About Paul McCartney (and Wings) and His Three Albums from '73-'75

Last week I discussed my impressions of Paul McCartney's first three solo albums after leaving the Beatles in 1970.  I had heard his first two back in that general era, but once he began with his group Wings I lost interest.  My loss, for Wild Life is pretty good in spite of the know-it-all critics running it down...come to think of it, they panned his first two works McCartney and Ram as well, and I especially liked the latter.  It's now so many decades later and I'm just getting around to listening to this extraordinary musical artist's catalog of albums, in their chronological order of release.  This week I listened to Red Rose Speedway (1973), Band on the Run (1974) and Venus and Mars (1975), all recorded under the moniker Wings, but in fact dominated by the former Beatle with the major other contributors being Paul's wife Linda and former Moody Blues front man Denny Laine.  The first of these features his singles hit My Love, which I thoroughly hated them but at least benignly tolerate now. Other than the lively opening track Big Barn Bed, which includes a line from McCartney's Ram (Reprise) track two years earlier, the rest of the tunes on the album are light ballads...even the closing eleven-minute medley.  Now I'm not against ballads, but I don't have to be George Martin to know that you mix the fast and slow tempos on LPs in order to sustain the listener's interest...this always had worked for the Beatles.  The next album, Band on the Run, spotlights the title track as well as Jet (about Paul and Linda's pet dog), both favorite singles releases of mine.  This time he puts in more lively music...I particularly like Side One's Mrs. Vanderbilt and the closing track Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five.  As for Venus and Mars, I was more or less blown away by its high quality and energy...plus that almost mystical sense of something special taking place.  I felt this the strongest with the opening tracks for both sides: the Venus and Mars theme song.  It's a shame McCartney didn't expand it into a longer piece, for it has that special kind of old-time Beatles mood that I had been expecting from its members after their disbanding.  I was also taken by the songs Rock Star and Magneto and Titanium Man, both rousing and funny pieces sounding like a tribute to David Bowie's then-ongoing Ziggy Stardust glam rock alter ego.  The slower Love in Song would have fit in quite well on Rubber Soul...in fact, I feel that it is better than several of the songs on that remarkable Beatles album. And then there is Listen to What the Man Says, the album's big single that I enjoyed way back when I lived through '75.  Although I thought that Red Rose Speedway is good, I thought that Venus and Mars' songs are all better.  And Band in the Run is excellent as well.  Next week I'll take a listen to the final three studio albums Paul McCartney recorded with his group Wings...