Paul McCartney - COMPLETE COLLECTION (2017 - TBA)
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According to the Super Deluxe Edition website on Saturday 19th: http://www.superdeluxeedition.com/feature/saturday-deluxe-19-august-2017/ [The following text info comes from the SDE website listed below]:
Paul McCartney Before you get too excited at the above image, let me quickly point out that Paul McCartney Complete Collection is a new 497-track Spotify playlist, created by Macca's team, it's not a physical release. The reason for mentioning it, is that I was looking through it yesterday and reflecting on how 'complete' it actually was. Despite the inclusion of bonus tracks from the reissues of recent years, there are holes all over the place and what's interesting is that the archive collection reissues of the last seven years have arguably made establishing what Paul's 'official' released output is, more not less difficult. Most of this is down to Paul's frustrating habit of not including certain tracks as part of the physical release. Let's take 1971's RAM for example. The Spotify playlist includes the 2012 remaster of the album and the eight bonus tracks, but it doesn't include the mono version of the album, and neither does it include Uncle Albert Jam, a bit of studio tomfoolery that was issued as one of two digital-only bonus tracks at the time. Tug of War 2CD reissue With Tug Of War, again the 2015 album remix is included along with the bonus tracks, but the 2015 remaster of the single edit of Take It Away is missing, even though it's freely available for download from Paul's website. Also, the original mix of the Tug Of War album isn't here at all! With Pipes of Peace, the single edit of the 2015 remix of Say Say Say is missing, as is the instrumental version of that same edit and the original Jellybean instrumental 12-inch which was included as the B-side to the Record Store Day Say Say Say 12-inch in 2015. If we take the latest reissue, Flowers in the Dirt, the audio bonus CD in the four-disc deluxe isn't included and neither is the download-only content controversially included with the physical box. So B-sides like Back On My Feet or Flying To My Home are missing completely (along with all with all the 'Flowers' remixes etc.). None of the three demos that Paul issued on his website are here, either. If you think grumbling about bonus tracks is a bit nerdish, I will also point out that four entire albums - Back To The Egg, Wildlife, Wings at the Speed Of Sound and London Town - are missing from this 'complete' Paul McCartney collection! But the Kanye West collaboration FiveFourSeconds is here, so that's okay... Back to the Egg Also, this digital playlist is a right old mish-mash of different remasters. Press To Play is uses the "1993 Digital Remaster" - 24-year old audio that is probably worse-sounding than the 31-year old original. Does any of this matter? Probably not to most people - including the 'casual' Macca fan that wants to listen to a 497-track playlist - BUT if you're going to call something 'complete'... I'll finish with the thought that when Paul McCartney first put his output on iTunes many years ago, there were some exclusive bonus tracks offered which have long since disappeared. As long as MPL and McCartney continue to thrown around bonus digital tracks like confetti, they undermine the point of the physical archive and appear not to even be sure what resides in their digital archive, as this Spotify playlist demonstrates.
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I find this a little unsettling and a step in the wrong direction. As a big music fan, I like to have my music in a physical format - something tangible that I can hold in my hand. I enjoy looking at the artwork and perusing the text and the lyrics. And most of all, I like to take the CD or vinyl carefully out of its case and enjoy my music in the best possible sound quality. I might be an old stick-in-the-mud, but I have absolutely no interest in streaming and I suspect this will also be the case with most long-term McCartney fans. I honestly believe that streaming and downloads are devaluing music. Enough is enough. We must 'fight for physical'! I hope this doesn't spell the end for the Archive sets, with the focus seemingly moving towards streaming. I always expect the latest release to be the last to avoid too much disappointment, but I very much hope they will continue. The remasters sound fantastic, unlike the 1993 collection where all of the character of the original recordings was ripped away. The '93 remaster of Press to Play sounds bad enough on CD, let alone streamed!