Wingspan: the Remixes

From The Unknown Paul McCartney, by Ian Peel:

[…] 2001 saw the release of Wingspan, a double album retrospective of tracks hand-picked by McCartney from the Wings era. Although the accompanying film and DVD were accused of almost reworking history, or at least of telling it entirely from McCartney’s side, it succeeded in placing a much-maligned musical force firmly back on the map. While the media promotion was fearsome, the musical promotion — in terms of accompanying promo-only club remixes — was
by contrast surprisingly restrained. The sight of promotional Wingspan ladies’ underpants (no joke) on the official website set off waming bells. What next? Wings — The Remix Album? Fortunately, McCartney and EMI showed a great deal more taste in selecting collaborators to put Wings back on the dancefloor. And they made sure the results stayed firmly in that arena, With the 2001 revisions of Wings tracks pressed purely for club promotion and not for general release.

Artful Dodger, the UK duo Who led the way in the early 2000s in transforming 2-step garage from underground sensation into commercial force, were chosen to remix ‘Silly Love Songs’. The duo made few radical changes save for a stronger rhythm track and bringing out parts of McCartney’s vocal which had hitherto been hidden. ‘Silly Love Songs’ keeps recurring on the remix front — fortunately, though, this version was saved any of the ‘breakdance version’ hype that the Give My Regards to Broad Street mix received. Loop Da Loop took things further With their own bass and string arrangements for remixes of ‘Silly Love Songs’ and a Vocoder-led ‘Goodnight Tonight’. But the most out-there of the Wingspan remixes were Different Gear’s very left-field nine-minute version of ‘Let ’em ln’ and the JSM/Alessi Bros Mix of, believe it or not, ‘No More Lonely Nights’, which included random studio talk and new guitar parts. […]