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Rating: Several factors contribute to making "Flaming Pie" (1997) a great album, the most significant of which is that it contains a marvelous selection of songs that perfectly capture the mid-'90s McCartney, more fragile and domestic compared to his recent releases ("Off the Ground," 1993, and "Flowers in the Dirt," 1989). A record with a complicated genesis, Linda's illness made its drafting spread over several years and Paul retrieved numerous archived and unused tracks from the attic, giving them a new guise, such as the case of "Beautiful Night," whose first version dates back to 1987 for the scrapped "Return to Pepperland." Much has been written about this album, so it's useful to see what this version of the Archive Collection series adds. Concentrating the critical view only on the double version with the second disc adds all the demos and some B-sides, not all, of the singles released in 1997. The demos are all the initial domestic drafts of the pieces, the famous cassettes that Paul always carried in the car to determine if the material was good, not coincidentally one of the promotional videos for "Young Boy" was shot right inside Macca's car, where he showed the camera the cassette with the final proof of the single and its B-side. With the addition of these home recordings, we practically have a "McCartney III." Essential and spartan with domestic sounds and various kinds of interference, from personal conversations in the background of the daughters to the sound of the phone at the beginning of "Souvenir," to Linda's voice. Before George Martin and Jeff Lynne, the two producers, got their hands on the material, the future "Flaming Pie" was a pure and basic record even if in many places the songs already showed their ultimate potential, as in the case of the title track performed only on the piano. "Young Boy" is captivating even if it's still called "Poor Boy," the more acoustic tracks are very close to the original, while the extended version of "The Song We Were Singing" surprises, with a central part that is very different from the final version. There are two versions of "Great Day" that don't deviate much from the essential simplicity and magnificence of the one destined to close the album. It was thought that a Wings demo existed; the song dates back to 1973, but probably that's not the case. Various work-in-progress of "Beautiful Night," including one just on piano (with its killer beauty attack), and a raw one with the addition of Ringo Starr on drums but without capturing. The B-sides are all interesting, from the collaboration with Steve Miller comes "Broomstick," in line with the rough style of "Used to be Bad," while "Looking for You" is a fun blues piece with Ringo and Jeff Lynne. "Love Come Tumbling Down" is a leftover from the late "Return to Pepperland," very '80s and belongs to the same sessions that produced "Once Upon Long Ago" in 1987. Nicky Hopkins' piano is the protagonist of the outtake from "Flowers in the Dirt": "Same Love." This is recovered to be used as a B-side, a nice piece that has in the pianist's long introduction (for Paul's standards) its strength.
The extended book version includes 5 CDs and 2 DVDs and adds other demos, unreleased tracks, and documentaries on the making of the album, which was a great success both critically and publicly.
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