The Best of the Best-Ofs: Paul McCartney (revised and updated)

For someone so prolific, Paul McCartney has released very few compilations, averaging less than one per decade. Pure McCartney is only the fourth – far less than contemporaries such as Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Elton John and even John Lennon, who was only given ten years for a solo career and spent five of those in semi-retirement.

And of these four compilations, the new release is the only one to include his entire post-Beatles career. Here, I will compare it to the others from a previous post in this occasional series.

Pure McCartney - 2016

Firstly, the title is perfect. Shying away from a hits or best-of per-se, the sleeve notes and promotional material state that the album was compiled “with nothing else in mind other than having something fun to listen to.” All the hits you’d expect are here and the remainder of the 4-disc set is evidently made up of Paul’s personal favourites from what I believe the young’uns these days call “deep cuts.” Of these album tracks, many are finally getting the recognition they deserve such as Arrow Through Me and Don’t Let It Bring You Down, while others have already enjoyed a recent resurgence such as Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five and… um… Temporary Secretary.

As you might expect, it does lean a little heavily on the most recent album New but apart from that, it covers pretty much all phases of Paul’s career equally. About time too! Only two regular albums are not represented here; Driving Rain, which is understandable given the painful phase of Paul’s life that it represented, and more oddly, Flowers in the Dirt. Perhaps this is because the latter is being given a deluxe reissue later this year.

There will be minor quibbles. For instance, I think The Song We Were Singing would have made a perfect opening track, and I don’t think anyone would have minded if Bip Bop and Press were bumped for, say, London Town and C’mon People, but did I change the face of 20th century music? No, I did not. This does contain the only CD release of Hope for the Future. It also includes the 2015 remix of Say Say Say, which features more Michael Jackson vocals than the original. It might have been nice to include some other recent non-album singles like Vanilla Sky and (I Want To) Come Home but again, these are minor quibbles.

Despite jumping several decades in places, the sequencing works well providing good flow and contrast across some very different songs. New masters of the tracks are used where available but unfortunately the tracks from Memory Almost Full (ironically, the McCartney album in most dire need of a remaster) are still “brickwalled.”

Predictably, the more reasonably priced 2-disc version preferences the radio songs more but still has an excellent overview of McCartney’s work.

For: Career-spanning, personal, only album release of Hope for the Future

Against: 4-disc version is expensive

Band on the Run from Pure McCartney

Wings Greatest – 1978
Does exactly what it says on the cover. Wings only made one more album after Wings Greatest, the excellent but hit-free Back to the Egg so it can still be considered the definitive Wings collection. It does stretch the definition just a little by including two tracks originally credited to Paul & Linda McCartney, but no-one could possibly begrudge that. It includes five non-album singles but for reasons of space, leaves out Listen to What the Man Said. Wings Greatest was the only album until Pure McCartney to contain the full version of Junior’s Farm.

For: Succinct
Against: These days, represents a comparatively short phase of McCartney’s career.

Band on the Run from Wings Greatet

All the Best – 1987
Originally released as a double-LP All the Best contains nine tracks that were also released on Wings Greatest and add the hits from the 80s. It includes the first album releases of C Moon, We All Stand Together and Goodnight Tonight, although the latter was not included on the single CD. Contains one new song, Once Upon a Long Ago.

The US version of All the Best had a slightly different tracklisting, and includes the live version of Coming Up, (which was the A-side of the single in the US) rather than the album version.

For: Great artwork, Only album release of Once Upon a Long Ago
Against: CD version drops three tracks.

Band on the Run from All the Best

Wingspan – 2001
Released alongside the television documentary and book of the same name, Wingspan is sensibly divided into two themed discs, Hits and History. The collection does employ a rather curious definition of Wings’ career. While it’s fair enough to include pre-Wings tracks from McCartney and Ram, it also covers part of Paul’s post-Wings careers, but suddenly stops in 1984.
On the Hits side, it’s all the usual suspects – ten tracks previously included on Wings Greatest and fourteen that had been on All the Best. The History side delves deeper and does a good job of being a true best-of, including underrated tracks like Heart of the Country, Take It Away and Rockestra Theme. It also includes an early demo of Bip Bop/Hey Diddle, which was previously unreleased and should have remained so. Where available, radio edits included which may be interesting for completists but does an injustice to a beautiful song like Waterfalls, and wasn’t Junior’s Farm already short enough? Again, Coming Up is replaced with the live version on the US version. The smarter thing to do would have been to include it on the History disc, since the live version has never been available on CD outside the US.

