Greatest Hits (1978) 


 


  1. Another Day
  2. Silly Love Songs
  3. Live and Let Die
  4. Junior's Farm
  5. With a Little Luck
  6. Band on the Run
  7. Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
  8. Hi, Hi, Hi
  9. Let 'Em In
  10.My Love
  11.Jet
  12.Mull of Kintyre

 

In name, this is a compilation of Wings’ finest hours. In practice, it’s more accurately billed as Paul McCartney’s Greatest Hits (circa 1970s), with a few members of Wings tagging along for the ride. A handful of the tracks—Another Day, Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey—predate the band entirely. Not that anyone was complaining at the time. It was 1978, and McCartney had racked up so many hits that a greatest hits package felt both inevitable and overdue.

The real virtue of Wings Greatest lies in its ability to corral several singles that had never previously appeared on any McCartney/Wings studio album. For fans of the era, this alone made the compilation essential. It gave cohesion to a decade-long run of chart success that, until then, had been frustratingly scattered across 45s and obscure regional issues.

Still, the limitations of a single LP meant hard choices had to be made, and not all of them were good ones. The exclusion of Listen to What the Man Said, one of the most successful Wings singles in the U.S., borders on baffling. With McCartney's catalogue already growing unmanageable, the omissions are as telling as the inclusions.

The advent of compact discs rendered this set somewhat obsolete. By the late 1980s, fans had access to All the Best!, which took full advantage of the CD’s expanded capacity and offered a broader, better-rounded overview. For those willing to spend more, 2001’s Wingspan provided a two-disc career retrospective with more depth, more tracks, and a clearer picture of post-Beatles McCartney in full flight.

But at the time of its release, Wings Greatest served its purpose. A snapshot, if a selective one, of the world's most successful ex-Beatle finding his footing in the strange, shag-carpeted corridors of the 1970s. It wasn’t definitive, but it was good enough to tide people over until the next chapter arrived.

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