News

Paul McCartney / Japanese mini-LP SHM-CDs

‘Paper sleeve’ / vinyl replica CDs

By Paul Sinclair

Comments

58

Paul McCartney / mini-LP CDs / Vinyl Replica / Paper Sleeve / SHM-CDs

Paul McCartney’s first five post-Beatles albums are being issued as limited edition Japanese mini-LP SHM-CDs (compatible with all CD players).

These are sometimes called ‘paper sleeve’ editions and and each are presented as vinyl replica CDs with the usual exacting standards from Japan including OBI-strip, extra booklet with Japanese lyrics, ‘rice paper’ sleeve for disc protection and re-sealable outer clear sleeve. The albums in question are:

  • Paul McCartney / McCartney (1970)
  • Paul & Linda McCartney / Ram (1971)
  • Wings / Wildlife (1971)
  • Paul McCartney and Wings / Red Rose Speedway (1973)
  • Paul McCartney and Wings / Band on the Run (1973)

These editions really normally are incredible and match the originals in amazing detail, so Ram and Red Rose Speedway will both be gatefolds, Band on the Run includes the poster, Red Rose Speedway includes the original booklet and so on.

Masterings are all as per the original Archive Collection releases, so 2010 for Band on the Run, 2011 for McCartney, 2012 for Ram, and 2018 for Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway. Band on the Run features the 9-track UK version of the album (no ‘Helen Wheels’) and all the albums are ‘album-only’ with no bonus tracks.

These are extremely limited, but the SDE shop has secured a guaranteed allocation and is offering them only as a 5CD bundle, which you can order via this link or the buttons below. Strictly one bundle per customer please (multiple orders will be cancelled).

All five are released on 20 September 2024.

Tracklisting

McCartney Paul McCartney /

      1. The Lovely Linda
      2. That Would Be Something
      3. Valentine Day
      4. Every Night
      5. Hot as Sun/Glasses
      6. Junk
      7. Man We Was Lonely
      8. Oo You
      9. Momma Miss America
      10. Teddy Boy
      11. Singalong Junk
      12. Maybe I’m Amazed
      13. Kreen-Akrore

Tracklisting

Ram Paul and Linda McCartney /

      1. Too Many People
      2. 3 Legs
      3. Ram On
      4. Dear Boy
      5. Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
      6. Smile Away
      7. Heart of the Country
      8. Monkberry Moon Delight
      9. Eat at Home
      10. Long Haired Lady
      11. Ram On (Reprise)
      12. The Back Seat

Tracklisting

Wild Life Wings /

      1. Mumbo
      2. Bip Bop
      3. Love Is Strange
      4. Wild Life
      5. Some People Never Know
      6. I Am Your Singer
      7. Bip Bop (Link
      8. Tomorrow
      9. Dear Friend
      10. Mumbo (Link

Tracklisting

Red Rose Speedway Paul McCartney and Wings /

      1. Big Barn Bed
      2. My Love
      3. Get on the Right Thing
      4. One More Kiss
      5. Little Lamb Dragonfly
      6. Single Pigeon
      7. When the Night
      8. Loup (1st Indian on the Moon
      9. Medley: Hold Me Tight / Lazy Dynamite / Hands of Love / Power Cut

Tracklisting

Band on the Run Paul McCartney and Wings /

      1. Band on the Run
      2. Jet
      3. Bluebird
      4. Mrs. Vandebilt
      5. Let Me Roll It
      6. Mamunia
      7. No Words
      8. Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me)
      9. Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five

SuperDeluxeEdition.com helps fans around the world discover physical music and discuss releases. To keep the site free, SDE participates in various affiliate programs, including Amazon and earns from qualifying purchases.

Related Content

58 Comments

58 thoughts on “Paul McCartney / Japanese mini-LP SHM-CDs”

  3. All CDs should have been released in cardboard mini sleeve format from day one. Shudder to think how much plastic has ended up in landfill. From a purely practical point of view they also take up less room on the shelf.

  5. Will these be available to ship to Canada ? There’s always seem to be a problem when it comes to shipping to Canada from Britain. Available from Japan directly ?

  6. Amused by the idea of Band On the Run containing “the poster”.
    It must be the size of a beer mat to fit in a CD box so the description as “poster” is a little, er, ambitious!

  7. I’ve lost track of the number of Macca Japanese Mini LP CDs in my collection. I think I’ve bought about three waves of them over the years starting with the first rather thick card ones and ending with the previous lot. I won’t chase these ones. They are things of rare beauty though. My faves are the more comprehensive run of releases which I house in batches in the official highly laminated LP sleeve design boxes that I bought on eBay at the time. Just gorgeous.