For: Comprehensive, separate Hits and History discs, remastered.
Against: Edited versions, weird time period.

Band on the Run from Wingspan

If you had to choose one, choose...
Pure McCartney, 2-disc version. Go for the 4-disc if you want. Wingspan goes into more detail between 1970 and 1984 but Pure McCartney is just that – the first collection including live albums that doesn’t sell half his career short.

See also,

The Greatest - 1998

Japan-only release that is interesting for including My Brave Face and Hope of Deliverance, but bloody expensive. For collectors only. 





Never Stop Doing What You Love – 2005
This collection was issued as part of a sponsorship deal with and investment company. Although never commercially released, it has been available online from certain sellers. It’s mostly a predictable collection of hits, but also includes Put It There, The World Tonight and Calico Skies.

A MusiCares Tribute to Paul McCartney (2015)

MusiCares is a charity run by the Recording Academy. Each year, in the same week as the Grammy awards, they recognise a Person of the Year with an all-star tribute show. In 2012, that person was Paul McCartney.

As such, the show is very Hollywood – and you can take that any way you like.

It opens with a performance from Cirque du Soleil’s Love, which is less impressive than it really should be away from the custom built room. After that, Paul and band perform Magical Mystery Tour and a shortened version of Junior’s Farm before the guest stars.

For the most part, the covers are more hit than miss. Alicia Keys’ piano version of Blackbird stays just the right side of tasteful. Alison Krauss does a very nice version of No More Lonely Nights with a bluegrass instrumentation. Duane Eddy and Norah Jones are backed by Paul’s band for And I Love her and Oh! Darling respectively. Neil Young and Crazy Horse doing I Saw Her Standing There sounds good on paper but not as good on stage.

Sergio Mendes delivers a very smooth version of The Fool on the Hill. Coldplay’s version of We Can Work It Out is as pleasant and inoffensive as you’d expect. James Taylor bravely tackles Yesterday, the Hamlet’s soliloquy of pop music, backed by Diana Krall. He then backs Krall on For No-one.

The remainder of the show is McCartney’s. This show features the premiere performance of My Valentine before he rejoins the band for Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five, followed by Golden Slumbers, Carry That Weight and The End. For the latter, Joe Walsh and Dave Grohl join in and the 3-way guitar solo becomes a 5-way. It clearly wasn’t rehearsed too much as there is some entertaining confusion as to whose turn it is.

Although most of the performances are interesting, with arrangements that are neither too close nor too far from the originals, the overall show is just a little too made-for-tv.

Highlight: Oh! Darling, For No-one, Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five.
Feature: * * *
Extras: None
Audio: Dolby stereo, Dolby 5.1, DTS 5.1

The Bonus Discs - New deluxe

On October 13th last year, I went to my nearest record store which, thanks to modern technology, is now a bit over an hour’s drive away. I had been reliably informed that the particular chain had a habit of placing stock in the racks as soon as they received it rather than keeping it embargoed until the official release date. I had nothing else to do that day and it was worth it to have the new Paul McCartney album as soon as it came out.

By coincidence, my dearest happened to be in the US at the time, so I asked her to bring my back the Target exclusive version with a bonus DVD. There were other editions exclusive to other big box stores in the US but she wasn’t near any of them. No doubt, there were fans who grabbed them all. Being a bit of an audio nerd, I also bought the high-resolution version from HD Tracks for the greater dynamic range. I didn’t bother with the standard edition – and seriously, who does this? Who thinks to themselves, “I’m going to buy the new album by one of my favourite artists, but I’ll save a couple of dollars by getting the version that has three less songs on it,”? Still, the beancounters at MPL and/or Starbucks clearly thought it was a good idea so what do I know?

So this deluxe edition is actually my fourth copy of New.
Hello, I’m Bill and I’m a hopeless fanboy.

It’s not that the album isn’t worth buying more than once – it’s excellent. There are four separate producers, including two second-generation Beatles producers; Ethan Johns, son of Glyn who worked on Let It Be, and Giles Martin (if you don’t know who his father is, then I’m very disappointed in you). As the DVD reveals, the original intention was to try out these producers – the others being Paul Epworth and Mark Ronson – and see who he actually wanted to make an album with, but having done a whole record’s worth of material, the album was compiled from all four sets of sessions. Despite the contrasting styles, the album flows extremely well. Somehow, it doesn’t suffer from the too-many-cooks problems that made Flowers in the Dirt, which was also promiscuous with producers, sound like less than the sum of its parts.

