Paul McCartney Archive Collection! | Page 16 | Fab Forum | The Beatles Bible

[As posted in ‘Beatles News‘ so if you read it there don’t bother here.]

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Just when you thought all your Christmas pennies had been used up, news from a long thought extinct series reappears. Reportedly coming at Christmas, it’s ‘Wild Life’ and ‘Red Rose Speedway‘ in the ‘McCartney Archive’. Yes, it’s back. The never-ending series that six-months after everyone has given up giving a crap yawns back into life leaving all with a shrug of excitement. A series that when compared to other Beatles-related reissues looks so meagre in its contents it makes Scrooge seem generous with his 0.000001% discount on a bag of coal.

You thought four cd’s, a book and a DVD with plenty of outtakes was the standard of excitement, well, get ready for 16 outtakes over two discs, a couple of live tracks from a concert spread out over 8 other CD’s, a luxury book that you’ll look at twice then leave forever on a shelf, some replica pieces of paper that you never cared about, unseen photos that if they stayed that way no one would lose out and a couple of pieces of crappy plastic shaped into a guitar pick/paperclip/roadside side or whatever else can be chucked in to bulk up the price. 

sir walter raleigh said
I love McCartney outttakes but he hasnt really delivered any good releases in a while aside from Flowers In The Dirt . Hopefully these outtakes appear on spotify so I won’t have to overpay for two cds of outtakes.   

Overpaying for these Archive releases is a given. ‘Flowers In The Dirt ‘ is one of the better ones; ‘Speed of Sound’, ‘Venus And Mars ‘, ‘Tug Of War ‘ and ‘Pipes Of Peace ‘ are dire in terms of the outtakes we got. 

Maybe Paul has seen sense with ‘Pepper’, ‘Imagine ‘ and ‘The White Album ‘ sets but I doubt it. Presumably, we will see the tracks left off the revised ‘Red Rose Speedway ‘ like we did with ‘McCartney II ‘ but unlike that release, you’re going to be made to pay for it (all the ‘McCartney II ‘ tracks were available to purchase thru his website as downloads). ‘Wild Life ‘ will no doubt have the second disc containing the non-album singles from that time, a small handful of live tracks taken completely out of context, and a demo or two.

The big issue here will get how much these cost. 

John’s ‘Imagine ‘ with 4 Cds, 2 Blu-ray’s and a book is around £66 on Amazon, The Beatles ‘White Album ‘ is £125; surely Paul can’t charge over £100 now for the boxes. Photocopies of merchandise and a special picture book don’t warrant the top level pricing structure. 

Are the mixes on disc two of ‘Red Rose Speedway ‘ the same as disc one except it’s the original double album (even tho the tracklisting doesn’t match acetates from the time)? If so it’s yet another massive rip-off in an age of downloads and playlists. 

Ron Nasty said
Amazon have Wild Life  for £129.99 and RRS for £159.99. Couldn’t find Wings 1971-73 on there yet but uDiscoverMusic have it £319.99.

The argument that would be made for the price point is that they are limited editions and as such are charged for accordingly.

Total and utter BS.  

‘RRS’ being priced at £50 more than ‘Pepper’ in their super-deluxe forms, that cannot be argued for in any sensible form and surely must come down before it’s released.

It’s almost £100 more than the ‘Imagine ‘ super-deluxe or whatever it was called!! 

Can only think that Paul’s representatives have been sitting down with Apple’s merchandise department to figure out the pricing as there is no justification for such insane costings except for pure greed ensuring that they cover the cost of producing the sets. Absolutley no change i’ll be paying £160 for 3 cds and some movies (don’t care about the books or pieces of paper that mean nothing).

I haven’t bothered with either as if I did I would want the additional tracks yet the two-disc editions are rubbish due to not getting all the additional tracks and the deluxe versions are a complete waste of money.

sir walter raleigh said
The deluxe set’s price is absurd. I would love to hear those sessions but Paul seriously needs to figure out the real value of his box sets. Compared to the White Album , Imagine , Blood On The Tracks, Friends & 20/20 releases it is impossible to justify Paul’s asking price . So many delightful sets of sessions for a much better value around the same time. I can only hope they put together some form of digital release for a reasonable price if they see poor sales from these releases, which I believe they will.   

There won’t be as then everyone will buy the digital sets and clearly, if you wish all the music then you are having to buy the super deluxe or whatever it’s called. 

As was pointed out elsewhere on the ‘Wild Life ‘ set there are outtakes which consist of Paul strumming his guitar for 10 and 13 seconds. These might be the first guitar notes of what led to one of Paul’s most incredible songs but that’s just taking the piss.