    I was an inveterate collector of these boxes and their contents by other artists back in the day but have pretty much all I want and more. As a music fanatic I found it a good way to explore important artists work, even if I only liked one album as was the case with Motörhead and PIL. 

    So obsessed was I that I made sure my own second album, “Honeytrap” (plug, plug, although I doubt you can still get it from amazon) was released in Mini LP format.

    Standout treasured Mini LP sets I have in these deluxe boxes include The Beatles (multiple sets), Who, Stones (multiple sets), Jam, Style Council, Bob Marley, Chuck Berry, Paul Weller, Jeffferson Airplane, Seeds, Dylan, Cure, Zappa, Miles Davis (huge box!), Alice Cooper, Santana, King Crimson, Captain Beefheart, Squeeze, Marianne Faithful, Serge Gainsbourg, Turtles, Move, Robert Wyatt, Beach Boys, AC/DC, Diana Ross and The Supremes, Chris Rea, Nancy Sinatra, Jonathan Richman, Cream, 10cc, The Band, Television, Grateful Dead, Carpenters, Bauhaus, Sly & the Family Stone, Lou Reed, Byrds, Van Morrison, Rod Stewart, Curtis Mayfield, Smiths, Waterboys, 5th Dimension, Move, Gilbert O’Sullivan, Billy Joel, Stevie Wonder, Flintlock, Gary Glitter (Shh – pretend I didn’t mention that one!), Stooges, Burt Bacharach, Pete Townshend, Sweet, XTC, Isaac Hayes, Squeeze, Thin Lizzy, Elton John, Kinks, Bowie, Genesis, T Rex, Clash, Gallagher and Lyle, Violent Femmes, Mary Hopkin, Velvet Underground, Blondie, Ornette Coleman, Yoko Ono, Humble Pie, World Party, Steely Dan, Mungo Jerry, Lulu, Jackson 5, Deep Purple, Elvis, Sex Pistols, Tom Waits, John Lennon, Small Faces, Rickie Lee Jones, Clapton, Elvis Costello, Monkees, Roy Wood, George Harrison, Iggy Pop, Simon & Garfunkel, ELO, Pink Floyd, Frank Sinatra, Ian Dury, Isley Brothers, Mott the Hoople, Ringo Starr, Yardbirds, Rory Gallagher, Jimi Hendrix, Doors, Badfinger, Marvin Gaye, Jethro Tull, Neil Young, Traffic, Billy Preston, Ventures, etc. etc.

    Eek! I could have built a house for the amount I spent on that lot and more. In fact I could probably build a house with them! Such is the life of the music addict…

    1. Wow David. That collection is super impressive. I think you could add a swimming pool as well :)
      I hope you have them on display and not tucked away in boxes. A photo would be nice!

      1. Yes Roel they are on display shelves in alpha chronological order so easily accessible. A photo would be tricky because they are mixed in with all my other 2000+ CD collection in plastic cases so the extent of my shelves is to say the least… extensive! I started collecting Mini LPs when I had moved away from vinyl but unfortunately they inspired me to go back to the that vinyl and now I have a comparable collection of LPs as well. I’ve run out of shelf space for these so some are in boxes alas while I work out a way to squeeze in some more storage without it leading to a divorce!

  8. I have loads of Japanese CDs with the OBI’s, the Japanese lyrics booklets, et al. It was a hobby that I quit a while back since I am now in the process of decluttering, I have a next to top of the line Marantz SACD/CD player with an audiophile preamp and amp (although not top of the line – those cost in multiples of tens of thousand US dollars, but nonetheless mine are pretty good). And, I have three sets of decent speakers. This comment is for those interested in these SHM-CD’s sonic qualities. Irrespective of the blather about the SHM-CD material used and the purportedly extra sonic range, in comparing these SHM-CD’s with other CD versions of the same album, I have never heard a noticeable difference. (SACDs are a very different story.) For those interested, go to the various threads on the Steve Hoffman forums which debate this issue ad nauseam. Now, I do have the 1993 DCC gold CD versions of McCartney and Band On the Run. (As a BTW, these were both manufactured in Japan.) Steve Hoffman remastered the tapes (from likely safety versions of the master tapes) but appropriately didn’t remix them. Notwithstanding all of the subsequent remastered and remixed versions released during the ensuing three decades, the audio quality of the DCC CD’s remains the finest that I have ever heard. (Yes, and that includes the vinyl albums.) So, if you care about the sound, go on Discogs. There’s at least one copy which costs only US$56 before the asking prices skyrocket. That said, if you’re fond of these SHM-CDs as collectibles, then they’re quite lovely and I hope that you enjoy as well as treasure them. But please don’t expect them to sound better than the multiple versions that you already own. As a last aside, in 1996 Mobile Fidelity released BotR in a purported surround sound in the quickly failed and buried DTS system that required a DTS “decoder.” Even though Mobile Fidelity did, and continues to do, fine work for vinyl (and now with SACD’s), this result was a sonic atrocity. Cheers!

