This Is The Thread Where We Praise And Canonize Paul McCartney's "Ram"

anybody own Wings Over America? It gets good reviews here and there.

― go down on you in a thyatrr (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 4 June 2012 23:25 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I have a vinyl copy of this! It's not bad, although I admittedly don't dig it out that often. I'll have to give this another listen sometime this week.

I'd definitely welcome a Venus And Mars remaster. Wings At The Speed Of Sound is down there as one of my least favourite McCartney albums, though, and I personally think there are a couple of other McCartney albums that deserve it more.

I need to hear "Letting Go" and remastered.

Venus and Mars remaster is already available on iTunes.

Just the album - no extended package.

Speed of Sound is sort of a perfect distillation of Wings but completely unremarkable for it.

I guess that's why it's their best seller.

I imagine they're eventually going to do 'em all, so the duds were going to have to trickle as well. The only Wings I've ever owned prior to this batch were vinyl copies of Band on the Run and Over America.

Re: Wings Over America, I actually pulled that out about a week ago for Sunday afternoon background listening. It's...okayish but I think I might unload it soon - a 3XLP live album is a LOT of Wings in a row, and very few of the renditions are particularly interesting. They sound like the studio versions, played live with a little more audience-working by McCartney. They were a pretty decent sort of arena bar band, and it's probably fair to say that the Speed of Sound stuff sounds a little more rocking, but they can't really improve on the Band on the Run and Venus and Mars material, and the Beatles covers are all forgettable as hell. They do "Go Now" okay I guess, plus Denny Laine doing "Richard Cory" is, well, about what you'd expect, and "Soily" is cool enough, always liked that one.

Definitely not essential though.

I think I've hated on Speed of Sound on ILX before - - - I love the singles and a few other things (Warm and Beautiful, She's My Baby, Wino Junko!!!) but the overall sound feels mushy and muffled to me. (Well, "Beware My Love" ain't bad.) You long for a George Martin to step up the crispness of things. Maybe the remaster might actually make a difference for that one!

Also, uh, "Cook of the House," god bless 'er.

I might change my grade if "Sally G" were part of the original track list.

<3 Sally G!

A legit, comprehensive McCartney b-sides comp really would be great. I guess these remasters will basically end up putting those back on the radar. As a teenage McCartney fan in the mid-90s, I of course prized those extremely marked-up British imports that had the B-sides (and also the terrible cover art, with the original image shrunk down and stuck in a sea of white for no reason). Think I had a couple of 'em, definitely Flowers in the Dirt.

I suppose we'll get "Girls School" soon enough.

Vocal arrangement on "Dear Boy" is so hot.

speed of sound is pretty bad except for letting go. surprised they aren't doing london town before that (which is better...not great, just better). I would totally be one of three people to buy a back to the egg deluxe set.

"Letting Go" is on V&M, no?

Deluxe BTTE would be great - some awesome non-album singles, studio junk and b-sides at that point if I remember right. "Boil Crisis," "Robber's Ball" maybe?

I would totally buy a BTTE box.

I would invest in a Back To The Egg boxset as well!

Rhapsody seemed to pull all of the McCartney/Wings albums as well...I did see them there at one point but wasn't in the mood to check it out at the time. Paul doesn't need my money anyway.

As I mentioned, the Venus and Mars remaster is already available as a download-only release (Wild Life too, from 2010), so I don't know if Speed of Sound or Wings Over America are getting deluxe treatments.

mccartney pulled his music from streaming sites a few months ago.

Well, the new Ram is on Spotify now. Maybe they're trying it out. I don't know what was on there before - I don't remember anything in the time Spotify has been available in the U.S.

Speed of Sound has the much-awaited debuts of Geoff English and Linda as singers.

― go down on you in a thyatrr (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 4 June 2012 23:53 (Yesterday) Permalink

Linda sang on a couple of tracks on Wild Life - quite nicely too.

And she sings on Ram. And, according to Paul in the accompanying book in the box set, she sang a high harmony on "Let It Be." (!!)

linda and paul harmonies are great, wonderful sharp/warm contrast, very bitter and lovely.

still no Macca here on Spotify in the UK.

I love her harmonies generally. But "Cook of the House" really is the equivalent of a greeting card not meant to be shared with neighbors.

you can say that about a ton of paul's solo stuff though

most of Paul's good solo work is akin to pot brownies he shares with neighbors.

ha perhaps

full disclosure linda mccartney is the reason i was vegetarian for the first 20 years of my life. 'cook of the house' has always felt very canonical to me. i think my mom has some of the lyrics stenciled in her kitchen somewhere.

George Harrison is why I'm suspicious of Krishna.

Listening to that Wingspan documentary - it's pretty good so far! Or at least by the standards of me being a huge Beatles nerd, where I'm just pleased to have new nuggets of information I've never heard.

thanks for reminding me to check that out again! i watched the first two parts yesterday and had the same positive reaction.

It trails off badly, sad to say - - - gets really vague right around the time Wings actually becomes a band. Nice to get some loose impressions of that period, and some sense of how Linda felt about the whole thing, but of course as people were saying upthread, I'm just hungry to hear Paul talk about these songs, these albums, song by song.

wow, i can't believe how down i was on this album in 2004 -- it seems like such a warm, likable album now. even the backing harmonies that used to drive me crazy seem endearingly batty -- like paul couldn't keep himself from indulging in every ridiculous thing he wanted to throw into every song.

Paul dislikes talking at length about Wings, doesn't he?

Kinda seems like a huge pain in the arse that somehow made him a ton of money.

Wings would have been awesome if he would have just treated it as another one-off project, for an album or so

somewhere in the doc where he was explaining why Wings was such a creative band name I turned it off. :-/

I WANT TO LIKE WINGS. I WANT TO LIKE THIS STUFF

Wings would have been awesome if he would have just treated it as another one-off project, for an album or so

― Mad God 40/40 (Z S), Wednesday, June 6, 2012 8:57 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Agreed - or changed the name every time the lineup changed! That would have made for a really fun catalogue.

Wild Life - The Tallboys
Red Rose Speedway - The Rolling Bears
Band on the Run - Wings
Venus and Mars - Alt!
Speed of Sound - Blank White Paper
London Town - Your Friend Gigantus
Back to the Egg - Lando

Lol

Ah, I was thinking more:

Wild Life - Wings
Red Rose Speedway - McCartney and Wings
Band on the Run - Wings Over Easy
Venus and Mars - Wingz Energi
Speed of Sound - Athletico Wings 1980
London Town - Dr Wings the Night Nurse Tripper
Back to the Egg - Omlet

lol Mark.

Did you see the time Spizz posted on ILM, btw?

Lol at both Wings renames post. Tim, where is Spizz post?

No one answered his question, unfortunately.

Lawrence Of Arabia 7" early version - Does anyone know more?

He shoulda stuck to DIY records out in the country.

Thanks for the overview upthread, Turrican - I love this album but am unfamiliar with most of his others. I need to revisit McCartney for sure.

.. then to balance the mega-hype of Ram I decided to create an alter ego. We took personal ads in Private Eye and the Evening Standard saying, "Percy Thrillington seeks the love of his life." People eventually began to ask, "Who is this Percy Thrillington who keeps taking out small ads?" And then on holiday in Ireland with Linda we decided to find an actual Percy. We found a lad working in a farmer's field. We went up to him and asked, "Would you mind doing a photo shoot?" And so for a modelling fee we persuaded him to put on a dinner jacket and Linda took some pictures. And this Irish farmhand became Percy Thrillington.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/nov/29/paul-mccartney-the-fireman-interview

anyone ever see these photos, press ads etc?