On the whole, the DVD is good value, with nearly two hours of material. The documentary on the making of the album is quite insightful and rather cleverly plays the complete album through the program. The middle of the disc compiles just about all the promotional junkets for the album, the most interesting of which is Bang & Olufsen interview. There are short pieces on the talk shows and pop-up gigs he did, but they don’t include any of the actual interviews or performances. Show Paul arriving, waving fans, gushing host, two seconds of performance, Paul shakes hands and leaves. Repeat seven times.

Johnny Depp sitting.

The DVD concludes with four official videos plus behind-the-scenes documentaries for three of them. The first compilation of McCartney promotional clips was called The McCartney Years. If there’s ever a second volume, they could almost call it Johnny Depp Sits On Things.

Johnny Depp Sitting. Again.

This deluxe edition also comes with a bonus audio disc that includes four live tracks recorded in Tokyo, and three unreleased studio tracks. The three new songs are decent, but wouldn’t have fitted the flow of the album proper.

Worth paying extra for?  If you don’t already own the album, it’s totally worth paying extra for, but who are we kidding? If you have the slightest interest in this deluxe edition, you already have the album so the question is if it’s worth buying a second time.

The way I usually look at deals like this is that most fans who are interested in the extra discs would gladly pay $25 for them as a standalone release, so why complain about getting a spare copy of the main album to play in the car or where-ever? The other side of that coin is, why bother including that redundant copy of the album when anyone who is interested is bound to have it already? I think the answer to that question is obvious: This way, it counts as sales of the New album rather than as a separate release.

Milking it? Well, yes and no. The 7 tracks on the additional audio disc are all perfectly decent B-sides. If New had been released 15 years ago, there would have been three or four singles released off it, each with two or three additional non-album tracks. Fans would have diligently bought them, spending about as much as the price of this deluxe edition, and getting a redundant, if not butchered copy of each A-side. Now that the market for physical singles is essentially dead, those extras are marketed differently.

There remains the issue of appearing to fiddle the sales figures but again, this isn’t really anything new. Back in the 90s, it wasn’t unusual for a single to be released on two different CDs, sometimes three, each with different bonus tracks. When the hardcore fans bought all versions, the title registered two or three sales for one buyer. A little detail that is rarely mentioned about the time Blur and Oasis went head-to-head releasing new singles on the same day is that while Blur may have beaten Oasis to Number 1, Country House was released on two CD singles, Roll With It was only released on one.

If you’re the kind of fan who is happy enough to have the regular album, you won’t miss anything that’s on the additional discs here. If you’re the kind of fan who has to have everything, this deluxe edition rewards your additional investment.

The Bonus Discs - Wings at the Speed of Sound

The remaster of the second album by what is generally regarded as the ‘classic’ lineup of Wings sounds just as good as its predecessor. Steve Rooke, Guy Massey and Simon Gibson have excelled themselves here. There is a real intimacy to the sound, even on the big arrangements like Silly Love Songs and Beware My Love.

The remainder of the deluxe package is a little disappointing. This is not so much a reflection on this particular edition as it is on the whole notion of massive boxed editions of single albums. The B-sides of the singles released off Wings at the Speed of Sound were also album tracks and evidently everything that they recorded for the album was released at the time. It makes sense given that the album was recorded between two tours, but it does mean the cupboard is almost bare when it comes to previously unreleased goodies to fill the bonus disc and DVD.

The bonus tracks that were on the initial CD release, Walking in the Park with Eloise, Bridge on the River Suite, and Sally G have been removed now that they’re available on the bonus disc of Venus and Mars. I heartily approve of stripping the albums back to their original track-listings. I find it annoying when the album reaches its natural conclusion and then a few B-sides play. It’s much better to shift them to separate discs.

However, having moved those three tracks to the album closest to when they were recorded, all that’s left are demos.

The “John Bonham version” of Beware My Love has already been milked for all it’s worth. The truth is, it’s not a complete version of the song but a first-take demo that happens to have John Bonham (who was a big fan of Wings’ drummer Joe English) sitting in on drums. It’s interesting but not quite the meeting of 70s giants it’s been made out to be.

