Category Archives: Paul McCartney

McCartney ‘Archive Collection’ Coloured Vinyl – Confusion Reigns

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Five days on from the official announcement on the Paul McCartney website that there are to be eight titles in the McCartney Archive Collection series re-issued as single discs on the Capitol label (on CD, black vinyl and limited coloured vinyl), confusion reigns about just how anyone can actually order the coloured vinyl.

Both McCartney’s own site, and the Universal Music store site included links to order these but by the weekend both had been quickly taken down. The Universal link is just dead (and again here), while the official McCartney links for each album have since been altered and only take you through to the US Amazon site where there is no mention of the coloured vinyl whatsoever. The links are clearly for the black vinyl editions only.

Many online stores over the weekend quickly put up their own images and prices – both for individual coloured LPs and bundles – but these too have since been either completely taken down (for example SoundStage Direct in the US), or now carry an apology (for example the Bull Moose store) stating that they’ve been asked by the artist and the label NOT to sell these titles online.

To quote collectors on the Steve Hoffman Music Forums thread, many of whom have preordered and paid their money before the links just disappeared:

“Seriously, what a mess. I was actually stoked about this. Now i can see it’s probably not going to be easy…..”.

and:

“Yes I’m worried about sites filling the orders. If the link was pulled from Paul’s site on the official announcement then I would worry about them being filled at any other site [too]. I have them pre ordered thru the link that was on his site and even thru that I’m worried I won’t get them. They seem very limited and none of the sites seem to be able to confirm they will honor the pre orders.”

It has to be said that this looks like a complete and utter stuff up my MPL and Capitol. They’ve gone into print and raised expectations, but they haven’t thought through what they were publicising, nor communicated how fans and collectors could get their hands on these eight coloured vinyl editions. Pretty bad form and does not auger well for the McCartney/Capitol/UMe relationship.

UPDATE: This just in from the Record Store Day site: Indie record stores are the ONLY physical retailers in the US to have the limited edition colored vinyl versions…..

Paul McCartney a Pirate?

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Paul McCartney has posted this photo on his Instagram feed:

#PiratesLife  And this on Facebook.

Release date is the same day as the newly re-mixed 50th Anniversary of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band comes out……

Another Addition to McCartney’s ‘Flowers’ Deluxe Box Set

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In the lead up to the release the Paul McCartney Flowers In The Dirt deluxe box set, Paul Sinclair from Super Deluxe Edition was one of the people leading the charge to have a physical CD included instead of the proposed “Download Only” selection of B-sides, Remixes, Single Edits and Cassette Demos.

His role in the protest led to a call from Scott Rodger, McCartney’s manager, who laid out the reasons behind the download only decision.

It also led Paul Sinclair to publish on his site a series of interviews with the producers who, back in 1989, collaborated with McCartney on the original recordings for Flowers In The Dirt. They each gave a unique insight not only into what it was like to work on the project, but also what it was like to work with Paul McCartney.

The reaction to those interviews was such that Sinclair subsequently produced a limited edition printed booklet called In Their Own Words: The Producer’s on Paul McCartney’s Flowers in the Dirt:Here’s a typical page (as usual, click on the images to see larger versions):

In a nice touch the booklet is designed to slip in alongside the other four books that come with the deluxe box set:

The booklet is a professionally designed and printed, 16-page document containing the original 9000-word interview feature (as published on SDE) along with 1200 extra words exclusive to the printed edition. Only 500 copies were initially produced and made available for sale through the Super Deluxe Edition site. Each was numbered and signed by Paul Sinclair. Ours is number 347/500:

The initial print run of numbered and signed copies sold out in less than 48 hours. In response to demand, there has been a second print run of this booklet. These are unsigned and not numbered, but otherwise identical. So if you’d like one, get in fast.

See also our solution to the “Download Only” issue.

Flowers In The Dirt – What Could/Should Have Been

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As you’re no doubt aware, the deluxe Archive Collection box set of Paul McCartney’s 2017 re-issue of Flowers In The Dirt created quite an angry response amongst many fans and collectors.

The issue was around his decision to include a whole CD’s worth of B-sides, remixes and single edits, and three cassette demos as downloadable content only. No physical CD would be included in the four-disc set.

