Wild Life by Wings (Vinyl record album review)

Album name: Wild Life

Group name: Wings

Year: 1971

Number of discs: one

Label: Apple Records

Collection: Selman

Distinguishing characteristics:

99¢ sticker on front of album

Scratched into side one of LP: SW-1-3386 2112

Scratched into side two of LP: SW-2-3386 Z 103 #3

Buy it on Amazon: $35.49

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never listened to this record before, but the album art reminded me of John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, which was worrying.

It will be my seventh post-Beatles McCartney record, and the previous six have shown a clear trend, which is that up until the mid 1970s, his solo work was not good, but not terrible, either, and that after the mid 1970s, it got much worse:

McCartney by Paul McCartney (1970): 3/5

Ram by Paul and Linda McCartney (1971): 3/5

Band on the Run by Paul McCartney and Wings (1973): 3/5

Venus and Mars by Wings (1975): 3/5

Wings at the Speed of Sound by Wings (1976): 2/5

Tug of War by Paul McCartney (1982): 2/5

What I expected

Rock, soft rock, maybe some blues.

What it was actually like

Mumbo was a rock song that seemed to be putting a lot of effort into channeling Chuck Berry with an electric blues sound, but did not succeed.

Bip Bop was a very strange tribute to the Korean rice dish, using an Oompa Loompa sound with weird, whispery vocals.

Love Is Strange was a reggae style cover of the classic Mickey and Sylvia song that was nowhere near as good as the original, but which did have a good guitar solo.

The title track Wild Life sounded like a waltz, and I did not like its vocals, but thought it was a good song overall.

I Am Your Singer was boring song that introduced a recorder (yes, like you learned to play in your elementary school music class), and the recorder gambit failed.

Tomorrow seemed like it had inside it the germ of an interesting song, but was ruined by the oppressively terrible backing vocals.

Dear Friend would have been good as a rock song, but as a piano ballad was not good.