The other most interesting demo on the disc is probably Paul’s vocal version of Must Do Something About It - a greatly underrated song of McCartney’s. It’s the finished backing track with Paul doing a guide vocal for Joe, who sings on the album. What’s most interesting about it is how dull Paul’s vocal is. Seriously, that’s not a criticism. Everyone knows Paul can sing the hell out of a song but rather than sell the song himself on the guide vocal, he gives only enough to show how the song goes and leaves it to Joe to do the vocal interpretation. It may come as something of a surprise to those who have Paul pegged as a control freak.

On the DVD? Well, not a whole lot. There’s the original promotional film for Silly Love Songs which has not been remastered, so there’s some added retro authenticity. The only other content is two short tour films, Wings Over Wembley and Wings in Venice. Wings Over Wembley is supposed to be a record of Wings’ three dates at Wembley arena at the conclusion of the 1976 world tour. The film is introduced as an “impression” of those dates and unfortunately, that’s all it is. All it shows is a few snippets of interviews and soundchecks. The film has been edited down from its original version and it beggars belief that they wouldn’t include the full version.

The book is as beautiful as always. It includes plenty of previously unpublished photos, including plenty from the 1975 Australian tour. Paul evidently has very fond memories of being here. HINT HINT!

The bulk of the written content is taken verbatim from an interview in which Paul actually seems rather reluctant to participate. The banal nature of the questions might have had something to do with that. I am sure you will be just as surprised as I was to learn that She’s My Baby is about Linda and the “Phil and Don” mentioned in Let ’Em In are the Everly Brothers. The most insightful part is the reflection on Jimmy McCulloch’s two Wings songs both being songs to himself warning of his self-destructive behaviour.

As with Venus and Mars, there are several pockets with heaps of little trinkets including stickers, tickets, photos and reproductions of handwritten lyrics and studio notes. While it’s very clever that they can copy these pages all the way down to the coffee stains and cigarette burns, it would be much more convenient to simply have them as pages in the book rather than individual objects.

On both Wings at the Speed of Sound and Venus and Mars, all McCartney songs are now credited to Paul and Linda. There’s no indication as to whether this is correcting a historical inaccuracy or whether this is a latter day Lennon/McCartney arrangement, not that it matters either way. The demo of Silly Love Songs does reveal Linda’s contribution.

Worth paying extra for? The remaster is definitely worth it. The additional CD is worth a few dollars extra for curiosity value but the book and DVD? Nah.

Silly Love Songs - initial 1989 CD release

Silly Love Songs - 2014 remaster

Silly Love Songs - 2014 remaster hi-res

  

 

The Bonus Discs - Venus and Mars

There is a bit of a mythology around remasters. It’s debatable as to whether the average fan is really going to hear the improvement above the confirmation bias of justifying the re-purchase of an album. It’s not that a remaster wasn’t warranted. In the case of Venus and Mars it certainly was. (Ironically, the other Paul McCartney album in the most dire need of a remaster is 2007’s Memory Almost Full, but that’s a rant for another day). I have to say though, with Venus and Mars and Wings at the Speed of Sound, you can believe the hype.

Venus and Mars is one of my favourite albums. I’ve heard it on vinyl, cassette, CD, quadraphonic digitised from 8-track cartridge and DTS-CD, and I can tell you that it has never sounded better. The music just leaps out of the speakers in the way it always should have but never quite did.

On this new version, the bonus tracks that were added to the 1993 CD have been removed. My Carnival and Lunch Box/Odd Sox have been bumped to the secondary CD and Zoo Gang has been removed altogether now that it’s on the Archive Collection version of the more contemporaneous Band on the Run.

The bonus CD starts out with the tracks recorded during Wings’ Nashville excursion just before going to New Orleans to record Venus and Mars. This is actually the first time the full version of Junior’s Farm has been available on CD outside of Wings Greatest. Its B-side, Sally G, is followed by two instrumental tracks, Walking in the Park with Eloise (written by Paul’s father) and Bridge on the River Suite, originally released as a 7” single credited to The Country Hams.

My Carnival was recorded during the Venus and Mars sessions but was not released until 1985 as the B-side of Spies Like Us (as you do). There are two version of the song here, the completed version and the demo version under the working title of Going to New Orleans (as you do.) Absent is the “party mix” which was on the Spies Like Us 12”. These are followed by yet another version of Hey Diddle, this time mixed by Ernie Winfrey during the Nashville sessions. It does certainly have more of a country feel than the version on the bonus disc of Ram.

