What's the difference between "Wings" and "Paul McCartney & Wings"?

Easy.
1969-71, 1980- present: Paul McCartney
1972-1979: Paul McCartney & Wings

They were always Paul McCartney & Wings to me, however they tried to market themselves...

 

Lately I've been styling my tags where it'll be "McCartney, Paul" in the Artist field and then "Paul McCartney & Wings" or whatever in the Comment field. That should eventually clean up a lot of scrolling, especially for pre-rock-era artists with ever-changing orchestra names, and they'll still be searchable.

 

The OP has seen this problem on Apple Music, I've seen the same thing on Discogs. Any database should properly list the artist as it's documented on the album. This is just proper. But if you're looking for a record at home, they should be organized to allow you find your record. I personally don't have any Wings albums filed under "W" as far as I'm concerned, it's a McCartney solo album. This is one reason I don't actually like Discogs. You get really weird sorting with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones both sorted under "T" because the article "The" used. More annoying is artists are sorted by their first names. Discogs should fix this. But they haven't and Discogs has been around since 2000. With FLAC files I always fill in the ArtistSort tag. This solves problems like, as you change the sorting to whatever you want. There are artists like John Mellencamp who originally released his music as John Cougar and then John Cougar Mellencamp. Ultimately do what makes sense to your brain. Pick something and stick to it.

To go along with this, when I go to used records stores, you usually find Wings albums filed under "Beatles" with their own section card along with Harrison, Lennon, and Starr. And this makes sense to me. I'm fine with this actually as there are usually never any Beatles albums anyway outside of reissues. But this doesn't make sense at home.

 

Band On The Run was also Paul McCartney and Wings

 

Wings is Paul McCartney and some other musicians.

 

File under who actually has the record contract.

 

File it under W as in Wings.

 

Wild Life thru Egg are all under W for me!

 

I file em all under P between J&G. I like to keep my Solo Beatles together

 

I have them all under "McCartney." Paul blurs that line himself, putting Wings tracks on Pure McCartney and non-Wings tracks on Wings' Greatest and Wingspan. On The Space Within Us, he introduced "Too Many People" as "one for the Wings fans," even though that song was not released under the Wings name.

 

This is exactly what I do. It works great in Foobar 2000 and my Squeezebox Touch.

 

McCartney solo (including Ram) - file under M
Wings (since this is a band, not solo) (including Paul McCartney and Wings) - file under W

 

And yet, when they split, there was no such Daily Mirror headline this time saying “PAUL QUITS WINGS”

 

Roughly the presence of Denny Laine as part of the band. Instead of him being a session player (on Tug of War).

 

Paul McCartney & Wings in my iTunes. It's all about the Paul.

 

This Wings band or solo debate is starting to get both annoying and childish, just drop it and let people think what they do.

 

The number of letters

 

But then they will just get all messed up with my Jesse McCartney albums!!!

 

If you try to be technically correct you're going to have to break up your John Lennon too, so you have a section for Plastic Ono Band, another for Lennon/Ono and the Plastic Ono Band, another for John and Yoko and The Plastic Ono Nuclear Band and the Harlem Community Choir - or whatever he called it that partilcular day. I say, just go with common sense. They all go under Lennon, and Wings go under McCartney.

If Wings were a real, proper group, I may think differently, but they were so obviously Paul McCartney plus unknowns, that they don't really emerge as a proper act. Look at the cover of Red Rose Speedway. Where is the group? Look at Wings Greatest Hits - first track, Another Day. (Wings weren't even formed when that came out.) Look at Wingspan - it had Pipes Of Peace, Coming Up, No More Lonely Nights, Maybe I'm amazed, etc... Look at the covers of Venus And Mars, Wings At The Speed Of Sound, Wings Over America ... where are the band?

It's just Macca's back catalogue. May as well file it thusly.

 

To me it's obvious that Wings was a band very different from McCartney solo, others may feel differently. To see an album like Wings At The Speed Of Sound were all members contribute as a McCartney solo album just because you have decided to see Wings as a solo act, is beyond ridiculous. But no one here is gonna convince each other, so let's just drop it.

 

Wings had a distinctive sound to them that sounded different than his solo albums. Listening to McCartney II and Tug of War after London Town and Back to the Egg, you know it’s over and it’s sad.

 

I couldn't agree more.

 

Do we really need two threads about this started at the same day by the same member?
What's the difference between "Wings" and "Paul McCartney & Wings"?

 

What's the difference between "Wings" and "Paul McCartney & Wings"?

One has "Paul McCartney &" in front of it. The other doesn't.

 

And I’ll be the bad guy and suggest it’s all Paul McCartney. It is on my shelves.