Macca has got himself a group! No not that group! Following sessions for the excellent Ram album reaching their conclusion, Paul asked drummer Danny Seiwell and guitarist Hugh McCracken if they'd like to join his newly formed group, whose sole members at the time were himself and his wife Linda - Danny accepted, but McCracken declined the offer, so Paul went to Denny Laine, formerly of the Moody Blues (he left before the group started to matter, but hey it's still something). After Wings was fully formed, they recorded their entire debut album in eight days - the result is an album that, in many ways, sounds more loose than McCartney's entirely self-played debut album. Wild Life certainly showcases some of that on-brand McCartney genius, but somehow has a real knack for making every moment overstay its welcome. This is in addition to the fact that the album debatably contains works that lie within the nadir of McCartney's songwriting career. A decisively lowkey beginning to one of the most iconic 70s groups, and easily McCartney's weakest solo endeavor that isn't named The Family Way up to this point.
The album's Achilles Heel that leads to it taking the rest is the runtime - most of it is purely in this album's length, or moreso what it does with that length. Eight songs across 38 minutes isn't necessarily an issue, but it becomes one when the songs aren't particularly fleshed out across that time. Nearly every song on here is four minutes, five minutes, six minutes - for god's sake, one of these songs is seven fucking minutes. McCartney has proven his ability to do longer songs in the past, of course; one of my favorite songs on Ram is "Long Haired Lady," which stands at six minutes. The issue is that these are not particularly fleshed-out songs in the same way that "Long Haired Lady" is, and they often don't do enough interesting things in that time to justify their length - "Some People Never Know" would've been great as a three-minute pop song, but as a seven-minute number it becomes a slog. Same thing applies to the title track and, to a lesser extent, "Dear Friend" and "Love is Strange." Add on to the fact that McCartney is at his most nonsensical here, with "Bip Bop" and "Mumbo" quite literally being nonsense songs. While I do quite like the rocking rhythm of "Mumbo," stuff like "Bip Bop" is probably why music journalism didn't make McCartney seriously in the beginning of his solo career.
Of course, there's some good here; I think at it's core, there's a good album here. "Wild Life" is a rare political moment for McCartney, and it's not at all done terribly for what we have - it just needs to be shorter. "Tomorrow" and "I Am Your Singer" are prime example of the album's lax, laid-back mood done right, with the former being a hidden gem in my mind - it's a great little pop song with one hell of a hook, and I honestly wish it got more attention (let's be real, if it were on any other album it probably would be more well-known). "Dear Friend" at its core is somewhat brilliant, and serves as somewhat of an apology to John Lennon over their song feuding - it's quite a moving moment. The cover of Bo Diddley's "Love is Strange" is certainly a bit fun, although I think it yet again overstays its welcome. At it's core, "Some People Never Know" is a brilliant pop gem, so long as you cut the length in half.
At the end of the day, the lax nature of Wild Life, while having an undeniable charm, also in part leads to its downfall. The album really lingers long past when it should, and many of these moments invariably feel a bit too bloated. Of course, Wings would go on to dominate the charts in the 70s, but with such a inauspicious start, no wonder the press wrote this thing off. With fifty years of hindsight, it's easy to group it in with his previous two albums as some sort of a great, indie rock trilogy; if so, than this is The Godfather Part III of the group.
RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯
Listen to Wild Life.
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