Well, no doubt many who purchased the box set have taken that download code provided and created their own CD burns to put inside the box. Here’s a look at the three CD’s and one DVD you do get (click on images to see larger versions):

And here’s what could have/should have been – one disc for the thirteen B-sides, remixes and single edits plus the three cassette demo songs:

Plus on the official Paul McCartney website there are a further three exclusive downloads (‘Distractions (Demo)’, ‘This One (Demo)’, and ‘Back on My Feet (Demo)’) not included in the box set at all, so why not a separate disc for these songs too?:

Call us pedantic and old-fashioned for wanting tactile, hard copies of this bonus material. And call us fussy for creating our own matching labels, but discs V and VI will now be filed inside our Flowers In The Dirt box alongside the other content provided in physical form to create a complete set. They’ll be in their own paper sleeves:

Russian Fake Beatle Records and Sleeves Exposed

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If you collect Beatle discs from around the world then the Russian Beatle site beatlesvinyl.com.ua is a goldmine of information for records from that country:

Alongside their already impressive catalogue and detail about every official Beatle and solo release in that country, they’ve just added a massive new section on fake pressings and sleeves:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As usual, the detail and depth of their research and knowledge is first-rate. We’ve used it extensively to research our collection of different pressings of Paul McCartney’s Choba B CCCP for example (see here, and here).

The site is in Russian and English, and alongside all the local releases (both official and fake) it contains a comprehensive and up-to-date general catalogue of every Beatle and solo release from the UK/EU, and the US, plus a whole section on Apple Records as well.

There’s also a big section on Beatle cover versions over the years by Russian artists.

Sgt. Pepper Previews and Liverpool Sound Collage

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Alternate versions of some of the songs from the forthcoming 50th Anniversary Edition of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band are beginning to appear on the web.

There’s this one, a stripped-back example of the title track, ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band [Take 9 and Speech]’:

It’s interesting on a whole range of levels, not least because we now know exactly where Paul McCartney went for inspiration for his experimental album Liverpool Sound Collage, released back in the year 2000.

If you listen to the ‘Sgt. Pepper [Take 9]’ track at around 2’08” in, he’s singing the same words we hear on the track ‘Free Now’:

On the Liverpool Sound Collage album cover McCartney credits The Beatles (and collaborators the Super Furry Animals), but not exactly where the Beatle samples used across the album come from. Now we know the origins of at least one of them.

Alternate take tracks are being intentionally leaked to the media as part of the publicity for the big Pepper 50th Anniversary next month. ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band [Take 9  and Speech]’ was played on the Chris Evans Radio Show (BBC Radio 2). It was also given to the British newspaper The Guardian, and to US radio station WCSX in Detroit, which has also played a preview of ‘With A Little Help From My Friends [Take 1 – False Start And Take 2 – Instrumental]’:

 

 

Massive Beatles Record Store Day Fail – An Update

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Well, our initial post on Record Store Day about a fruitless early morning hunt for The Beatles ‘Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever’ 7″ single and Paul McCartney’s Cassette Demos release with Elvis Costello has garnered some reaction.

On social media we’ve copped some criticism for expecting there to be copies of the Beatles RSD disc in one of the largest independent record stores in Sydney, Australia – which I might add is a city of over 5 million people. The store had two copies.

Roger Stormo over at The Daily Beatle has posted an interesting comparison.

He lives in a small town near Oslo in Norway. His local store just down the road had two copies of ‘Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever’.

Meanwhile, in the city of Oslo itself (population 1.71 million), a friend of Roger’s said that late into Record Store Day there were still plenty of Beatles singles available in two of the participating stores there. They sent him this photo from one of the locations: 

As you can see above, there was a stack of the 7″ single left. A rough estimate would be at least 40 to 50 copies. They even had multiple copies of the McCartney/Costello Cassette Demos tape still available, and this was after the store had been open for about 4-5 hours:

To quote Roger: “So it seemed there were more of these Beatles and related items in Oslo than anywhere else on the planet! How very strange. The single was supposedly pressed in only 7,000 copies and the cassette just 2,500. So how come so many of them ended up in Norway?”

Indeed. 

Meanwhile, this eBay seller reckons he can get $75.00 US for the ‘Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever’ RSD single (that’s about £58.00 UK, €70.00 Euros, or $100.00 Australian).

Go figure.

Massive Beatles Record Store Day Fail….