For no apparent reason, Soily and Baby Face from the One Hand Clapping film are included on the CD. The entire film was included with Band on the Run four years ago. It’s true that these two tracks have not been released on CD before but so what? They just seem like padding on a bonus disc that is already rich with quality content.

4th of July is a gorgeous acoustic song which is followed by the “old” version of Rockshow recorded in England and the single edit of Letting Go, which has a considerably drier mix.

The DVD is made up mostly of home movies. The recording of My Carnival is interesting mainly because the track is unmixed and we get to hear some parts that weren’t used in the final mix. The section called Bon Voyageur shows Paul and Linda on a river ferry in New Orleans shortly after Mardi Gras 1975. There are occasional snippets of interviews regarding the upcoming recording and Wings are also shown partying with The Meters.

Wings at Elstree is not a concert but rehearsals for the world tour – also home movie footage, edited to include just the songs from Venus and Mars. The audio on this section ranges from acceptable to non-existent, in which case the album audio is dubbed in. The DVD concludes with the 60-second television commercial for the album.

As mentioned at the beginning, a quadraphonic version of Venus and Mars was released on 8-track and subsequently made available as a DTS-CD. It’s disappointing that the quad mix wasn’t included on the DVD the way the Pink Floyd deluxe versions did.

On the packaging side, things have been changed around a little. Rather than a fabric cover, it’s a glossy one with the album art filling the cover. It’s not exactly a hardcover, either. Rather, it’s a perfect-bound paperback, similar to the one that came with Ram, with a hard cover wraparound. Look at the picture and it makes sense.

The content of the book, written by Barry Miles from new interviews with Paul and Denny, is excellent in detailing the Nashville and New Orleans sessions. There are also several pockets inside the book containing photographs, stickers (although not the strip of planets sticker that came with the original), posters and replica tickets. It’s very lavish and well presented, but most of this stuff you’re going to look at once, say “wow, cool!” and then put it away forever. The time and effort could have been put to much better use by remastering the quad version for inclusion on the DVD.

As usual, the deluxe version comes with a code to download all the tracks in 96kHz/24bit high resolution audio.

Worth paying extra for? For the 2-disc, absolutely! For the 3-disc version, well, I’m biased. Being a New Orleanian-in-law, I found the archival footage fascinating but for many, it might hold as much interest as the replica tickets and stickers. 

Listen to What the Man Said - 1993 remaster

Listen to What the Man Said - 2014 remaster

Listen to What the Man Said - 2014 remaster hi-res

“Very good to see you down in New Orleans, man!”

 

The Grammy Awards - a (delayed) live ’blog

Let's be honest: awards nights are just an irrelevant circle-jerk and music awards shows are doubly so. The Grammy Awards perhaps have the advantage over plethora of other music awards shows if only because they're the original irrelevant circle-jerk. Having said that, with so few opportunities to present musical performances to a mass television audience these days, perhaps they're a little less pointless than they used to be.

This is actually the first time I've even been moved enough to watch the Grammy Awards since 2006. Since I couldn't watch them live, it's a bit pointless to live tweet so here, in real time but delayed, are my thoughts and observations.

(By the way, I am aware of the irony of writing about something I consider to be mostly pointless and irrelevant, but it's all about the bitching, innit?)


0:25 They're listing performances and collaborations from previous shows "That make history." No pressure, then.

2:20 Live from Beyonce's dressing room?

3:47 This is where I begin to wonder if there will be any female performers wearing pants. I have skipped forward and confirmed that there are.

4:40 I'm getting dizzy. One can only wonder about Beyonce, but at least neither of us is epileptic.

5:15 Hey, how come Jay-Z gets to wear clothes?

5:45 Can't a woman even sing a song without her husband coming in shouting over it?

6:30 I have no idea what that song was about.

7:10 Wonder if LL Cool J is going to apologise for Accidental Racist.

8:45 Isn't it a bit sad to have to remind the crowd of your hits?

9:00 Um, What?? Taylor Swift made is okay for young women to write about what happened to them and how they're dealing with it? I'm hearing generations of writers from Joni Mitchell to Ani Di Franco saying, "Oh PLEASE!"

9:30 The word 'daft' just sounds wrong in an American accent.

10:00 "Four young men from Liverpool." Whoever could he mean? Barbara looks great.

11:45 First awkward scripted joke of the evening.

13:10 Ed Sheerin is still a new artist?

13:30 The grab they played of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis sounded pretty good.

13:50 First speech beginning with, "Whooo!" I bet it won't be the last. Things look pretty chaotic in the audience.

