Paul McCartney’s Press to play – book

Press To Play

Paul McCartney’s 1986-album “Press To Play” has become the subject of a book. It is an album which splits the fan base in two, but I have always loved it, and the album has a special place in my heart. I keep defending it’s qualities to those who think it’s a dip in Paul’s career.

I was 24 in 1986, and I was undergoing a course to finalise my training for the profession I had chosen. Paul McCartney came from a project which had been heavily slaughtered by the critics, the “Give My Regards To Broad Street” movie and album. The film hadn’t been available in cinemas here in Norway and buying it on VHS was very expensive as these were the days when video cassettes were for sale mainly to rent shops. So I rented it, and duplicated it to a blank tape, using two VCR’s. Later, after the movie had been shown on TV in Great Britain, I managed to buy a used rental copy for £1. And “Give My Regards on Broad Street” was also the reason why I opted to buy a CD player, since the CD had a track, “Good Night Princess”,  which wasn’t available on LP and cassette. So when most of the world did the great switch to CD around 1990, my first CD player was bought in 1984.

Before “Press To Play”, Paul released another film melody, “Spies Like Us”, title track of the movie starring Chevy Chase and Dan Aykroyd. Of course I also rented that movie (can’t remember seeing it on the big screen) and it had a bonus attraction as parts of it was filmed here in Norway. Although the song itself wasn’t all that good, rather monotonous, it had the redeeming qualities of being a rocker, Paul had a great singing voice, and the music video features a revisit to the Abbey Road studios and zebra crossing.

The video above misses the non-music opening of Paul and the actors arriving at the studios.

Paul obviously seemed to want to make a new, great album after the relative flop which his film and album had been. “Press To Play” was going to be produced by 10 CC’s Eric Stewart, the two of them had collaborated before, on “Tug of War” and their history went back at least as far as the 1974 album Paul produced for his brother Mike at Strawberry Studios. But during the recording sessions for the album, Paul changed his mind and enlisted the new wiz kid who was producing popular albums at the time (Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Genesis, the Human League, the Police, XTC), Hugh Padgham.

It took me a while to get into this album, but as usual for Paul’s albums, it grew on me. And I came to appreciate the songs, I thought they had great melodies. One track which I was a bit underwhelmed by, was his attempt on a “I Am The Walrus” type song, “However Absurd”. But it all started with the song “Press” and a superb music video of Paul on the London Underground tube, mingling with normal people who were passengers. Paul’s head of hair had grayed quite a lot by then, and he was later to dye it black.

Paul did quite a few music videos for the album, “Press”, “Only Love Remains“, “Stranglehold” and “Pretty Little Head” – all singles from the album. The latter two were released on a home video in 1987, “Once Upon a Video”. He also made an EPK (Electronic Press Kit – a VHS cassette) in the form of an interview held by Paul Gambaccini, with filmed scenes from the album cover photo session and Paul miming to the “Press” song filmed in Abbey Road Studios. Paul held a high profile this year, appearing at the Prince’s Trust Birthday Party concert (performing Beatles songs, “I Saw Her Standing There”, “Get Back” and “Long Tall Sally” as well as being part of the backing band on David Bowie and Mick Jagger’s “Dancing In The Street”). At that year’s Royal Variety Command Performance 24th November 1986, he made a rare concert appearance (he had stopped touring after 1979 and wouldn’t get back on the road again until 1989), performing “Only Love Remains” from the album.  Additionally, he appeared in the popular British TV show, “The Tube” in mid December, once again performing “Only Love Remains” and throwing in an improvised “Whole Lotta Shakin'” on the piano.

What most McCartney fans who dislike the album mention, is that it sounds “dated”. My reply to that is as always, “Of course”!. Every album by anyone is dated, you can usually hear what time the album was recorded in. John Lennon’s “Walls and Bridges” or David Bowie’s “Young Americans” both have that crappy way of recording horns. So if you don’t like “Press To Play” because it sounds like mid-eighties, you are right! Maybe you just don’t like the way drums tended to sound like at that time? Blame the production and not the songs.

The album was released on 25 August in the United States of America and 1 September in the United Kingdom. In the U.K. the first pressings of the album contained a different mix of the song “Press” and was replaced after a week in the shops by a second pressing with another mix. Still, the album received lukewarm reviews and proved to be McCartney’s weakest-selling studio album up to that point.

Peaking at number 8 in the UK, its chart life was brief, while in the US, “Press to Play” failed to go gold, peaking at number 30 and selling only 250,000 copies. The follow-up singles, “Pretty Little Head” and “Only Love Remains”, performed poorly on the charts. As a result of this disappointing commercial reception, author Howard Sounes writes, McCartney appointed a former Polydor Records executive, Richard Ogden, as his manager, “to help revive his career”.

