"Wings Were Terrible"

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Paul McCartney says "Wings were terrible"

he is absolutely right!
10
30%
he is absolutely wrong!
6
18%
he is both right and wrong!
17
52%
Paul McCartney? Wings? Drop Dead, GRANDPAW!!!
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Total votes: 33

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Marcel Post
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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby Marcel Post » 07 Nov 2017, 09:36

NMB wrote:
Moleskin wrote:There's only one really front-to-back great Wings album, but plenty of good songs dotted across the others. His strike rate since hasn't been that much better.


Two and the other one is London Town. IMHO obviously but I'm right.


London Town was one of the first albums I ever bought and, in a spirit of nostalgia, I had a listen to it today for probably the first time since the late 70s. It's atrocious! Even worse than I thought it would be! I guess the title track is pleasant enough although it's pretty insipid. With A Little Luck might have been alright in a "Getting Better" kind of way if the arrangement wasn't so anaemic. The rest is appalling! There are so many low moments in Macca's post Beatles career - the frog chorus, the christmas song, the Michael Jackson duos - but I'm not sure any of them plumb the depths of Famous Groupies. It's amazing to think that a mere decade after co-writing Day In The Life he was coming up with stuff like Girlfriend or Morse Moose or really anything on this album.

In retrospect Wings was a pretty odd phenomenon, it was absolutely massive at the time and yet it really left no mark on the culture. There aren't successive generations rediscovering Wings in the same way as there are with say Pink Floyd. Just about everything in 70s pop culture has been reassessed or recycled or has influenced something at some point in the retro culture in which we currently live. But not Wings.

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Moleskin
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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby Moleskin » 07 Nov 2017, 10:32

Marcel Post wrote: There aren't successive generations rediscovering Wings in the same way as there are with say Pink Floyd. Just about everything in 70s pop culture has been reassessed or recycled or has influenced something at some point in the retro culture in which we currently live. But not Wings.


I'd say that Jellyfish did way on back in the 90s, and Wings are in the DNA of 70s-referencing bands like The Feeling, Orson, the 1975.
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Marcel Post
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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby Marcel Post » 07 Nov 2017, 11:00

You might be right - I don't know the bands you cite. I have heard a bit of The 1975 and I don't particularly hear Wings in them, although there's a lot 70s and 80s in there obviously...

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Moleskin
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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby Moleskin » 07 Nov 2017, 12:34

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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby Moleskin » 07 Nov 2017, 13:03

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trans-chigley express
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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby trans-chigley express » 07 Nov 2017, 13:53

Marcel Post wrote:
NMB wrote:
Moleskin wrote:There's only one really front-to-back great Wings album, but plenty of good songs dotted across the others. His strike rate since hasn't been that much better.


Two and the other one is London Town. IMHO obviously but I'm right.


London Town was one of the first albums I ever bought and, in a spirit of nostalgia, I had a listen to it today for probably the first time since the late 70s. It's atrocious! Even worse than I thought it would be! I guess the title track is pleasant enough although it's pretty insipid. With A Little Luck might have been alright in a "Getting Better" kind of way if the arrangement wasn't so anaemic. The rest is appalling! There are so many low moments in Macca's post Beatles career - the frog chorus, the christmas song, the Michael Jackson duos - but I'm not sure any of them plumb the depths of Famous Groupies. It's amazing to think that a mere decade after co-writing Day In The Life he was coming up with stuff like Girlfriend or Morse Moose or really anything on this album.

In retrospect Wings was a pretty odd phenomenon, it was absolutely massive at the time and yet it really left no mark on the culture. There aren't successive generations rediscovering Wings in the same way as there are with say Pink Floyd. Just about everything in 70s pop culture has been reassessed or recycled or has influenced something at some point in the retro culture in which we currently live. But not Wings.


I like a good half of London Town. It has some terrible stuff on it but Deliver Your Children, Don't let It Bring You Down, Cafe on the Left Bank, London Town and even With A Little Luck are alright by me. More good tracks than At The Speed of Sound which has 3 decent ones and loads of utter tripe.

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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby Moleskin » 07 Nov 2017, 14:04

trans-chigley express wrote:I like a good half of London Town. It has some terrible stuff on it but Deliver Your Children, Don't let It Bring You Down, Cafe on the Left Bank, London Town and even With A Little Luck are alright by me. More good tracks than At The Speed of Sound which has 3 decent ones and loads of utter tripe.


The radio edit of 'With A Little Luck' is the one to go for. Cuts it down by about half its length.
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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby Bent Fabric » 07 Nov 2017, 14:21

The inevitable "My kids and I" prefix notwithstanding, my children and I do, in fact, have a routine where we hear 'With A Little Luck" on the radio and - at a specific point - either applaud when it becomes apparent that we're in for the full monty or register some disappointment when it becomes apparent that we're getting the edited version.

Something about the sonic character of that song just intoxicates me - and I say this knowing fully well that it must sound like insufferable treacle to 9/10 people.

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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby Davey the Fat Boy » 07 Nov 2017, 14:53

There’s a bit of sonic magic to almost everything McCartney recorded in the 70s. I mean...songs like “Helen Wheels,” “Rockshow” and “Hi Hi Hi” are hardly defensible as pure songs. But there is something about the way he arranges guitars, vocals and keyboards that just separates him out from everyone.

