What The Man Said: "Venus and Mars" Cut at Half-Speed
WINGS' HIGH WATERMARK GETS A HALF CENTURY REISSUE
Freshly sprung from his contractual ties to the other Fabs, the McCartneys and Co. in January of 1975 lit upon New Orleans. With a batch of new songs that he was sure would surpass those on Band On The Run, contemporary reports found that Paul was feeling as toppermost as he had in years. And by settling on the Crescent City as his recording venue, he may have been hoping to recapture the magic (and the Grammy noms…) he’d found by once again working outside of the U.K.
It wasn’t the most improbable of conceits. As a group, Wings had now spread out to include two more official members – ace guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and Kung fu fit drummer Geoff Britton. Plus there were fairly serious whispers that McCartney’s newly reconciled pal John Lennon would be turning up to do some writing. Hashtag spoilers...it didn’t happen.
But once he and the band got settled in Allen Toussaint’s Sea-Saint Studios the sessions weren’t without incident. Britton, who had always struggled to fit into the band’s THC heavy dynamic, was swiftly shown the control room door after failing to nail the rhythmic vibes Macca was chasing. And McCulloch’s tireless commitment to drinking wasn’t helping much either.
But Paul’s consummate resolve yet again served him well. Jumping onto the vacant drum stool would be Joe English, the second Yank drummer to hold down the slot. Toussaint contributed some piano, while ex-Traffic guitarist Dave Mason and L.A. sax god Tom Scott lit up the album’s eventual number one single. All told the band came out of those sessions with 13 tracks, a nifty sleeve and the impetus to go on the road in a major way.
As an album Venus and Mars is where Macca essentially hits cruising altitude – where sales from here on until the end of the Wings era would easily top over a million worldwide. Creatively it was quite possibly the last long player that was largely listenable all the way through until the big “comeback” swing of 1989’s Flowers In The Dirt. Critically the reception, however, was as cold as it was hot. Well-known American reviewers like Paul Gambaccini and Greg Shaw were delighted with Venus and Mars and splattered it with as much loving ink as they could muster. But Charles Shaar Murray infamously shish kebab-ed the album and its author in the New Musical Express. 50 years on, he still bears McCartney’s ire for slighting him.
Serious fans treasure it, and casuals will generally delight in the chart topping “Listen To What The Man Said,” which was oddly buried 11 tracks deep on the album. Perfectly aligned with the pre-Punk times as it was, the record isn’t anywhere near as slight as some of the others that followed. But fifty years on, the only reason this new half-speed master makes is because the calendar says so. That, and because the other 2025 stocking stuffer from Sir Paul’s camp will be his own book length take on the Wings’ history. Sonically though, the logic isn’t quite as sound.
For starters, there’s the source material. The word “digital” isn’t anywhere on the package, but this pressing was indeed cut at Abbey Road from high-resolution transfers of the original 1975 master tapes” by Abbey Road mastering wizard Miles Showell. If that fact queers the buzz of curious vinyl onlookers who are on the fence about adding or updating a previous copy of this release to their collection, so it goes. But the fact that it outpaces the original pressing by a dozen furlongs means that old McCartney heads (or new ones…) should be intrigued. Add to that the excellent packaging (featuring all the original goodies…), the reasonable price, and this is a solid, quiet Optimal Media option.
Where it falls down as far as diehards will be concerned, is that it doesn’t quite match the sonic oomph of the double disc Archive Collection release from back in 2014. Side by side comparisons find the latest version sounding noticeably tamer than its elder sibling. What it gains in clarity over the original or the 1982 U.S. copies we played it against, it loses a fair bit in terms of depth and presence of the two-disc set. For instance, the flute-y Moog lines of the opener lack the verve and the dimensionality of the previous edition. The drums and bass don’t hit as hard throughout, and moments like the extended piano intro on “You Gave Me The Answer,” are, on the 2025 installment, not quite as detailed.
What’s perhaps the biggest surprise of having dipped back into these pressings is discovering that the 2017 yellow/red split colored 180gm (which is extremely affordable on the secondary market…) is possibly the best value for money out there in terms of sound and takes our silver medal. There’s also a Dolby Atmos mix available courtesy of Giles Martin and Steve Orchard, but issues like the pronounced, inexplicable multi-dB dip during the run into “Rock Show” (which is a unforgivable carryover from the 1982 mix…) make it a non-starter.
As a genuine, well-meaning ploy to surround himself with a gang to help flesh out his initial steps into a solo career, Wings probably could have been engineered better. Then again, if the streaming sites are to be believed, this period of McCartney’s catalog still nets millions of monthly listeners. But the heads know that at its core it was always more of a one man show than the boss was willing to admit to. If there was a moment, however, where they most felt like a real band, then all that’s good about Venus and Mars was probably it.