14:50 "We made this album without a record company..." and immediately the 'get off' music begins. Hmm...

15:30 I've heard a lot of good things about Lorde but this is the first time I've heard her music.

17:30 It would have been better if they had live backing singers. It would seem less pre-recorded. I'm sure she's probably singing live but it feels less like it when there are voices coming out of nowhere.

19:40 Apart from the invisible backing singers, that was really good. Extra points for letting the musical performance stand on its own without feeling the need to wow people with a production number. Bonus points for wearing clothes.

21:20 Hunter Hayes. Apparently this is a brand new song.

24:20 Hmm, nice sentiment but not particularly different. Bit of a motivational talk set to MOR music. Sorry.

24:50 "Music is a universal language." Everybody drink!

25:30 A category for collaborations. That makes sense. I like that.

27:30 Good thing Get Lucky was a collaboration with Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers so the robots had someone to speak for them.

28:00 Steve Coogan: "What an honour it is to be in the same room and Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney." Yes, it is, and I strongly suspect that's the draw for many of the other guests. Goes and ruins it by talking about reuniting two of the Beatles, but recovers by using it to diss the Jonas Brothers. Macca does self-deprecating finger-point. Drink!

29:00 Katy Perry. Oh shit, they're playing the tape at the wrong speed.

29:30 Okay, if this were Eurovision, we'd be laughing our arses off at this point.

32:15 Somewhere in here, there's a decent song but both the arrangement and performance are trying too hard to make it epic.

33:40 Shout out for Phil Ramone. Nice touch and thoroughly merited.

35:15 Robin Thicke is the one Miley Cyrus was rubbing her arse against, isn't he?

35:30 Oh dear, it's a medley. I hate medleys. If a song is worth singing, it's worth singing all of.

38:00 They're doing it well though. Robin Thicke's voice fits in nicely. He's so much better when he's just singing the song though. There's no need for the melisma.

39:00 Going straight into another performance after Chicago. It seems like they think the actual awards are secondary. They're right.

39:40 Valve lights. Nice. There's something not right about the most Serthern American sounding voice so far coming out of someone from Queensland.

43:00 Nice guitar duet. I'm not a fan of Keith Urban but the boy can play.

43:30 O hai social media reporter! You know we don't need tv to tell us what's on the internet?

48:00 John Legend. Standard romantic song but a lovely simple performance.

51:00 Best Rock Song: Cut Me Some Slack. Look, I love Paul McCartney like a favourite uncle and I love Dave Grohl just for looking as happy as a man with his life ought to be, but this is bullshit. Both the Grammys and the Oscars have a long standing habit of awarding people instead of quality. It's clear that this award was simply for being Paul McCartney and the remains of Nirvana, who never won a Grammy in their day but probably would have if the academy had their time over. Aside from that, Cut Me Some Slack is a dog of a song. It wasn't even the best song on Sound City. It probably also didn't hurt that they premiered the song at the 12 12 12 concert for Sandy relief but that doesn't stop Cut Me Some Sack being a riff in search of a song.

[Aside: The concert in aid of a hurricane striking New York had Paul McCartney, three quarters of Nirvana, Roger Waters, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and a dozen or so other A-listers, all introduced by a whole bunch of movie and tv stars. The Concert for the Philippines had Linkin Park (who organised it), The Offspring and Bad Religion. Think about that for a moment. And I'm not bagging the latter three bands. More power to them.]

Kudos to Krist Novoselic for breaking into the Grohl/McCartney mutual appreciation society and mentioning that for Nirvana's part, fellow nominees Black Sabbath and The Rolling Stones were just as important.

54:30 Taylor Swift. Was thinking this was a bit brave being the second piano ballad in a row, but they've gone the power ballad formula on this one with the fully rocking third verse, then going quiet again. Not my bag, but nicely done.

58:00 If they ever remake The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Bruno Mars could totally star in it

1:01:00 Pink is the latest victim of the great American skirt shortage of 14.

1:01:45 Seriously though, Pink's performance was amazing but it just leaves me wondering, 'Why?' The song became a soundtrack to her acrobatics, which were brilliant in their own right, but only took away from the music.

1:02:30 Oh good, she's found one.

1:04:30 That became an epic in the style of Jim Steinman. It's just a pity I've forgotten how it started because I was looking at what an amazing acrobat Pink is - and she undoubtedly is.

1:05:00 It's over an hour into the show and we're only up to the fourth award.

