Songoftheday 1/6/15 - Darling, I love you very, very, very much and I really am relying on your touch...

"Press" - Paul McCartney
from the album Press To Play (1986)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #21 (two weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 6

Today's Song of the Day comes from former Beatle and Wings-man Paul McCartney, whose mid-80s output had been scattershot, with sparks of inspiration ("Take It Away") interspersed with dreadfully horrible banality (the 1986 top-10 hit "Spies Like Us", one of the worst hit singles of the rock era). Paul didn't even deem to include "Spies" on his next album, Press To Play, which was released in 1986. The first single, "Press", enlisted Genesis/Phil Collins producer Hugh Padgham and former 10cc member Eric Stewart on guitars, which explains the sorta-bland result, though it's heaps more enjoyable than his last single. I guess he felt he had to "fit in" to the pop sound on the radio, and as a result, didn't really connect to either that or his older fans as much as I'm sure he'd like...

While "Press" would turn out to be a moderate hit in America, reaching just below the top-20 on the pop chart in September of 1986, and also in his native England, the single pretty much missed the top-40 everywhere else (save Ireland, where it did the best at #15). All in all, it's a forgettable single, though slightly redeemed by being marginally more listenable than "Spies Like Us"...

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


...and as a bonus, here's a clip of Paul recording "Press" from the TV special Paul McCartney presented on the release of the Press To Play album, which reached the top-30 in America...

Up tomorrow: Canadian rockers look to the skies for another ballad hit.