Denny Laine’s boxed set – of course highlighting a couple of Wings singles. Photo by Lizzie.
Even though the release date for Paul McCartney’s 80 singles in a wooden crate was only yesterday, people have reported that it has arrived. One of the ones who didn’t have to shell out for the box was Denny Laine, who posted photos of his complimentary set. Of course, he has earned it, after all he plays and sings on quite a number of the tracks, and he is also a co-composer of some of the songs.
The boxed set must have been priced far too cheap, since it sold out in only three days after it was made available for pre-ordering from online web shops. USA: $611.98 – U.K.: £614.99 – Europe: 735,00€. We guess the prices people are asking for reselling it on ebay represent what people are actually willing to pay for it.
For those who were too late in ordering, or could not afford to shell out for the set, there are still some great benefits for everyone.
First of all, all the tracks are now available on various streaming services, so if you subscribe to one of them, you can still enjoy the songs. And a few of them have never before appeared online.
Links: Apple Music – Spotify – Tidal
For our own enjoyment, we have put together a Spotify playlist of the songs that have been remastered for the set, plus a few extras. Mostly, the remasters for the ongoing series of archive releases from Paul have been used, but in the case of some of the songs that have yet to be treated to the archive program, they have been remastered in 2022. Paul McCartney’s “The 7” Singles Box” was remastered and cut by Alex Wharton at Abbey Road Studios.
Most of the new remasters bring new clarity to the songs, with better separations of the individual instruments and voices. However, there are a few instances where the previous remasters (by Peter Mew in 1993 for “The Paul McCartney Collection” CD series), or even the pre-1993 original CD editions are better than the new ones, your mileage may vary. One surprise was that “Only Love Remains” seems to be a previously unreleased mix of the song.
Ad for the 1993 remasters
We are also benefitting from the promoting of the boxed set on Paul’s YouTube channel, which has been releasing a number of his music videos in better quality, as they have been transferred in a higher definition than previous outings of them. Which is really something he should have done a long time ago and put on the video discs of the Archives series. How come the DeLuxe editions of the Archives series of albums only contained DVDs and not Blu-rays?
So far, Paul has released one of the “Mull of Kintyre” music videos (directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg, no less), two videos for “Tug of war”, as well as the videos for “Pipes of Peace” and “No More Lonely Nights”.