Back to the Egg is the seventh and final studio album by the British-American rock band Wings, released in June 1979 on Parlophone in the UK and Columbia Records in North America (their first for the label).

Co-produced by Chris Thomas, the album reflects band leader Paul McCartney's embracing of contemporary musical trends such as new wave and punk, and marked the arrival of new Wings members Laurence Juber and Steve Holley.

Wings returned to Abbey Road in March 1979 to complete the album, before filming a series of promotional videos in Lympne and elsewhere, for what became the Back to the Egg TV special.

Back to the Egg received unfavourable reviews from the majority of critics, with Rolling Stone magazine deriding it as "the sorriest grab bag of dreck in recent memory".

[1] Although the album charted in the top ten around the world and was certified platinum in the United States, it was viewed as a commercial failure relative to previous Wings releases, particularly in light of the generous financial terms under which McCartney had signed with CBS-owned Columbia Records.

The song "Rockestra Theme", recorded with a cast of guest musicians from bands such as the Who, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, won a Grammy Award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance in 1980.

After the release of the album London Town (1978), Wings band leader Paul McCartney hired two session musicians, drummer Steve Holley and lead guitarist Laurence Juber, to replace former members Joe English and Jimmy McCulloch.

[14] Holley, a neighbour of Laine's, joined Wings in time to appear in the promotional video for London Town's lead single, "With a Little Luck",[15] having turned down a position with Elton John's band.

[20] After working with the Pretenders and the Sex Pistols, Thomas brought a punk rock and new wave influence to Wings' sound,[21][22] matching McCartney's desire to reflect contemporary musical trends.

[30] The track features a guitar-controlled synthesizer (played by Juber) over a funk-inspired bassline, and spoken voices, including a reading of part of "The Poodle and the Pug", from Vivian Ellis's opera Big Ben (1946).

[23] Writing in Melody Maker in June 1979, Mark Williams interpreted "Reception" as representing a radio being tuned in a car, whereby "the occupant is on his way to a gig, hence 'Getting Closer' [to the venue] and, upon arrival, 'We're Open Tonight'".

[36] Similar in style to "Spin It On", the song features a keyboard riff written by Linda[36] and a Holley-composed middle eight;[38] in addition, Laine helped McCartney complete the composition,[27] an early version of which the previous incarnation of Wings had demoed in July 1976.

[42] With a musical arrangement that eschews guitar backing for synthesizer, Fender Rhodes piano and horns, Benitez views it as "reminiscent of the techno-pop style of Stevie Wonder".

[49][nb 3] "The Broadcast" is another instrumental,[51] designed to give the impression of several radio signals interlaced, and bringing full-circle the concept established in the album's opening track, "Reception".

[52] As a return to the proposed working-band concept, "So Glad to See You Here", Rodriguez writes, "[evokes] the anticipation of a live act guaranteed to 'knock 'em dead'" and so recalls Wings' 1975–76 show-opening medley "Venus and Mars/Rock Show".

[45] The album ends with a jazz-inflected[37] ballad, "Baby's Request", which McCartney wrote for American vocal group the Mills Brothers, after seeing them perform in the South of France during the summer of 1978.

[57] The basic tracks were recorded with a spontaneity that had been absent in Wings' past work,[35] employing an approach that Juber has described as a "back-to-basics, garage band kind of feel".

[23] Basic tracks were also completed for "Cage", a song that remained in the proposed running order for the album until early in 1979, "Crawl of the Wild", "Weep for Love", "Ballroom Dancing" and "Maisie".

[75][nb 7] Among the work done on Back to the Egg at Replica, the band replaced the final twenty seconds of "So Glad to See You Here" with what Madinger and Easter describe as "a reggae-styled coda", containing the "We're Open Tonight" reprise.

[78] During that time, the band recorded a non-album single – the disco-styled "Goodnight Tonight", backed with "Daytime Nighttime Suffering" – as a release to coincide with the airing of the long-delayed[79] Wings Over the World special.

[80] While noting that McCartney and Laine's relationship was beginning to unravel at this point, Sounes compares the freshness of these new recordings with the drawn-out sessions for Back to the Egg and writes that the album "was now so overworked it might more aptly have been titled Over-Egged".

[115] With heavy promotion from Columbia, the album sold over 1 million copies in America;[116] in Britain, retail outlets soon slashed its price in an attempt to dispense with their surplus of stock.

[25] Given CBS's substantial investment in their new signing, Madinger and Easter write, the album's apparent failure led to a period of "mutual finger-pointing between Paul and Columbia Records", lasting until his contract expired in 1985.

[70] In an especially unfavourable critique for Rolling Stone magazine,[126] Timothy White described it as "the sorriest grab bag of dreck in recent memory" and lamented that none of the songs were "the least bit fleshed out", with the listener instead given "an irritating display of disjointed images and unfocused musical snapshots".

[1] After opining that, since 1970, "this ex-Beatle has been lending his truly prodigious talents ... to some of the laziest records in the history of rock & roll", White wrote: "Who, one felt compelled to ask, is in charge here?

[127] Coleman described "Rockestra Theme" and "So Glad to See You Here" as "creditable, rolling, raunchy and at least efficient, with Paul's voice at its rocking best on the last named track", but concluded: "This album gets Wings nowhere ..."[127] Billboard's reviewer gave Back to the Egg "Spotlight" status (meaning "the most outstanding new product of the week's releases and that with the greatest potential for top of the chart placement") and commented: "The music features typical McCartney fare of late with nothing here that will distinguish it as one of his classics.

"[129] To NME critic Bob Woffinden, the attempt at an album-wide concept was "a pretty half-baked one" and Hipgnosis' cover photo was "easily the album's strongest point".

"[117] AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine views Back to the Egg as "a set of [McCartney's] most undistinguished songs" that "have no spark whatsoever", and bemoans "the weak sound of the record and Wings' faceless performances".

[119] Among McCartney biographers, Vincent Benitez writes that the songs are "uneven in quality",[21] and Howard Sounes describes the album as "a curate's egg, good in parts, with token attempts at sounding contemporary".

[42] Wings regrouped in October 1980 to finish off songs for the planned Cold Cuts album,[137] a compilation that McCartney had suggested when CBS sought to recover part of its financial losses from Back to the Egg.