    1. I agree with your opinion on SHM. When SHM first appeared, I bought a Humble Pie Hot and Nasty anthology. I had the US version. When I compared the two there was NO difference. It is the mastering process, not the disc material that makes the difference.

  9. Wow I’m happy I grabbed them when they were available. Next, a bundle of 5 Macca Atmos blue rays please, haha. One can dream.

  12. This is for hard core fans – just like the million variants [or so it seems] of McCartney’s III. :-)
    Good that Paul [not McCartney] decided to sell it as a 5 pack. You don’t want to be left with a couple of RAM albums and 3 Red Rose..

  14. After streaming the utterly fantastic 3-D mix of ‘Red Rose Speedway’ the other day (and I’m sure a hypothetical bluray version, if played on the right equipement, would sound even better!), I’m afraid any regular mixes, even on superdupa CDs, will sound somewhat boring …

  16. I ordered the bundle here on SDE ( viva SDE and via CD ! ) because I can’t say no to McCartney, at least in this case. The only time I said no was for the wooden box… I lost count of how many times I bought these CDs… but I’m happy, because they are the Japanese ones and I usually love Japanese editions. Thanks Paul for this bundle.

  17. Over the years I ended up purchasing the McCartney DCC series gold discs. These were remastered by Steve Hoffman (mastering engineer) and are supposed to be the highest quality and the best sounding. They are definetly great sounding. Some of McCartney’s albums have also been remastered using SHM-CD. (ex – One Hand Clapping, Wild Life, Red Rose & Band On The Run). Overall these Japanese pressing are quite good too.
    When I got Paul’s notice it was a no-brainer. Maybe it was just an impulsive purchase but ….the order has been placed! Gotta have ’em!

  18. I take a more positive and detached view of these McCartney releases than many of the comments. For a start, this is what the Japanese music industry do and excel at. I think it is great that these albums are coming out in SHM CD and a good sign that the McCartney empire has licensed the release of these (and have which I don’t always ordered: many thanks to Paul and SDE!).

    On the bigger points. This does not in any way detract or take away from the main McCartney reissue programme. Any issues related to that and people’s hopes and frustrations which have been well documented here and are entirely separate.

    Related to that this Japanese SHM CD series could be the start of going through the entire Macca catalogue. And might be – gallows humour here – the only way we ever see reissues of ‘London Town’ and ‘Back to the Egg’. Unless MPL finally get their act together on that front!

  19. As an FYI, for those of us who don’t prefer vinyl, the One Hand Clapping – The Bakcyard EP from the 2LP + 7” set has now made it to streaming and digital purchase.

  20. What use is an obi-strip? What are they actually for? I just find them a surplus bit of paper that inevitably gets creased with no tidy way to keep them with the disc!

    1. Obi-Strips were used in Japan just to add extra information like retail price, song titles or barcode so not to ruin the actual album cover.
      A lot of people do find them surplus like extra wrapping and throw them away. Others, like me like to keep them.
      All my Japanese CD’s are in thin resealable clear wrappers which are easy to purchase and keeps everything together.

      1. Put it this way, if you ever decide to sell part of your music collection, the albums and CD’s with OBI’s sell for considerably more in most cases.

    2. I always assumed it was to add the English text on the spine of the album + other pertinent info in Japanese for the domestic buyers who don’t read English.

  21. This is not the first time that these paper sleeves cd’s have been released (not all of course on SHM CD). But….why use old remasters while there are new ones available? That would have made these releases for more interesting. And I am not complaining about these re-re-releases, but please please make them interesting.
    Furthermore, love the SDE site although it costs me a fortune ….;-)   Thx Paul !!

  23. This looks very tempting, although I have these albums already. But who would say no to another version of Ram ? One of my favorite albums of all times.

  24. I’ve lost count of how many times I have purchased these albums over the last five years alone, especially BOTR. Still, I know “our” Paul is a huge fan of this Japanese-style format, and I do enjoy my Beatles in Mono CD box in similar packaging. If this were being sold via any other outlet I likely would pass, but happy to support the SDE shop with my purchase.