1:08:15 Black Sabbath: "The Beatles didn't really become The Beatles until they found Ringo." Yep. That's the truth.

1:09:30 Why have they buried his vocal in the mix?

1:10:30 Seems to be a special All-Starr band here. There's Steve Lukather on 12-string and that looks like Don Was on bass...

1:12:30 Peace and Love, Ringo!

1:13:00 Jamie Foxx, you can't do a Liverpool accent. Not even close.

1:14:00 Oh, how dare you ad lib!

1:17:00 Nice acknowledgement of Def Jam.

1:18:30 This is getting a bit Eurovision again - stylistically if not musically.

1:20:30 Jay-Z seems to be into this, but I can't help wondering if he's thinking, "Yeah, did it."

1:21:00 Jazzmaster/Jaguar tremolo yet doesn't appear to be a Fender. I've never seen this before. Has Jazzmaster-looking pickups but likely twin coil. Interesting...

1:23:10 Full points for energy.


1:26:30 That was... interesting.

1:28:20 Wouldn't it have been great if Ennio Morricone had played something. With anyone.

1:29:30 "Changed history forever." Um, that's redundant.

1:30:30 Queenie Eye. Awesome! This walks all over Cut Me Some Slack.

1:33:20 Yoko Dancing to Paul. Beautiful.

1:34:30 One of the saddest things about John and George no longer being with us (apart from John and George no longer being with us, obviously) is that it means Paul and Ringo can't just play together the way they regularly did throughout the 80s and 90s without idiots in the media screaming "surviving Beatles reunion." It makes it so much harder for them.

1:35:00 They didn't even include Best Producer in the telecast? Would they leave out Best Director from the Oscars?

1:38:45 The Lifetime Achievement Award (or, the 'We really should have given you this years ago' award) is being given to The Beatles this year?? I bet they're glad they've finally made it. What was it Stella McCartney said?
The Isley Brothers and Kraftwerk - ditto.

1:41:30 Nice recovery on Highwayman. Now you know it's live. Well done.

1:43:30 Sean Lennon caught in a bit of ironic dancing.

1:55:00 Daft Punk. Brilliant!

1:59:00 Great duet from Sarah Bareilles and Carole King. Interestingly, it follows similar motivational themes to several previous songs tonight, but this is the first one that has really convinced me.

2:04:30 Metallica the greatest example of a band staying true to themselves? Yeah, um, nah.

2:07:00 Kirk Hammet in a Lou Reed t-shirt. Nice.

2:09:15 Lang Lang is going off! This is pretty good.

2:09:45 Oh, they're still doing the Duggada-duggada-CHUNK! bit. Oh well.

2:11:45 Steven Tyler: "Paul, you ought to cover that song." Cute.

2:15:00 Grammy Camp? Egads!

2:16:00 Trombone Shorty. Cool!

2:20:30 Wow!

2:23:00 Okay that was brilliant. I get the feeling there might be a 50th anniversary commemoration of that performance too. Never mind universal languages, let's talk about music as an agent of change!

2:25:00 A music educator award? Excellent idea.

2:43:00 Cutting off the closing act was ridiculous. So they were running over time, so what? Of course that's going to happen in a 3-hour live broadcast. Is this rock and roll or what? It left a sour taste at the end of what was an excellent show.

Yes, I started off snarky, but it won me over. I can't believe I'm saying this, but the Grammy Awards were great. Not a completely irrelevant circle-jerk after all. They got it right. And I'm glad Blurred Lines didn't win anything.

One last observation: I spotted in the credits a "Most pit coordinator." That's a contradiction in terms, friends!

I might even watch next year.
Goodnight!

The Bonus Discs: New

The US Target edition of New comes with a bonus DVD called A Rendez-vous with Paul McCartney.

It’s a 22-minute interview, conducted by Genevieve Borne, about the ‘Out There’ tour. It’s an odd inclusion, given that the main part of the tour concluded before the album was released and didn’t preview any songs from it.

As short tour films go, it’s paint-by-numbers stuff, containing very little that long-term fans wouldn’t already know. There’s a bit of discussion about previously unplayed songs recently added to the setlist such as All Together Now and particularly Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite, but we only hear snippets of the actual songs. The warmest moment is talking about the plague of grasshoppers that invaded the stage in Brazil. 

On the whole, it’s like an extra feature on a concert disc that was never released.