It’s deeply uncool music. I was a deeply uncool kid. We were made for each other then, and I never quite outgrew it.
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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby Moleskin » 07 Nov 2017, 14:55

Bent Fabric wrote:The inevitable "My kids and I" prefix notwithstanding, my children and I do, in fact, have a routine where we hear 'With A Little Luck" on the radio and - at a specific point - either applaud when it becomes apparent that we're in for the full monty or register some disappointment when it becomes apparent that we're getting the edited version.

Something about the sonic character of that song just intoxicates me - and I say this knowing fully well that it must sound like insufferable treacle to 9/10 people.


It *sounds* terrific. I only wish he'd bothered to write a second verse. After he's sung it five times in the first 3 minutes I'm shouting 'okay, I get the point!' at the stereo.
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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby Bent Fabric » 07 Nov 2017, 15:29

Davey the Fat Boy wrote:But there is something about the way he arranges guitars, vocals and keyboards that just separates him out from everyone.


Word.

I came across the multitracks for Jet and Band on the Run several years ago, and...he makes some really unconventional choices. In some way, it's very offhanded and coy in a way that he doesn't seek attention for, but there's things in the bass performances for example that you scrutinize and say "Fuck! This is really ballsy, confident and downright 'wrong' relative to whatever I think I know about record making. And deeply effective."

The three times BOTR goes through the B section (Am-Dm "If we ever.."), he gives the bass a specifically different rhythmic role each time through - it's one of those seemingly pointless things that you'd never notice in a million years, but...try playing the track without it, and it becomes fairly lumpen.

I'm not here to say "Now, THERE'S a man who never had a bad instinct!", but...man, his good instincts are pretty fucking high level.

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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby The Modernist » 07 Nov 2017, 15:43

I think the problem with McCartney in the 70s and 80s was that he saw himself as a crafter of hits. Everything seemed to be directed towards that commercial goal and it lead him towards the superficial and the trite. It seems in the 90s and beyond he's gone back to thinking of himself as an artist, probably because the hits began to dry up and he had to approach things differently. I wonder if he now regrets how he approached his music in the 70s and 80s?

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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby Bent Fabric » 07 Nov 2017, 15:51

The Modernist wrote:I wonder if he now regrets how he approached his music in the 70s and 80s?


He's cagey, isn't he?

I mean, he's just never gonna come out and say that Press to Play was a total abortion, though I can't imagine he's at all deluded on the matter.

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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby clive gash » 07 Nov 2017, 15:52

I dunno, how many tracks from the 90s onward (and, let’s face it the 80s too) would make a Macca best of?
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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby Moleskin » 07 Nov 2017, 16:09

kewl klive wrote:I dunno, how many tracks from the 90s onward (and, let’s face it the 80s too) would make a Macca best of?

On the most recent Pure McCartney (which he allegedly compiled himself?

"The Song We Were Singing" Flaming Pie, 1997
"Sing the Changes" Electric Arguments, 2008 (under the name "The Fireman" with Youth)
"Jenny Wren" Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, 2005
"Save Us" New, 2013
"My Valentine" Kisses on the Bottom, 2012
"The World Tonight" Flaming Pie
"Great Day" Flaming Pie
"Dance Tonight" Memory Almost Full, 2007
"Only Mama Knows" Memory Almost Full

The 4 disc edition adds more.

"Too Much Rain" Chaos and Creation in the Backyard
"Early Days" New
"New" New
"English Tea" Chaos and Creation in the Backyard
"Calico Skies" Flaming Pie
"Appreciate" New
"Fine Line" Chaos and Creation in the Backyard
"World Tonight" Flaming Pie
"Souvenir" Flaming Pie
"Winedark Open Sea" Off The Ground
"Beautiful Night" Flaming Pie
"Queenie Eye" New
"Little Willow" Flaming Pie

One from his worst LP:
"Good Times Coming / Feel The Sun" Press To Play

Nothing(!) from Flowers in the Dirt
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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby naughty boy » 07 Nov 2017, 16:58

Matt 'interesting' Wilson wrote:So I went from looking at the "I'm a Man" riff, to showing how the rave up was popular for awhile.

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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby Davey the Fat Boy » 07 Nov 2017, 17:06

He’s had some strong ones in the last three decades.

80’s
Coming Up
Tug of War
Take it Away
Here Today
Wanderlust
Somebody Who Cares
So Bad
No More Lonely Nights
Good Times Coming/Feel the Sun
This One
Distractions
My Brave Face
You Want Her Too
That Day is Done

90s
Hope of Deliverance
Mistress and the Maid
The Lovers that Never Were
Young Boy
Calico Skies
Great Day
Little Willow
The Songs We Were Singing

2000s
From a Lover to a Friend
Tiny Bubble
Jenny Wren
Riding in to Vanity Fair
English Tea
A Certain Softness
You Tell Me
The End of the End
Ever Present Past
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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby Jimbo » 07 Nov 2017, 17:28



What a set of pipes!
Question authority.

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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby Moleskin » 07 Nov 2017, 17:54

Carla Breakthrough-Lark wrote:


I wouldn't have included that one.
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Re: "Wings Were Terrible"

Postby Moleskin » 07 Nov 2017, 18:11

I'm tempted to build a playlist based on the latter-day material I listed above. No fucking Dance Tonight though.
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