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Well, what a disappointing Record Store Day 2017 we had….

The plan was reasonably good on paper:

a) get up at 6.30am; b) drive straight into the city and go to Red Eye Records, one of the largest and most respected record stores in Sydney – we’ve spent a lot of money here over the years; c) buy a copy of The Beatles 7″ ‘Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever’; d) ask if they also have the Paul McCartney/Elvis Costello Cassette Demos from Flowers In The Dirt released specially for RSD; e) if so, buy that too; f) come home happy.

What really happened:

a) got up at 6.30am; b) drove into the city (first mistake – nowhere to park); c) eventually parked away across town and had a lengthy walk to Red Eye, arriving at 7.40am; d) big crowd already there waiting for the doors to open at 8.00am, long queue stretching down the block:

e) at about 9.00am we eventually get to the counter; f) at about 9.01am we’re told that the store only got two copies of the ‘Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever’ single and that these sold long ago; g) they didn’t get any of the Cassette Demos at all; h) at 9.02am come out of the store disheartened, race down to Utopia Records nearby; i) they don’t have any copies of either title; j) race back to the car; k) drive to Newtown just outside the city, to two other participating record stores (Egg Records and Hum on King); l) no luck there either; m) drive home empty-handed, disappointed, tired and by this stage a little angry….

Firstly, how can the biggest independent record store in Sydney be allocated just two copies of the only Beatle Record Store Day release?

Secondly, now we search eBay only to see a large number of sellers who have copies of the Beatles 7″, don’t want it for their own collections, and are offering multiple copies for sale online at exorbitant prices. They are the equivalent of concert ticket scalpers, preying on the true fans.

There’s something basically wrong with Record Store Day when this sort of thing happens, don’t you think?

Flowers In The Dirt – In Depth Producer Interviews

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With Flowers In The Dirt to be released tomorrow in various formats as part of the Paul McCartney Archive Collection re-issue series, here’s a link to an extraordinary series of interviews with the people who helped McCartney bring the original project to life.

Flowers In The Dirt was produced by not one, but several different producers – and in the lead up to the newly remastered re-issue coming out, Paul Sinclair from the impressive Super Deluxe Edition site has interviewed four of them.

What was it really like to work with Paul McCartney in the studio?

You can find out here in what is a comprehensive and informative backgrounder to this 1989 McCartney album:And here’s a new, official “unboxing” video detailing the contents of the Deluxe edition box set:

Free Download of Exclusive Demo Track from ‘Flowers In The Dirt’

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As he has done with previous Paul McCartney Archive series releases Paul McCartney, in the lead-up to his forthcoming re-issue of Flowers In The Dirt in multiple formats, is making available a track that won’t be part of those packages.

If you go to McCartney’s official website you can get the demo version of ‘Distractions’, an album track from Flowers. It’s exclusive and it is free.

Speaking earlier this week about the song, Paul said:

“I like a good love song, you know. And it’s always nice to be in the mood to write a ballad and that was the case when I sat down to write this. It just occurred to me that if you love someone, one of the problems is that you don’t always spend enough time with that person. Because you’ve got things to do, you’ve got work or you’ve got other obligations to other people or whatever. And so I thought, yeah you could call those distractions from the main event kind of thing. That was basically what this is:

“What is this thing in life that persuades me to take time away from you?…                  ….Distractions, like butterflies….”

I elaborated on that theme, it’s just someone wishing they could spend more time with their loved one. And you know for me at that time it was about Linda. But people often say to me, ‘Who did you write this about?’ and even though then I would have been writing specifically about Linda – because she was the object of my affection – I liked the idea that it could also be the sort of dream of romance. It could just be an ideal – we all love someone and wish we could spend more time with that someone. A romantic ideal! I know that a young couple won’t hear this about me and Linda, the guy will hear it about him and his girlfriend, the girl will hear that it’s about her and her boyfriend, and I like that. I like that about my songs, that people use them for their own purpose. And I think that’s a very romantic idea.”

UPDATE: Since this article was first published there have been a further two exclusive free demo tracks from the Flowers In The Dirt sessions added to the McCartney download page: ‘This One (Demo)’, and ‘Back On My Feet (Demo)’.

There are still five other free downloads from previous McCartney Archive Series re-issues available on the site as well.