This is the best of the "greatest hits" collections so far from McCartney's solo albums. Yes, as other reviewers have pointed out, it goes beyond Wings (after all, Wings began in 1971 and disbanded in 1980 and this set goes from 1970 to 1984). But the CD booklet has a nice intro by Mark Lewishon and lists all the members of Wings (there are 4 or 5 different lineups). I'll comment on the entertaining special that aired on ABC last month when it comes out on video.
The "hits" side includes 17 great songs ("C Moon" is the only clunker and should've been saved for the history side). A lot of these I remember as I was growing up from a kid to a teenager, as opposed to hearing the Beatles' songs and records years after they disbanded. I particularly have fond memories of"Listen to What the Man Said" which has a nice sax solo, the romantic "My Love", the hard rockin' "Jet", the spirited "Comin' Up" (much better than the passable studio version), the fun "Let 'Em In", and "Band On the Run". "No More Lonely Nights" features a cool guitar solo by David Gilmour (now don't ask me why he included that hokey "fadeout" version at the end of history). "Silly Love Songs" is a commentary on the critics who made fun of his solo songs (I suppose unless you're in love, all love songs sound a little silly). Heck, even his former partner John had his share of "silly" love songs(witness "Oh Yoko"). Too bad this set didn't feature the full-length version of "With a Little Luck", but you can get that off "London Town" or "Wings Greatest". "Pipes of Peace" is the underrated title cut off his 1983 album (which featured an interesting video). "Mull of Kintyre" wasn't a big hit in the USA either, but I remember seeing the video for it when it 1st came out in 1977 on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. I would give 4 and 1/2 stars for the hits portion.
For the "history", I'd give this 3 and 1/2 stars. I was expecting more rarities like the 1972 single "Give Ireland Back to the Irish" and "Sally G" (the B side from 1974's "Junior's Farm"). Perhaps we'll see those on a box set. The history includes some of the best album cuts on McCartney solo albums, including hits "Maybe I'm Amazed", "Take It Away", the classic "Let Me Roll It", "Helen Wheels", "Venus & Mars"/"Rock Show", "Too Many People" (dedicated to you-know-who), and more obscure stuff like "Bluebird", the folky "Tug of War", "Back Seat of My Car" (which features some interesting experimentation)and the exquisite "Waterfalls". I can do without "Junk" (the instrumental singalong is much better since it doesn't have those gratingly cheezy lyrics). I personally would have liked to see more stuff from At the Speed of Sound like "Beware My Love" (a favorite of diehard fans) and more songs from Red Rose Speedway, and the classic "1985" (how could he forget that one?). But, all in all, if you liked/like Wings, there should be enough stuff that perhaps you never heard to keep you satisfied.
If anyone needs a box set done of his material it's Paul McCartney. The man has so many albums out there that it's near impossible for the casual listener or newcomer to even find a place to begin. For those that need a hint, there are the classic, must have albums like McCartney, Ram, Band on the Run, Venus and Mars, Wings Over America (live), Flowers in the Dirt, Flaming Pie and 2005's Chaos and Creation in the Backyard. But there's also some other very highly entertaining works like Red Rose Speedway and Tug of War that deserve a listen. WINGSPAN is a great place to start your collection, or to recall a lot of the hit songs Paul released in the 1970s and 1980s, the decades this collection covers.
Putting together a proper retrospective of Wings was, I believe, one of the things Linda McCartney always wanted to do. (Linda was a member of Wings with Paul along with Denny Laine and a host of revolving musicians from 1971-1981.) After her death in 1998, Paul created the WINGSPAN project in her memory, which included this double CD, a book and a national television special, which can be purchased on DVD. But WINGSPAN is ultimately misleading as it features solo McCartney songs recorded both before and after Wings, and this collection turned out not to be the proper Wings anthology so many had been hoping for in the run up to its release. As far as the musical aspect of the WINGSPAN project, I believe this 2 CD collection became (understandably) more of a way for Paul to remember Linda and some of their own personal favorite songs, instead of properly representing the often underrated output of Wings through the years.
Disc one (Hits) is hard to argue with as classics abound. Yet if this was just a retrospective of Wings, songs like "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey," "Another Day," "Pipes of Peace" and "No More Lonely Nights" do not belong as they are solo McCartney works done without Wings proper. I also question the inclusion of "Pipes of Peace," "C Moon" and "Mull of Kintyre," though huge hits in England, they did little in the United States. (But again, I believe these were always personal favorites of Paul and Linda.) There are other key tracks that were hits that are glaringly left off this Hits side.
However, what is cool to find is that the songs found on the first disc have never sounded better, and in many ways, have gotten better with age! The hipsters can rail against "Silly Love Songs" all they want, but Paul's bass work and the overall solid structure of this song is unmistakable. "Silly Love Songs" is great based on the fact alone that it's Paul shouting out a big "F... you" to the critics (not literally, but you know what I mean.) "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" is avant-garde rock at its best, and songs like "Band on the Run" and "Jet" still rock after all these years. Honorable mention goes to "No More Lonely Nights," one of Paul's best songs ever, with awesome guitar work by Pink Floyd's own Dave Gilmour. However, on such great cuts like "Junior's Farm" and "With a Little Luck", radio edits have been used, which is a sin when you know how much better the unedited version is in comparison.
