illwobble:

No problem, Cyllthain! How are you doing? Have you got to Flaming Pie or any later albums yet?

Yeesh, sorry for the delayed response. Easy for comments to get lost in a thread like this. But yeah, all's well for now! I've soured somewhat on Off the Ground since first few listens, though I still maintain that it marked a big step forward in the right direction in that it got a good, unified/cohesive band sound throughout the whole album. However, the four-song stretch near the end of Golden Earth Girl/The Lovers That Never Were/Get out of My Way/Winedark Open Sea kills me. I find it boring, and I hate when that word comes up with Paul's music... but alas. I still like Looking for Changes, Biker Like an Icon, and Peace in the Neighbourhood, though, and consider the first seven songs on the album plus C'Mon People to almost be the match of the later Wings material. Flaming Pie is wonderful! I'm not yet sure what I think of it in relation to my beloved McCartney glory run (1970-1980) but it's a really excellent album for sure, and indeed a true return to form (I don't think either Flowers in the Dirt or Off the Ground quite get there, though they're both significant steps forward). And lastly, Run Devil Run is fun and played with a great band, but since that old rock and roll style isn't exactly my thing, I'm not crazy about the record or anything. I do enjoy listening to it, and it's immeasurably superior to that dreary Russian covers album. When is Ram coming up for you, illwobble?

illwobble:

Or how about we ALL rank ALL of the songs in the original list!! We could each place all 370 or however many in rank order and get Cyllthain to tally them up in that way he does?! Then we would know conclusively what the best song was!!

The horror! The horror! Glad you're looking out for me, illwobble

Really not a fan of Eleanor Rigby. The lyrics are good and the arrangement is daring (for its time) and influential, but ultimately on a personal/musical level the song does very little for me. One of my least favorite songs on Revolver.

silver moondog:

Cyllthain... Tonight`s the Night is ****ing mega; one of my favourite albums at the moment... have you read Shakey, the Neil Young biography... i just read it, "Tonight`s the Night" is the authors favourite album too

Yes! I absolutely love Shakey. If you're a fan of Tonight's the Night, by the way, I highly recommend you dig up some of the boots from that tour, since the performances are as mindblowingly fantastic as Jimmy McDonough makes them out to be. The quality is generally quite good, too! Certainly enough to enjoy the band's playing, and to hear nice & clear Neil's "MC" act. "Welcome to Miami Beach, ladies and gentlemen..." My top three are essentially interchangeable for me in terms of quality, but Tonight's the Night has that further, deeply personal dimension that puts it on top. (Wish You Were Here has that, too, but not quite as much.)

These and many, many, many more... even my top hundred list is just the cream of the crop. I listen to a lot of music, y'see. A lot!

Lots of interesting stuff in this thread, and many fine albums getting their due... A while back, one of my best friends and I challenged each other to make lists of our hundred favorite albums, in order. It took months & months & months to iron out, but I now have a pretty well-defined, working list. It's not a "favorites of all time" because I keep listening to new music (new to me, I mean; most of my best discoveries in the past few years have been legends I've neglected, such as Beatles & solo work, Neil Young, Bob Dylan), but it's a base and relatively definitive list that is constantly open to newcomers & changes of opinion over time. All that said, here are my top 25, painstakingly ordered (but always subject to change, especially with regard to albums from 2011; it's only with the passage of time that you really discover where new favorites stand): 01. Neil Young, Tonight's the Night (1973) 02. Yoko Kanno, Stand Alone Complex 3 (2005) 03. Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here (1975) 04. Radiohead, The King of Limbs (2011) 05. Paul & Linda McCartney, Ram (1971) 06. Neil Young, Harvest (1972) 07. The Beatles, Abbey Road (1969) 08. George Harrison, All Things Must Pass (1970) 09. Neil Young, Time Fades Away (1973) 10. Pink Floyd, Meddle (1971) 11. Neil Young & Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (1969) 12. Sufjan Stevens, All Delighted People (2010) 13. Pink Floyd, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (1967) 14. Czesław Śpiewa, Czesław Śpiewa Miłosza (2011) 15. Radiohead, Hail to the Thief (2003) 16. Wings, Venus and Mars (1975) 17. John Lennon, Plastic Ono Band (1970) 18. Arctic Monkeys, Humbug (2009) 19. Chadwick Stokes, Simmerkane II (2011) 20. Radiohead, Amnesiac (2001) 21. Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stadium Arcadium (2006) 22. Wings, Red Rose Speedway (1973) 23. Wings, Band on the Run (1973) 24. Sufjan Stevens, The Age of Adz (2010) 25. Yoko Kanno, Arjuna: into the another world (2001)

Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey, no contest! Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey v Venus and Mars

Awwww. Both amazing, and there aren't all that many other Wings songs that I think are as good as I'll Give You a Ring, but... Band on the Run v Another Day

With regard to the above question, I hear "Mr. H Atom lives in a flat on the wrong side of town."

I'm glad he formed an actual band for several reasons, one of which is that I can say "I prefer Wings to the Beatles!" as it gets my point across much more clearly than saying "I prefer Paul McCartney to the Beatles." I'm also glad for Wings because it gave an outlet to Denny Laine's best work, all of which was enhanced by his being able to work with Paul of course, but there would be no place for a song like Time to Hide (or, to take Jimmy, Medicine Jar or Wino Junko) on a "Paul McCartney" record, and the song wouldn't have been anywhere near as good if it weren't played by Wings and instead appeared on a Denny solo record. But I also just think it was ballsy for Paul to form another band instead of just running on his name alone like the others did.