Wings Greatest
Wings Greatest is a compilation album by the British–American rock band Wings, released in the UK on 1 December 1978. It was the band's last release through Capitol in the US. The album is the first official retrospective release from bandleader Paul McCartney's post-Beatles career.
Wings Greatest was remastered and reissued in 1993, as part of The [Paul McCartney Collection], and again in 2018.
History
The album was compiled after McCartney's decision to leave EMI's American label, Capitol, for a six-year stay with Columbia, though he remained with EMI worldwide during his US sabbatical from Capitol.The album was originally intended as a double with the second LP being Cold Cuts: a collection of previously unreleased outtakes by Wings. The resulting album became Wings Greatest single LP. Not one song was excerpted from 1971's Wild Life or 1975's Venus and Mars.
Despite the album's name, it includes two Paul McCartney tracks released before the establishment of Wings: "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey" and "Another Day". All other tracks were credited as "Wings" or "Paul McCartney & Wings".
Four of the twelve tracks make their album debut with this compilation: "Another Day", "Junior's Farm", "Hi, Hi, Hi" and "Mull of Kintyre". "Live and [Let Die (song)|Live and Let Die]" had previously appeared on the soundtrack album of the same name but did not appear on any previous McCartney albums.
The Bulgarian pressings of the album did not include the song "Live and Let Die".
Promotion
The album was promoted by a TV commercial in the UK, which featured several members of the public singing Wings tunes in public places. At the end a dustman, waiting in his lorry at a set of traffic lights, 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!"Artwork
and George Hardie of Hipgnosis are credited with the design, as well as Paul and Linda McCartney.The front cover of Wings Greatest depicts a chryselephantine statuette of Semiramis created by famed Art Deco sculptor Demétre Chiparus. This antique statuette was purchased by Linda McCartney at a 1978 auction and Paul McCartney decided this statuette would be ideal as the cover for the band's first greatest hits album.
On 14 October 1978, the McCartney family flew to Switzerland, accompanied by a photographer named Angus Forbes, to arrange a photography session depicting the statuette in genuine snow. The snowdrift backdrop within the image was created with the assistance of a hired snow-plough, and the actual image upon the cover was an aerial photograph taken by helicopter.
The rear cover depicts the record covers of the twelve releases, mostly singles, from which each of the songs were taken, in columns on either side of the album. In the middle is a photograph of Paul, Linda, and Denny Laine. The background is another scene of the Alps.
The statuette also appears on the inner sleeves of the original vinyl, as well as on the record's labels. It can also be seen on the album cover of Wings' next studio album, Back to the Egg, in the background, on the mantlepiece.