The packaging is no different to the regular deluxe version (yes, there are regular, deluxe, and special deluxe editions). The DVD comes in a cardboard sleeve with artwork identical to the album cover, stuck with removable gum to the album packaging.

Audio: Dolby Stereo

Worth paying extra for?  If you can find it at Target, it doesn’t cost any more and it’s certainly worth having, but not worth going out of your way for or paying ebay prices. Look it up on YouTube instead.

  

 

The Bonus Discs - Wings Over America

In the CD age, an entire concert can usually fit comfortably onto a double live album, so it’s easy to forget that in 1976 the idea of releasing an entire set as a live album, rather than edited highlights, was a pretty lavish to begin with. It’s like a relic from a different age. Could be.

This expanded and boxed edition is the most sumptuous release in the McCartney Archive Collection yet, making the earlier deluxe editions of Band on the Run, McCartney and McCartney II look positively humble by comparison. The whole package is arranged much more sensibly than RAM’s box of tricks. The box itself is a slipcover, housing four(!) books: a short history of Wings and the US tour written by David Fricke, an album of Linda’s photographs taken on the tour, a book of drawings by Humphrey Ocean and a replica itinerary of the tour including dates, lyrics, insurance details, replica programme, passes and tickets and it also happens to house the discs. 

The discs themselves are presented in miniature reproductions of the inner sleeves of the original LP and the disc labels are replicas of the custom labels of the LPs. (Sides 4 and 5 are the ones that were left out).

The remasters definitely have more clarity and crispness than the previous CD release. However, the album has not been remixed, so the bass is still at the front of the mix as it was on the original album.  While it’s refreshing to hear those classic McCartney basslines so clearly, it becomes a little disconcerting to have the bass dominating the mix as much as it does. 

And so to the bonus discs, of which there are two – a short CD of songs from the show at San Francisco’s Cow Palace, and a DVD of the television special Wings Over the World and a(nother) collections of photos called Photographer’s Pass. Unlike the McCartney and RAM DVDs, there is plenty of visual material connected with Wings Over America to make a decent length DVD. Wings Over the World is not so much a documentary as a bit of a travelogue where the music does the talking most of the time and there are short quotes from Paul as voiceover between the songs. Most of the concert footage is taken from what would eventually become Rockshow, but it also includes a song each from San Francisco and Melbourne. There are also some amusing pieces with Australian media and snippets of the infamous Norman Gunston interview, which Paul and Linda excelled at because they got the humour. 

As with the previous deluxe edition DVDs, the vision has not been restored and the audio has not been remastered so the quality of both is exactly what you would expect from a late 70s television special. (The copyright date at the end says 1979, so it may have originally been released to promote either Wings’ 1979 tour or possibly the Rockshow film). While this may have added some charm to the short programs on the previous DVDs, it’s a bit disappointing that more effort wasn’t made on such an expensive release. The Photographer’s Pass segment features many photos that are also included in the books, set to the live versions of Band on the Run and Soily. 

The bonus audio disc features only eight songs. Why only eight and why these eight remains a mystery. These versions were clearly never candidates for the main album as there a couple of noticeable mistakes and a few wobbly harmonies. The mix is considerably drier than the main album which gives the set a more intimate sound even though the venue was as large as any other they played on the tour. 

As with the other deluxe editions, the box comes with a voucher to download all the music in high-resolution audio.

Worth paying extra for?

Well, that all depends on what you’re buying. If you want the full package with photos, coffee table books and a box that could actually double as a small coffee table, then it’s quite reasonable. Nothing approaching a bargain, but reasonable. However, if all you want is the extra music and DVD, then no way on earth is it worth paying over $100 extra for. And frankly folks, this is why people download. It makes sense for record companies to entice people back to buying real, physical music by value-adding on the packaging side, but this goes way too far. It’s not that the packaging isn’t brilliant. Indeed, it’s probably the most beautiful package ever released by a Beatle, and that’s saying something. It’s just that what people want most is the music. As I’ve said in reviews of other deluxe editions, there are more than enough cashed-up completists to make this boxed set sell handsomely even if all the audio and visual content were made available for less than the cost of a five-star dinner for four. 

I really hope they go back to the single book packaging for the next round of reissues, but the way things are going, Venus and Mars is going to come with five hardcover books housed in a replica billiard table and cost about $250.

Venus and Mars/Rockshow/Jet - Initial CD release

Venus and Mars/Rockshow/Jet - 2013 remaster

Venus and Mar/Rockshow/Jet - Hi-res 2013 remaster