there; I recommended as follow up Speed Of Sound or Venus and Mars before it.
Now I'm trying to remember twenty years back! I seem to recall it being said that the initial bookings were cancelled/switched when the events unfolded that September – it was supposed to be select cities at that point, which would actually make sense: Paul hadn't seen what this band could do live, and might want to test them out first. Also, his 1989 tour started off with some select cities before going all in. And I also recall hearing that Driving USA was initially supposed to be it for North America but turned out to be such a success that he chose to go Back In The US, then onwards (except Australia, where there was a business issue). The one thing I can say for certainty is that many Canadians smiled when Driving USA included Toronto. Toronto wants to be part of the United States so badly, it wants everything the US has. The information on Driving Rain appearing online seems to repeat itself over and over — and with the error about "Freedom" being pulled from the 2007 set list. It was actually pulled in 2003 when the tour reached Europe, replaced by "Birthday," likely because Europe wasn't as gung-ho about the American actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Nice lineup Ram On: Tribute album features original Ram musicians and a host of talent | superdeluxeedition Getting excited about this project too!
Fair enough if fans back then did not like it, although I wonder how much expectational baggage accounted for their dislike? Paul himself grew to dislike the album due to the overwhelming negative influence of critics. He has had a difficult relationship with that album that only recently has become more positive, thanks to newer generations of fans telling him of their love for it. He has said he now sees it in a new light. I recently played Wild Life at a virtual dinner party where we were introducing each other to lockdown music and it got a rousing reception from my non-music friends who mostly listen to generic pop or drive their cars in silence - horrendous - I don't know why they are my friends! lol Bip Bop was the surprise hit! One has since messaged me to say they haven't stopped playing the album - in the car!! Convo for another day: but enduring the rigid isolation and disconnection of lockdown has changed some people's perception of music as well. I known it's changed mine. OK, this is anecdotal, but my point is that a new fan with no context and no baggage - like how I was - isn't going to know, or care that BOTR is in some way not up to scratch, or that BTTE is somehow unpolished, or that Wild Life was considered weird and unfinished, or whatever opinion it is that an old time fan has. I'm not trying to say that you're wrong in your approach because there is no right or wrong - just offering my different perspective as a new fan. Which is to say that BOTR is a perfectly good album to recommend someone starting out. By virtue of the fact that it's Paul McCartney and he is, by and large, easy on the ear and has a knack for melody, most of the albums are perfectly good to recommend as starting points.
Listen to The McCartney Interview from 1980. This is nothing new. He talks about being influenced by the people around him when he thinks about his own work. In particular, he mentions someone from their car telling him how much they like Wild Life, or how at a party people were really liking Venus And Mars. It's really a great interview because it covers a variety of topics and had a lot of new material that wasn't trod over — that technique really happens in the late 80s and gets stuck.
St. Vincent on working with Paul McCartney: "It was the best moment of my life" "“After it was all done and everything, Paul called me to thank me and tell me that he liked it!” she recalled. “It was the best moment of my life… maybe? I mean, I don’t… I don’t know where to put that. She continued: “One thing that occurred to me was, think about how many hours of enjoyment in the world have happened as a result of Paul McCartney’s music. Lifetimes and lifetimes of hours that people have spent listening to his work.” “At the end of the conversation, he said, ‘It’s a great thing that we get to do, this music thing, right?'” she added. “I was like, ‘Yes Paul – yes it is.'”"
