Wings at the Speed of Sound is the fifth album by Wings and was recorded and issued in 1976 in the midst of a large world tour as the follow-up album to the popular Venus and Mars. It is the band's only album where every member sings lead on at least one song. After a series of concerts in Australia in November 1975, Wings took a break from the tour to spend the holidays with their families and in January 1976 booked time at Abbey Road Studios in London to record Wings at the Speed of Sound. It was the first time McCartney had recorded an album in England since Red Rose Speedway. Due to the tour commitments, Wings were not afforded the opportunity to record in another locale. By the end of February, the album was complete, and Wings went back on the road. Around the time of the studio sessions for Wings at the Speed of Sound, McCartney was facing criticism for Wings simply being a vehicle for himself. He encouraged each of the band members to contribute a song during the sessions, though this would become one of the reasons for the criticism of the album. McCartney had previously attempted to create a democratic album in Red Rose Speedway, though it would be rejected by his record label. Engineer Peter Henderson later commented, "I remember one of my first engineering jobs, working with Paul McCartney on Wings at the Speed of Sound — he'd do two vocal takes and ask, 'Which is the better one?' And when he played guitar, he'd really lean into it and give it everything he got."Two tracks ("The Note You Never Wrote" and "Warm and Beautiful") were arranged by Fiachra Trench.
At first, Bono seemed taken aback by the outrage generated by U2‘s placement of their new album into the iTunes libraries of 700 million users. He even apologized. The more Bono’s thought about it, however, the more he’s decided that saying he was sorry was the wrong approach. “I’m already working on the apology … for the apology,” he told Mojo. “Because I’m very proud of what we did. It’s one of the proudest moments in U2’s history.”
As music fans, there’s nothing we like to receive more during the gift-giving season than a big ol’ box set. Stuffed with outtakes, previously unreleased songs, alternate mixes and other rarities, box sets separate casual music fans from the dedicated ones. And we definitely fall into the latter category. There are plenty of great boxes to choose from this year, spanning everything from career-encompassing collections to single-album expansions to legendary Holy Grail recordings that fans have been waiting on for almost 50 years. So, take a look at Ultimate Classic Rock’s 2014 Gift Guide: Box Sets, and let your friends and families know what you really want this year.
Now that they’ve finished taking their year-long vacation, what’s next for the guys in Rush?
The short answer is that they don’t really know yet, but as Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson recently told Radio.com, they’re more than ready to get back to work. “Some days I feel like being back out on the road and taking advantage of the fact that it’s our 40th anniversary,” mused Lifeson. “On other days I sit around messing with musical ideas and think, ‘We’ve got to start writing.’”
Dave Matthews Band will reissue their iconic 1994 album Under the Table and Dreaming later this month. One of the bonus items on the first ever vinyl pressing is a previously unreleased studio recording of “Granny,” taken from the UTTAD sessions.
It was recorded by the band in their Kling Klang studio, located in Düsseldorf, Germany; Hütter and Schneider working with Fritz Hilpert and Henning Schmitz. This four-piece line-up then took the album on an extensive world tour in 2004. On the tour, they performed the music from four laptop computers running sequencing, sampling and synthesizer software, also controlling and synchronised with large video displays. In 2005, Kraftwerk released Minimum-Maximum, with separate audio and video releases featuring songs performed at various venues during the 2004 tour.
A newly remastered edition of the album was released by EMI Records, Mute Records and Astralwerks Records on CD and digital download in October/November 2009, with heavyweight vinyl editions released in November/December 2009.
