Paul McCartney and Wings: Wings (3LP Collection)

What's in the Box: Formats and Track Counts

Wings is a career-spanning collection released by Capitol Records and UMe on November 7, 2025, with 32 tracks chosen by Paul McCartney himself on the 3LP and 2CD editions and a condensed 12-track version on single CD and LP. It is the first compilation made up entirely of tracks credited to Wings, which sets it apart from Wings Greatest (1978), and from Wingspan (2001) and Pure McCartney (2016), which both mixed solo and Wings material.

The full edition runs 142 minutes 37 seconds. Disc one (sides one to three on vinyl, 15 tracks) opens with 'Band on the Run' and 'Hi, Hi, Hi' and closes with 'Call Me Back Again'. Disc two (sides four to six, 17 tracks) opens with 'Getting Closer' and runs through to 'Goodnight Tonight', taking in 'Mull of Kintyre', 'C Moon', 'With a Little Luck' and 'Deliver Your Children' along the way. The sequencing ignores chronology, so a Wild Life track can follow a 1978 single, which suits a compilation meant for playing straight through.

The 3LP set comes in a standard black edition and a limited colour edition, and the 2CD is the cheapest way to get the full 32-track programme. The Blu-ray was sold exclusively through Paul's official store and the SuperDeluxeEdition shop, in a softpack with its own 16-page booklet, and carries Dolby Atmos, 5.1 and high-resolution stereo versions of all 32 tracks.

The Track Selection: Paul's Choices, and What's Missing

What makes this set more satisfying than earlier Wings compilations is the album tracks Paul chose. 'Mamunia', 'Bluebird' and 'Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five' from Band on the Run, 'Letting Go' and 'Call Me Back Again' from Venus and Mars, 'She's My Baby' from Wings at the Speed of Sound, and 'Wild Life', 'Some People Never Know' and 'Love Is Strange' from Wild Life all sit alongside the singles. 'Get on the Right Thing' from Red Rose Speedway and the London Town title track round things out.

The non-album singles are well represented too: 'Helen Wheels', 'Junior's Farm', 'C Moon', 'Hi, Hi, Hi', 'Live and Let Die', 'Mull of Kintyre' and 'Goodnight Tonight' are all here, which matters because none of them appeared on the original UK editions of the studio albums, and elsewhere they are scattered across Wings Greatest, Wingspan and Archive Collection bonus discs. Having them in one sequence with the album tracks gives a truer picture of what Wings sounded like on the radio at the time.

The most interesting inclusion for longtime fans is 'Soily' from One Hand Clapping, the August 1974 Abbey Road live-in-the-studio session that finally came out officially in June 2024. Wings never cut a proper studio version of the song, and this take shows how hard the Jimmy McCulloch and Geoff Britton line-up could rock. If it grabs you, our One Hand Clapping review covers the full album.

No 32-track set can please everyone. 'Beware My Love', 'Picasso's Last Words', 'Magneto and Titanium Man', 'Old Siam, Sir' and the 'Rockestra Theme' are all absent, as are the early singles 'Give Ireland Back to the Irish' and 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'. Nothing from Wings Over America appears either, which is a shame given how central that tour was to the band's story. It is a hits-plus-favourites collection, not a complete survey.

Sound and Mastering: Stereo Remasters Plus New Dolby Atmos Mixes

The stereo versions on the CDs and LPs are the existing remasters from the 2010s Paul McCartney Archive Collection era, not new stereo mixes. If you already own the Archive Collection editions of Band on the Run, Venus and Mars, Wings at the Speed of Sound and the rest, you will not hear anything new in stereo. Those remasters are generally well regarded, so this is a note about novelty, not quality.

The new element is Dolby Atmos. All 32 tracks are available in Atmos, mixed by Giles Martin and Steve Orchard, and 17 of them appear in Atmos for the first time. The Blu-ray is the first physical Wings release in the format. For a band that layered horns, synthesizers and Linda's harmonies as often as Wings did, spatial mixing is a natural fit, and it is the one genuinely new listening experience in the package.

On vinyl, the 3LP set spreads 32 tracks over six sides, with around 24 minutes a side. That is long for the format, since longer sides mean tighter grooves, so for critical listening the original albums remain the better choice. For the best-sounding Wings on vinyl album by album, see our guide to the best Wings albums on vinyl.

Packaging and Extras: Hipgnosis Returns

The packaging is where this set earns its keep. Paul oversaw the artwork with Aubrey 'Po' Powell of Hipgnosis, the design studio behind Wings covers including Band on the Run, Venus and Mars, Wings Over America and Wings Greatest. The cover gathers the members of Wings across the years, with the notable exception of Laurence Juber, which fans noticed as soon as the artwork was revealed.

The expanded 32-page booklet in the 3LP and 2CD editions carries an introduction from Paul, album-by-album notes by Powell on how the covers were made, and additional editorial by Pete Paphides. It also features original sketches by Humphrey Ocean, who worked on the artwork for Wings at the Speed of Sound and then joined the 1976 tour as artist in residence. His backstage drawings give the booklet an on-the-road feel that photographs alone could not.

There are no bonus discs, no unreleased tracks and no memorabilia, so the Extras score reflects that. Measured as a compilation rather than an archival box, the design effort is well above average.

Which Format Should You Buy?

For vinyl fans who already have the studio albums, the 3LP is a handsome shelf piece and a convenient party record, and the black edition is fairly priced for three discs and a 32-page booklet. The limited colour 3LP costs more for the look alone. For newer fans, the 2CD is the best-value way to hear the full programme.

The Blu-ray is the one to hunt for if you have an Atmos or 5.1 system, because it is the only physical way to hear the new mixes. It was sold only through Paul's store and the SuperDeluxeEdition shop, so check those first before paying marketplace premiums. The 12-track single CD and LP are fine gifts but leave out the deep cuts that make this collection stand out.

The set also lines up with two other Wings projects: Morgan Neville's documentary Man on the Run, released on Prime Video on 27 February 2026 with its own soundtrack album the same day, and the oral history Wings: The Story of a Band on the Run, due in paperback on 6 October 2026. If you enjoyed the film, our Man on the Run soundtrack review explains how the soundtrack differs from this collection.

Who It's For

This collection suits three kinds of fans: newer listeners who know Paul mainly through the Beatles and his recent concerts, longtime fans who want Wings in Dolby Atmos, and collectors who follow the Hipgnosis design lineage. Critics were largely positive. AllMusic's Tim Sendra gave the full set four and a half stars, and Classic Rock's Fraser Lewry gave the single-disc version the same score. It reached No.12 on the UK albums chart and No.68 on the Billboard 200.

It is not for the fan who owns every Archive Collection box and wants something they have never heard. There is no previously unreleased material here, and the stereo audio duplicates what those fans already have. For them, the Blu-ray is the only edition worth considering.

Our overall view: this is the Wings compilation to hand a friend who asks where to start, and the one that best reflects how varied the band's 1970s output was, from the raw Wild Life material to the late-decade disco pulse of 'Goodnight Tonight'.