Thursday, July 14, 2016

If You’re Only Going to Buy One Greatest Hits Set From… Paul McCartney





It took me awhile to get back to this, but I did remember.

John Lennon released eight studio albums over his solo career.  (I’m not counting Two Virgins, Life With the Lions, or The Wedding Album, which are more aural collages than anything else; I am counting Double Fantasy and Milk and Honey, which are John and Yoko Ono albums and contain an equal number of songs from each.)  My piece on Lennon’s greatest hits sets listed 16 anthologies/hits sets to choose from (most of which are now out of print, but they were around at one time or another).

Paul McCartney has released 24 studio albums over his solo career.  (These are pop/rock albums under his name; I’m not including his five classical albums, an early soundtrack, or albums released under pseudonyms like Percy “Thrills” Thrillington or The Fireman.)  And the number of anthologies/hits sets Paul’s dropped during that time?  Four.  (Well, more or less.)

Go figure.  But it sure makes writing this a lot easier.  It helps that all four are still available for download (the most recent just arrived a few months ago).

Now, the bad news.  I’m guessing McCartney himself is the one who’s compiling his hits sets (or at least he has to approve them), because there are some running threads through all four:
 
  • No Beatles songs whatsoever (not surprisingly); nothing Paul didn’t write himself (a little more surprisingly, since he’s had a few nifty remakes).
  • Different versions depending on location (especially All the Best!, which has a completely different configuration in the UK and Canada than in the US).
  • Not in chronological order.
  • Important non-album songs are missing.  Three songs that appeared only on singles – “Give Ireland Back to the Irish” and “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” both from 1972, and Paul’s last top 10 hit, the otherwise innocuous “Spies Like Us” movie theme – are utterly unavailable for download as a result.  (Neither is “Wonderful Christmastime” – a song I personally can’t stand – but that’s at least on McCartney II and a few Christmas anthologies.)  The live version of “Maybe I’m Amazed” – the one that actually hit the top 10 – isn’t on any of these sets either; only the studio version.  And there are a few other lesser songs that didn’t make any of the hits sets but are still on their studio albums.  Still, no matter what you think of those first three songs, to not have three fairly big hits in both territories unavailable anywhere either means Paul hates them or somebody’s not paying attention.
  • None of them are complete (mostly as a result of missing some of those non-album tracks, but there's generally a couple of hits missing on every set).

So if you’re living in the UK or Canada, it’s probably best to get that edition of All the Best!  There are two songs missing from that version on the American one:  “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” (which was not released as a single in the UK, although it hit #1 in Canada), and “Junior’s Farm” (#16 in the UK, #10 in Canada, #3 in the US).  In exchange, you get “Mull of Kintyre” (which was a monster #1 hit in the UK, but relegated to the B-side of the nonentity “Girls’ School” here), “Pipes of Peace” (the only thing worth hearing from that album), and two songs that were top 10 in the UK but weren’t released here in the States:  “We All Stand Together” and “Once Upon a Long Ago.”

Over here, I’ll reluctantly guide you toward spending a lot of money.  (I did the same thing with Lennon, so I suppose it’s only fair.)

The deluxe edition, available on disk by Amazon for $31.66 and for download at $33.49 ($34.99 on iTunes), has 67 songs, and is as close to complete as we’re apparently going to get.  To make sure we’re good and confused, there’s also a 39-song, two-disk set ($18.99 for the download on Amazon and $19.99 on iTunes), which has a lot of the essentials, but not everything.  If you want a complete overview, make sure you get one labeled “Deluxe Edition” with 67 songs – this is especially important on Amazon, which has done a lazy job of differentiating the two.  I suppose you want to save money, you could get the cheap version and download a few extra songs to fill in the gaps.

Here’s what’s available beyond that (links are to the Wikipedia entries):

Wings’ Greatest (1978) – a farewell gift to Capitol Records before Paul temporarily split for Columbia, this 12-song set was perfectly okay, but three major hits (“Helen Wheels,” “Venus and Mars/Rock Show,” and the #1 “Listen to What the Man Said”) are missing.  So this could have be an all-encompassing double vinyl album – and it still could be an all-encompassing single-disk CD if anybody cared to update the track listing.  Apparently out of print on disk (well, Amazon wants $54.19 for a new copy – used copies are pretty easy to find), $11.49 for the download on Amazon, $11.99 on iTunes.

