Paul McCartney – Pure McCartney {Deluxe Edition} (2016) [HDTracks FLAC 24bit/44,1kHz]

Paul McCartney and his music need no introduction. Together with three of his friends, he changed the cultural landscape forever.

And Paul’s accomplishments since then as a member of Wings and a solo artist make for a staggering body of work that stands proudly alongside those eight sensational years with The Beatles. Pure McCartney, a new compilation of his solo, Wings and Fireman work, celebrates that fact, showcasing 67 highlights from one of the most-revered catalogues in music – spanning from 1970 debut solo album all the way through 2012’s “My Valentine“, 2014’s “Hope For The Future” and 2015’s “Say Say Say remix”.

“Me and my team came up with the idea of putting together a collection of my recordings with nothing else in mind other than having something fun to listen to,” Paul says of this project. “Maybe it’s to be enjoyed on a long car journey or an evening at home or at a party with friends? So we got our heads together and came up with these diverse playlists from various periods of my long and winding career.”

Touted as a personally curated compilation by Paul McCartney, Pure McCartney is the first McCartney compilation since 2001’s Wingspan: Hits and History. A full 15 years separated this and Wingspan, longer than the span between that double-disc set and 1987’s All the Best, but the 2001 set also stopped cold in 1984, leaving over 30 years of solo McCartney recordings uncompiled on hits collections. In both its standard two-CD and deluxe four-disc incarnations, Pure McCartney attempts to rectify this, going so far as to include “Hope for the Future,” his song for the 2014 video game Destiny. A fair chunk of the compilation rests upon songs heard on Wings Greatest, All the Best, and Wingspan – “Jet,” “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey,” “Another Day,” “Mull of Kintyre,” “Let Em In,” “Band on the Run,” “No More Lonely Nights,” “Live and Let Die,” “Say Say Say,” “Listen to What the Man Said,” and “Silly Love Songs” are all de rigueur – so the interesting things lie in the margins, or in the music made since 1984. The standard edition contains three selections from Flaming Pie – the 1997 album that kicked off a latter-day streak of excellent records from McCartney – and a couple of cuts from both Chaos & Creation in the Backyard and Memory Almost Full, but it bypasses Flowers in the Dirt entirely. Flowers is also entirely absent on the deluxe edition, which nevertheless offers plenty of room for digressions – here, the new wave future shock of “Temporary Secretary,” the rockers “Junior’s Farm,” the hippie come-on “Big Barn Bed” and “Hi Hi Hi,” and the frivolous synth pop of Press can all be heard – so it paints a much richer portrait of McCartney’s solo work, but even then it feels slightly incomplete. Hits are missing, including the brassy Brit-pop of “Take It Away,” “My Brave Face,” and the seasonal “Wonderful Christmastime,” as are electronic risks like “Check My Machine,” but their absence only underscores one fact: McCartney made more great music than what can fit on even a four-disc box. Pure McCartney gets closer to capturing the full range of his career than any of his previous compilations, but it’s still only an introduction to one of the richest bodies of work in pop music.

Tracklist:
01. Maybe I’m Amazed
02. Heart Of The Country
03. Jet (feat. Wings)
04. Warm And Beautiful (feat. Wings)
05. Listen To What The Man Said (feat. Wings)
06. Dear Boy
07. Silly Love Songs (feat. Wings)
08. The Song We Were Singing
09. Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey
10. Early Days
11. Big Barn Bed (feat. Wings)
12. Another Day
13. Flaming Pie
14. Jenny Wren
15. Too Many People
16. Let Me Roll It (feat. Wings)
17. New
18. Live And Let Die (feat. Wings)
19. English Tea
20. Mull Of Kintyre (feat. Wings)
21. Save Us
22. My Love (feat. Wings)
23. Bip Bop (feat. Wings)
24. Let ‘Em In (feat. Wings)
25. Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five (feat. Wings)
26. Calico Skies
27. Hi, Hi, Hi (feat. Wings)
28. Waterfalls
29. Band On The Run (feat. Wings)
30. Appreciate
31. Sing The Changes (feat. The Fireman)
32. Arrow Through Me (feat. Wings)
33. Every Night
34. Junior’s Farm (feat. Wings)
35. Mrs Vandebilt (feat. Wings)
36. Say Say Say (Radio Edit / 2015 Remix)
37. My Valentine
38. Pipes Of Peace
39. The World Tonight
40. Souvenir
41. Dance Tonight
42. Ebony And Ivory (Remixed 2015)
43. Fine Line (3:07)
44. Here Today (Remixed 2015)
45. Press
46. Wanderlust (Remixed 2015)
47. Winedark Open Sea
48. Beautiful Night
49. Girlfriend (feat. Wings)
50. Queenie Eye
51. We All Stand Together
52. Coming Up
53. Too Much Rain
54. Good Times Coming / Feel The Sun
55. Goodnight Tonight (feat. Wings)
56. Baby’s Request (feat. Wings)
57. With A Little Luck (DJ Edit) (feat. Wings)
58. Little Willow
59. Only Mama Knows
60. Don’t Let It Bring You Down (feat. Wings)
61. The Back Seat Of My Car
62. No More Lonely Nights (7″ Single Version)
63. Great Day
64. Venus And Mars / Rock Show (feat. Wings)
65. Temporary Secretary
66. Hope For The Future (Destiny OST)
67. Junk