  25. One hand Clapping was fantastic, so I’ll forgive and ignore these and wait for the next good new/old thing to come out.

    For the one hand clapping vinyl, anyone else really bugged by side 2 clocking in at 25 minutes and side 3 only 13? – I know its so the tracklisting of LP1 and CD1 are the same, but why do they feel the need to do that, they are different mediums. (tbf, there is no issue with the playing of my vinyl, it is scratch and skip free)

  26. I’ve never heard of SHM cd’s so I googled and found out it’s made of different material and found some reviewers who said it sounded different/better/worse than a regular cd but in the end this is a digital medium so if the information is the same it can’t sound different?

    1. It’s an audiophile (niche) product (mostly) from/for the Japanese market. It’s cool that Paul has a few for sale, imo!

      I have a few…

      Get one that is REASONABLY priced, and check it out! Then, kindly, share your experience – HERE!

      Just don’t go broke chasing auditory-hallucinations.

      Cheers!

    2. The only ones I have are A Quick One by the Who, mono and stereo including bonus tracks. They sound incredible. Cost similar to the 5cd Macca bundle though!

    3. You would be amazed. Mini Disc, for instance, is a digital format but the results are much warmer & very analogue sounding.
      Stil much used in studios btw.

  28. They’ll probably look fantastic. I still have my collection of Japanese paper sleeve CDs from the late nineties. It covers all the albums up to and including Press To Play. Terrific quality artwork replicating the vinyl sleeves, with all original inserts included in miniature form. Ssoundwise they contain the 1993 remasters, but without the bonus tracks. I still look at them from time to time but never play them.

  30. Red Rose Speedway and Wild Life are new but they did SHM card sleeves of the other 3 about 7 or 8 years ago (along with quite a few of the other albums) which were the exact same masterings so are identical sound wise. These have different OBI strips so I guess they aren’t exact replicas but close enough that I’m only interested in the two that haven’t appeared before. Another missed opportunity when they are plenty of others which have not yet appeared.

  31. Sorry but at this point does anyone really care except the hardcore die-hards…..i have a few of these from the late 90’s and yes, they are very nice esp Wings Over America……but at this point, i just want deluxe versions of London Town and Back To The Egg which seem like they will never see the light of day!!!!!

  32. This looks like a really good deal, Paul, given the normally very high quality these discs. I just wish I was a bigger McCartney fan.

    Dare I say it, this could be a new revenue stream for you if you can remain competitive with the likes of CDJapan. The postage and import fees can be a killer…..

  33. I don’t know about you, but so sick and tired of seeing alerts for McCartney releases, only to find it’s yet another variation of the same albums, that have been reissued to death with nothing new. I’m trying to figure out who cares less about their reissues: Madonna or Paul McCartney – perhaps it is just a race to the bottom for both of them!

    1. And the correct answer is Madonna. Her catalog went through the Warner Remasters treatment with their 1 or 2 bonus tracks back in the late 90s/early 00s. McCartney’s pre 2000 albums have all gone through 1 or 2 (or more – BOTR?) deluxe/super deluxe treatments – the notable exceptions being LT and BTTE. Madonna needs to start the SDE campaign. McCartney needs to finish his.

  34. Wot! No back to the egg or london town? ..thought I’d get that in there first before the usual crowd who have no intentions of buying said albums if they where released start commenting.

    1. So – STILL NO LONDON TOWN!
      Don’t know how many times I’ve commented here on this issue ( – and how do you know I’ve no intention of buying it?)

    2. Intention is a good word. I’ve no intention on buying many things, but I often do.

      My son rang me up yesterday. He had no intention of throwing a dart into the side of my Beach Boys Smile box set – but he succeeded! In his defence, it is a big target.

      2. OMG that story distressed me! I have the Smile set and the very thought of a dart sticking into the box has given me conniptions!

  35. These will no doubt be of superb quality, and will also no doubt be snapped up by Macca’s numerous hardcore fans. However for the rest of us more ordinary fans, we have already purchased these albums several times over on vinyl and/or cassette, then CD followed by ‘deluxe’ edition CD with extra tracks to even more deluxe 2 disc edition CDs or even super deluxe boxed sets and back to vinyl again. We are now being offered the original albums stripped of any extras, but in super duper hi-res extra texture delectable, deluxe and de-lovely CD format. No no no, enough is definitely enough, but hang on I have a birthday coming soon.

Leave a Reply