Tag Archives: Paul McCartney

Small N and big percentage change, Paul McCartney and Wings edition

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I saw this headline earlier this week: “Paul McCartney’s Wings Album Soars More Than 5,000% In Sales.” For an artist who has sold millions of albums over 60 years of making music, this sounded important. But here are the details of the story:

According to Luminate, Venus and Mars sold 2,500 copies in the U.S. in the most recent tracking week. That’s a strong number for a reissue of an album that’s been around for decades — and especially notable given how little it moved just a week prior. In the previous frame, the set couldn’t even manage 100 copies. That means that from one span to the next, the Wings title enjoyed a sales spike of 5,435%.

The Venus and Mars surge can be attributed to a recent reissue that targets McCartney’s most devoted supporters. The full-length was re-released on vinyl in a half-speed remastered form, which may not sound like a major change, but it was enough to grab the attention of collectors and audiophiles alike. While the music remains largely the same, the format offers improved sound quality and a what must be a unique listening experience.

What happened is that this album was reissued on vinyl. This pushed sales of the record up. But it went from under 100 copies sold to 2,500 copies sold. This is a big percentage increase but not a big figure. 2,500 records moved in one week is less than a drop in the bucket in numbers of popular music sold after World War Two.

The headline is technically correct. Sales jumped over 5,000%! Sales spiked for Paul McCartney! Is it a meaningful change? No. Barely any records were sold in either week. Maybe plenty of people will click on this story because of the shocking statistic in the headline – I did – but there is not much news here.

This is what happens when you have a small number of cases overall. A small shift in numbers either way, up or down, can lead to a really big percentage change.

Viewing liked public figures as flawed humans, Paul McCartney and Ben Franklin edition

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As a kid, I had a difficult time seeing current or past public figures as heroes or people to emulate. Perhaps this contributed to why I study sociology and often think of people in a collective. As an adult, I wonder about the flaws of public figures and the cultural narrative we see/hear about them versus what is true. Two recent examples with figures I have heard/seen/read about my entire life came to mind.

Photo by Valeriia Miller on Pexels.com

Paul McCartney. Reviewing a new publication about McCartney’s song lyrics, an author says:

Reading song lyrics on a page is a definitively incomplete endeavor and in Paul’s case more than most, given that he’s one of the most aurally gifted people to ever walk the face of the earth. McCartney’s best lyrics are marvels of musicality, so expertly fitted to their setting that you almost take them for granted. Consider the beginning of 1965’s “I’ve Just Seen a Face,” an intoxicating tornado of language and, finally, non-language: “I’ve just seen a face/ I can’t forget the time and place where we’ve just met/ she’s just girl for me and I want all the world to see/ we’ve met, mm mm mm mmm mm.” He wants all the world to see they’ve met; what a beautiful little sentiment. Take, also, “Close your eyes, and I’ll kiss you,” such a perfect opening line for a love song that we forget that someone actually thought it up. He can be a master of evocation—“changing my life with a wave of her hand”—and aphoristic bons mots that stick in your head: “Love has a nasty habit of disappearing overnight.” Even better: “You may be a lover but you ain’t no dancer,” one of those perfectly McCartney-an phrases that feels like so much more than it actually says.

Paul McCartney has been one of the most famous people on earth for nearly 60 years, and in many ways, he has served as the best model of how to be a celebrity: He’s disarmingly amiable, boundlessly energetic, gracious and graceful in the face of unimaginable fame. And yet, beneath the charm and composure, there’s always been a guardedness to him; it’s notable, for instance, that McCartney’s never written a proper memoir, a fact he acknowledges in the foreword to The Lyrics. He’s carefully curated his public persona on his own terms, a move that’s occasionally mistaken for phoniness, or worse. His seemingly flippant reaction to John Lennon’s death mere hours after John’s murder, for instance, earned McCartney widespread scorn from rock press and fans, a vilification he wouldn’t live down for years. But watching the clip today is just heartbreaking: Here’s a man clearly in the throes of grief, struggling to hold it together in the face of the most ghoulish extremities of celebrity media. In his eyes is a raw and terrified vulnerability that’s impossible to shake.

Yet, Paul has his flaws. After reading a lot about the Beatles, his band mates knew these flaws. By the end of the career, they wondered if his endless interest in showmanship was an act or real. He could be perfectionistic and too flippant with his music. He showed less interest in deeper subject material. That these came out could be chalked up to different personalities and conflict among the band but they have also dogged him throughout his public life.

Ben Franklin is a second figure I have encountered in several ways recently. In reading Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism with several groups of students, Franklin features prominently as an exemplar of the Puritan work ethic. Franklin is largely reduced to a set of aphorisms, admittedly famous ones. I also read through a children’s picture book biography of Franklin and they highlighted several major contributions he made. Yet, Franklin was also a flawed character. He had several long-lasting unrepaired relationships. He was a philander. He seriously pursued self-discipline but he could not achieve everything.

By nature of being revered public figures, there may not be much room for revealing or discussing flaws. Many historical treatments emphasize high points or the better sides of the heroes of the narrative. Yet, all humans are flawed. Many of the greatest figures had traits or behaviors they did not want to share or people did not want to focus on. Figuring out ways to acknowledge this with both living and past figures could be helpful in developing figures that are worth emulating.

The kind of music debates I like: the Beatles vs. the Rolling Stones in the psychedelic era

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This past Sunday’s Chicago Tribune featured a book excerpt where two music critics debated the merits of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the psychedelic, late 1960s, Sgt. Pepper vs. Their Satanic Majesties Request era. An interesting read if only for the suggestions that the Rolling Stones laughed their way through the psychedelic era while the Beatles, Paul McCartney in particular, couldn’t stop themselves from wanting to be accepted by the British establishment.

Reviving an old debate: who is the best Beatle?

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Rolling Stone has released a special issue featuring the 100 Greatest Beatles Songs. Paul Grein of Yahoo! Music argues the list revives the question of who was the greatest Beatle:

Of the 100 songs, which were ranked by the editors of Rolling Stone, 40 were written by Lennon, 35 by McCartney, 17 by the two men working together and eight by George Harrison, who came into his own as a songwriter on the Beatles’ final albums.

So it’s fairly close, but Lennon was the key Beatle? Not so fast. In the high-rent district, McCartney leads. McCartney has three songs in the top 10 (“Yesterday” at #4, “Hey Jude” at #7 and “Let It Be” at #8), to just two for Lennon (“Strawberry Fields Forever” at #3 and “Come Together” at #9). Three songs in the top 10 are Lennon/McCartney collaborations: “A Day In The Life” at #1, “I Want To Hold Your Hand” at #2 and “In My Life” at #5. Harrison wrote the two remaining songs in the top 10 (“Something” at #6 and “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” at #10).

Grein concludes that Lennon was favored in the list:

Why do critics tend to favor Lennon? There are two main reasons. Lennon was edgier and more envelope-pushing, and rock critics tend to favor those qualities over McCartney’s more tradition-bound, pop-minded virtues. Also, Lennon died at 40, shot to death outside of his apartment.

I’ll add my own two cents: Lennon said the kinds of things, particularly politically and culturally, that people who write and read Rolling Stone like. But I’m not convinced he was so “edgy” – after reading several books about his life, particularly post-Beatles, he sounds like a man who was often lost. While he often sounded like a man who knew what he thought, his personal actions indicated something else.

As for who is the best Beatle: I can’t say I really have a favorite. What continually impresses me is the whole they made out of four different parts. The solo work of all four members is an indication that something special happened between the members to create such enduring music.