For years the stuck up critics at Rolling Stone derailed McCartney for the #1 smash "My Love" found here, but the death of Linda has only made this song that much more sentimental and relevant. It has remained a staple of McCartney live shows for years, and Henry McCullough's guitar work on "My Love" is still incredible.
Disc two (History) is the more controversial side for me, as some of Paul's selections again seem to reflect (once again, understandably) his and Linda's favorites, but don't necessarily represent the plethora of long, lost great Wings tracks. Wings definitely had their own sound and style, and in hindsight, a lot of people now have a greater appreciation for Wings and their work. (Bono himself recently said that the band of the year for him was Wings!) In their day, Wings was never given a fair chance coming so quickly after The Beatles. And for that reason, it is important in the future for Paul to release a proper Wings anthology. And what exactly is "Maybe I'm Amazed" doing on the History disc and not the Hits disc? It's only probably his most well known solo song ever!
On disc two there are once again way too many solo McCartney tracks, even though they are absolutely stunning selections ("Too Many People," "Every Night," "Man We Was Lonely," "Junk," "Heart of the Country," "Tug of War," "Take It Away," "Waterfalls," "The Back Seat of My Car" and "Maybe I'm Amazed"), but these songs once again obviously meant a lot to Paul and Linda and it's hard to argue cutting any of those classic songs from a McCartney collection. But this is supposed to be a representation of the work of Wings! Furthermore, another solo track, "The Lovely Linda," would be near impossible to delete on a collection like this. However, the inclusion of all these solo McCartney songs clearly does Wings little justice.
What WINGSPAN ended up becoming was a nice way to remember Linda by Paul, and in that degree it succeeds wonderfully (thus my five star rating). Yet one can't help but think that Paul missed the mark by not actually showing through this collection something Linda always believed in, and that was the validity of Wings as a band. On deeper inspection, there are many, many, many Wings tracks that in hindsight show what a fine band Paul fronted throughout the 1970s. Consider the following sampling of incredible tracks that are absent from WINGSPAN:
Beware My Love, Cafe On The Left Bank, Girls' School, Letting Go, Give Ireland Back to the Irish, Country Dreamer, Old Siam Sir, Soily (live 1976), Time to Hide, Don't Let It Bring You Down, Wild Life, Sally G, Big Barn Bed, Some People Never Know, Get on the Right Thing, Love In Song, London Town, Dear Friend, The Mess, Treat Her Gently/Lonely Old People, Seaside Woman, Maybe I'm Amazed (live 1976), Little Woman Love, Arrow Through Me, Little Lamb Dragonfly, When the Night, Again and Again and Again, Magneto and Titanium Man, A Love For You, Medicine Jar, Mama's Little Girl, Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five, Spin It On, I Lie Around, I've Had Enough, So Glad To See You Here, I'm Carrying, Mrs. Vandebilt, Picasso's Last Words, so on and so forth...
The folks at Paul's record company and Paul himself need to anthologize Wings properly, and his whole career for that matter. Start rolling those box sets out soon, please!
Otherwise, WINGSPAN is highly recommended as it does allow one to discover such great Wings songs like "Tomorrow," "Daytime Nightime Suffering" and "Call Me Back Again," not to mention the solo classic "The Back Seat of My Car," the last song from the Ram album. "Too Many People" and "Helen Wheels" still rock out, but I will never understand the inclusion of the remix of "No More Lonely Nights"!
This two CD set does a pretty good job of condensing Paul McCartney's solo career (from his first album in 1970 through his commercial zenith in the 1970s into the early 1980s), although collectors will of course note the absence of any number of rarities and oddities that could have made the lineup. (By my reckoning there's upwards of a dozen totally great McCartney/Wings B-sides and odd sox that have never been readily available on CD.) The first disc concentrates on all the 'hits', the songs you heard on the radio, and doesn't miss one; the second, 'history', skims the cream off the album tracks/B-sides. and it's a tribute to the man's talent that in no way is it a drop-off in quality from the songs that were A-sides. (I'm particularly delighted by the inclusion of Daytime Nighttime Suffering, one of the best things he's ever written yet inexplicably thrown away as the B-side of Goodnight Tonight.) Mark Lewisohn's typically exhaustive sleeve notes acknowledge the contributions made by the other members of Wings, and it's good to see Henry McCullough (whose gorgeous blues guitar solo on My Love is a personal favourite) get his due. In short: if you know diddley about Paul McCartney's solo stuff, this is the perfect starter; if you're a casual fan, remind yourself of just how good this stuff sounded to you the first time around; and if you're an obsessive, well, you're going to have to buy it to complete your collection, aren't you?
Listening to Paul McCartney's two-disc "Wingspan" raises several questions. Where's the focus - is it a McCartney or Wings overview? Where are the great B-sides, such as "Zoo Gang" and "Lunch Box/Odd Sox"? Why are there so many tracks from the "McCartney" and "Ram" albums, yet no room for the excellent live recording of "Maybe I'm Amazed"? And do we really need TWO versions of "No More Lonely Nights"? Needless to say, "Wingspan" could have been a stronger McCartney compilation (even the liner notes are lacking). Still, there are some classic Wings tracks as well as a few unheralded gems, particularly "C Moon" and "Girlfriend." What McCartney really needs (and deserves) is a comprehensive box set. "Wingspan" only scratches the surface.
