Paul McCartney will forever live in the shadow of the Beatles -- every rock band lives in their shadow -- but he has still managed to amass a solid body of work over the years. His 1970 self-titled debut has all the scrappy charm he originally envisioned for Let it Be, and the frothy masterpiece Band on the Run is the mirror image of Lennon's confessional masterpiece Plastic Ono Band; both are definitive '70s albums. McCartney's solo work displays strong melodies and craftsmanship, but most of his lyrics can't match the sharp point of view he had on "Eleanor Rigby" or "Lady Madonna." During the '80s, his music started to sound too saccharine and bloated. He bounced back with Flowers in the Dirt, a strong collaboration with Elvis Costello, before re-exploring stripped-down rock and a respectable -- but ultimately pointless -- classical excursion. In 1999, McCartney recorded Run Devil Run, a joyous celebration of the early American rock 'n' roll that inspired him to pick up a guitar in the first place. Like Brian Wilson, who created brilliant "vapid surf music" with the Beach Boys, Paul McCartney has a pure pop genius -- he just makes complexity look so simple.

WINGS- A band in name only, Wings were Paul McCartney's solo vehicle for much of the 1970s. After releasing two excellent, underrated solo albums (McCartney and Ram), McCartney decided that he needed a more permanent band lineup. Basically, this meant wife Linda on keyboards, Denny Laine playing guitar, and a changing roster of others. Cut the same year as the endlessly creative Ram, Wild Life was the only album credited solely to Wings (as opposed to "Paul McCartney and...). It's an odd hodgepodge of an album, but it did contain the unheralded track "Tommorrow" (why this didn't become a key McCartney song is anybody's guess) and "Dear Friend," a heartfelt, darkly cinematic ballad directed at John Lennon. Redrose Speedway was a much weaker album, but it did contain the syrupy smash hit "My Love," the great "When the Night," and a cute song about a pigeon. Sensing that things were a bit amiss with Wings in general and his career in particular, McCartney released Band on the Run, one of the key mainstream rock albums of the 1970s. A massive success, it catapulted McCartney back to the top and made Wings stadium sensations around the world. McCartney kept the Wings moniker going for a few more albums, each of which contain at least one good cut (which, truth be told, is a tad underwhelming for one of the great musical minds of the 20th Century). McCartney disbanded Wings for good in 1979, but since his solo career continued unabated no one really noticed that the band wasn't around anymore.

Source: Rollingstone Magazine
To visit the web site of Paul McCartney, go to www.paulmccartney.com
To visit the Wings website, go to www.paulmccartney.com/wings.html