Paul McCartney and Wings: Wings at the Speed ​​of Sound (1976)

It’s never easy being in a band with Paul McCartney. This is the man who wrote the first long stadium song (She Loves You), the UK’s best-selling No. 1 (Mull of Kintyre), the best James Bond rocker (‘Live and Let Die’), the biggest song in 70s love (‘Maybe I’m Amazed’), Michael Jackson’s magnificent pop duo (‘Say Say Say’), the perfect disco number (‘Silly Love Songs’), the most covered song of all time (‘Yesterday’), the most accomplished of the many tributes to John Lennon (‘Here Today’), the Beatles’ biggest hit (‘Hey Jude’) and the Kanye West zeitgeist of the 21st century (‘Four Five Seconds’ ). So when you write an album with him, you are sure to come out as a loser. This is the summary of the fifth album of Wings, an album that assured its listeners that Wings was a true band, but suffered the hands of the democratic margin.

And it’s not the band’s fault. They all tried to write (yes, Linda did too). Everyone took turns singing, everyone took turns speaking, everyone worked. But they were in the company of Paul McCartney, who with ‘Let Em In’ and ‘Silly Love Songs’ alone, struck the band senseless with his minor works. It’s no wonder these songs became the hits of choice, the first into a quintessential piano ditty, the second into one of the most accomplished bass-laden disco works of the 1970s (the Bee Gees got going Next year).

Featuring mainstays Denny Laine and Linda McCartney along with guitar magician Jimmy McCulloch and drummer Joe English each with a lead vocal, ‘Speed’ turned out to be the only studio album where the entire unit had a chance to perform; with mixed success. ‘Wino Junko’ crafted with great honesty, but it smelled like over-seventies. Joe English’s place on ‘Must Do Something About It’ had an interesting opening line, but nothing more. Linda’s ‘Cook of The House’ did little to dispel the rumor that she couldn’t sing, write or dance. Only Denny Laine provided anything of value, his ‘Time to Hide’ a worthwhile song, but that also paled in comparison to ‘The Note You Never Wrote’, McCartney’s song for him. Floydian in its atmosphere, Beatly in its delivery, ‘Note’ featured McCartney’s best set of lyrics on the album, reminiscent of the chilling images he brought to ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and ‘She’s Leaving Home’, brought to life by the excellent McCulloch guitar. only.

The rest of the album was pure McCartney, adorned with his pop genius, seething rock guitar lines, disco beats and surrogate pop. ‘Let Em In’, the album opener, spotted with perfect pop horns not heard since ‘Lady Madonna’, the great Wings opener after the unsurpassed ‘Band On The Run’. ‘She’s my baby’ oozed in a 1950s pastiche that no one except McCartney could pull off. ‘Warm and Beautiful’ happily joined ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’ and ‘My Love’ as one of McCartney’s best post-Beatles love songs, lovingly rearranged for string quartet to commemorate Linda McCartney’s untimely demise in 1998.

‘Silly Love Songs’, a vibrant dance floor, brought credibility to record-hopping musicians of the sixties (Rod Stewart and Mick Jagger followed suit). McCartney’s most indelible and enduring bassline, ‘Silly’, sprang from funk ersatz, a natural anthem of the stadium and one of the highlights of the ‘Wings Over America’ album.

A very strong half album, it’s even more disappointing how much better it would have been if McCartney had written the whole thing (as opposed to ‘Red Rose Speedway’, which may have benefited from a second writer).

As McCartney writes, the album is a strong rocker from the ’70s, an excellent four-star follow-up to’ Venus and Mars’. When others write, the songs sound like a two-star amateur record. ‘Speed’ finds itself centered in the middle, a three-star album, worthy of greater potential than the released album.

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