The singles released from the album

Another thing about the album is that often, the single mixes are better than the album versions. Also, bootlegs with early mixes are favoured by many. These were the singles:

• “Press”, backed with CD only track “It’s Not True” and the 12-inch also included the otherwise not available instrumental by McCartney/Stewart, “Hangglide“. Also included was a long dub mix of “Press”, remixed by Bert Bevans and Steve Forward, and a remix of “It’s Not True” by Julian Mendelsohn. There was also a 10-inch, featuring a “video edit” of “Press”.
• “Pretty Little Head”, in a version lasting 3 minutes and 50 seconds, while the album version had been 5:14, backed with “Write Away”. The 12-inch had a long remix (6:56) by John Potoker and also included “Angry”. There was also a cassingle, Paul’s first ever in this brief period of cassette singles.
• “Stranglehold”, backed with a remix of “Angry” by Larry Alexander.
• “Only Love Remains” in a remix by Jim Boyer, backed with a remix of “Tough On A Tightrope” by Julian Mendelsohn, and the 12-inch also included “Talk More Talk” in a remix by Paul himself and Jon Jacobs.

Bootleg with early / rough mixes of the songs.

The album’s cover features Paul and Linda McCartney and was taken by George Hurrell, using the same box camera that he used in Hollywood in the 1930s and the 1940s. I persuaded my local record shop to give me a huge cardboard blow up of the album cover and proudly displayed it over the sofa in my living room. The photo was so good that even my girlfriend at the time approved. I also bought a sweater at the time, with the “Pretty Little Head” single design.

Luca Perasi, Italian author of several books about Paul McCartney, has recently released a book solely concentrating on the “Press To Play” album. Here’s the press release:

Released on 5 June 2025, Paul McCartney: Press to Play. That Unmistakable 80s Sound by Luca Perasi (L.I.L.Y. Publishing, 170 pages, full colour, both available in paperback and hardcover) tells the story of one of the most overlooked records of the ex-Beatle’s career. “The sessions for this album began exactly 40 years ago, in the spring of 1985, and it seemed a good time to take a fresh look at it,” says the author, who in 2022 was credited in the booklet of Paul McCartney’s compilation The 7” Singles Box for additional research with the MPL team.

“As divisive an album as it might be within McCartney’s artistic journey, Press to Play touches the hearts of many fans who were 16 or 1𝟩 at the time; it’s a new, younger generation of McCartney fans who were then shaping, who had only vague memories of Wings, and who were experiencing the thrill of a new record by their ‘hero’ for the first time in their adolescence. I was one of them.”

Dedicating an entire volume to it is quite a challenge. “I wanted to break some new ground,” says the author. “‘Re-evaluation’ is a rather misused word when it comes to ‘classic rock’ artists and often seems to be just a clever – if not novel – gimmick to attract some attention. In keeping in with the concept of my previous works, this book explores Press to Play with an historical approach that has never been done before. That’s the key to truly reappraising and understanding a record.”

Enriched with exclusive and in-depth interviews with the likes of Hugh Padgham, Jerry Marotta and Carlos Alomar, the book paints a complete picture of the circumstances that led to the recording of Press to Play and delves into the wonders of such a multi-layered album.

“I define this album a sonic delight; it’s one of McCartney’s richest in sound, which makes it an incredible listening experience,” adds Perasi. “So first I went through all the songs and dissected them, analysing every possible aspect, from song structure to instrumentation and vocal parts; then I discussed the music, the production and the engineering techniques in my interviews. The result is rich in detail. Sitting down with Carlos Alomar (for the second time) and Hugh Padgham were insightful experiences of which I’m proud.”

Drawing on archive material and numerous contemporary and retrospective interviews and reviews, the book the volume covers the supposed “production misunderstanding” with Eric Stewart, the songwriting partnership with the 10CC ex- leader, the timeline of the sessions, the stories behind the songs (including B-sides, unreleased material and the single Spies Like Us), their harmonic and rhythmic inventions, and lyrical analysis. The many factors that undermined McCartney’s confidence at the time are also explored, including the unfortunate Live Aid performance and Michael Jackson’s acquisition of The Beatles’ song catalogue, leading to discovering what went wrong and why, and there is also a chapter devoted to the insecurity showed during the promotion of the album, offering a new psychological and human insight into Paul.

This is the second volume dedicated to a McCartney album in the Milestones series, which has recently included a book on XTC’s Skylarking by long time music journalist Alfredo Marziano. Upcoming titles and artists in the series will include Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and The Police’s Regatta de Blanc.

Here’s a vlog with Luca Perasi, talking about “Press To Play”: