History
The LP was compiled after McCartney's decision to leave EMI's American label, Capitol Records, for a six-year stay with Columbia Records (US and Canada only), though he remained with EMI worldwide during his US sabbatical from Capitol.
Wings Greatest is notable for including many of McCartney's post-1970 single-only releases, including "Another Day" (actually a "Paul McCartney" song, not a "Wings" recording), "Live and Let Die", "Junior's Farm", "Hi, Hi, Hi" and "Mull of Kintyre". In addition to "Another Day", "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" was originally credited to "Paul & Linda McCartney" and from their 1971 album Ram.
Despite the fact that McCartney had amassed enough hits by late 1978 to fill a double album of hits, he kept it down to a single disc for commercial reasons. Thus, several songs would be overlooked for Wings Greatest. Indeed, not one song was excerpted from 1975's Venus and Mars, despite "Listen To What The Man Said" being a #1 US hit.
The album was promoted by a TV commercial in the UK, which featured several members of the public (played by actors) singing Wings tunes in public places. At the end a dustman, waiting in his lorry at a set of traffic lights (in Abbey Road), sings to himself an out of tune rendition of "Band On The Run", at which point Paul, Linda and Denny pull up alongside and Paul shouts out "You're a bit flat mate!". The driver leans out his window and says "Funny, I only checked them this morning!"
In 1993, Wings Greatest was remastered and reissued as part of "The Paul McCartney Collection".
Read more about this topic: Wings Greatest
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