All the Best! (1987) – basically an updated version of Wings’ Greatest, with most of Paul’s biggest hits from the subsequent nine years (excluding “Take It Away” and the aforementioned “Spies Like Us”).  Same prices online as Wings’ Greatest means this is the best of the one-disk options.  $39.00 for the physical disk means Amazon doesn’t want you to buy that format.

Wingspan: Hits and History (2001) – well, if you felt like you needed more from the 1970-1984 era than All the Best!, here ya go.  But for a two-disk set containing more, it means more album cuts and songs Paul likes.  “Take It Away” makes the grade here, but none of the other non-album tracks did, and both of Paul’s early ‘80s duets, “Ebony and Ivory” and “Say Say Say” are here either, despite their being gigantic hits.  (It’s possible Paul was angry with Michael Jackson over losing the Beatles’ publishing catalog to him, but then why blame Stevie Wonder?).  Moreover, there’s nothing he recorded after 1984 – I admit he hasn’t had a lot of big hits in the States since then, but why not throw a few of the lesser charting songs in?  $18.99 for download on Amazon and $19.99 on iTunes.  I’d probably lean toward the two-disk Pure McCartney than this one, which is both better selected and has both of the duets.

In case you want to make a comparison between all these albums, here’s a list:


Song Title
UK Peak
US Peak
Wings Greatest
All the Best! (UK / Canada)
All the Best! (USA)
Wingspan
Pure McCartney (39 tracks)
Pure McCartney (67 tracks)
Another Day
2
5
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
-
1
Yes

Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
The Back Seat of My Car
39
-






Give Ireland Back to the Irish
16
21






Mary Had a Little Lamb
9
28






Hi Hi Hi
5
10
Yes


Yes

Yes
C Moon
5
10

Yes
Yes
Yes


My Love
9
1
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Live and Let Die
9
2
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Helen Wheels
12
10



Yes


Jet
7
7
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Band on the Run
3
1
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Junior's Farm
16
3
Yes

Yes
Yes

Yes
Sally G
-
17






Listen to What the Man Said
6
1

Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Letting Go
41
39






Venus and Mars/Rock Show
-
12



Yes

Yes
Silly Love Songs
2
1
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Let 'Em In
2
3
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Maybe I'm Amazed (live)
28
10






Seaside Woman
-
59






Mull of Kintyre
1
-
Yes
Yes

Yes
Yes
Yes
Girls' School
-
33






With a Little Luck
5
1
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
I've Had Enough
42
25






London Town
60
39






Goodnight Tonight
5
5

Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Old Siam, Sir
35
-






Getting Closer
60
20






Arrow Through Me
-
29




Yes
Yes
Wonderful Christmastime
6
-






Coming Up/Coming Up (Live at Glasgow)
2
1

Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Waterfalls
9
-



Yes

Yes
Ebony and Ivory [with Stevie Wonder]
1
1

Yes
Yes

Yes
Yes
Take It Away
15
10



Yes


Tug of War
53
53



Yes


The Girl Is Mine [with Michael Jackson]
8
2






Say Say Say [with Michael Jackson]
2
1

Yes
Yes

Yes
Yes
Pipes of Peace
1
-

Yes

Yes
Yes
Yes
So Bad
-
23






No More Lonely Nights
2
6

Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
We All Stand Together
3
-

Yes



Yes
Spies Like Us
13
7






Press
25
21





Yes
Stranglehold
-
81






Only Love Remains
34
-






Once Upon a Long Ago
10
-

Yes




Ferry Cross the Mersey [with The Christians, et al]
1
-






My Brave Face
18
25






The One
18
94






Figure of Eight
42
92






Put It There
32
-






Birthday (live)
29
-






All My Trials
35
-






Hope of Deliverance
18
83






C'Mon People
41
-






Young Boy
19
-






The World Tonight
23
64




Yes
Yes
Beautiful Night
25
-





Yes
No Other Baby
42
-






From a Lover to a Friend
45
-






Freedom
-
97






Tropic Island Hum
21
-






Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band [with U2]
-
48






Fine Line
20
-





Yes
Jenny Wren
22
-




Yes
Yes
Dance Tonight
26
26




Yes
Yes
Ever Present Past
85
-






Wonderful Christmastime [2007 rerelease]
44
-






Wonderful Christmastime [2011 rerelease]
72
-






He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother [with The Justice Collective]
1
-






Only One [with Kanye West]
28
35






FourFiveSeconds [with Rihanna and Kanye West]
3
4






All Day [with Kanye West et al]
18
15