When The Beatles split, only the most pessimistic could have predicted the decade-long anticlimax of Paul McCartney's '70s work. The band's final efforts, after all, found the Lennon/McCartney songwriting team working apart far more than it worked together, and Abbey Road, the final Beatles album (in terms of recording order, not order of release) concluded with a half-album song suite that many regarded as McCartney's masterwork. The '60s, and The Beatles, drew to a close with McCartney ascendant. So what happened? There are, almost inevitably, gems scattered throughout McCartney's early solo albums and Wings work, and they're newly collected on the two-disc anthology Wingspan, designed to accompany the documentary of the same name. It would take an incorrigible contrarian, however, to put them on the same level with his Beatles recordings. Why didn't McCartney continue to rise? On the one hand, he seems to have been overwhelmed, as only a fool wouldn't be, at the prospect of following up the world's most beloved and influential group. The lovely modesty of his first solo recordings must have sounded underwhelming in The Beatles' wake, or when compared to the early solo work of Lennon and George Harrison. On the other hand, other recordings display a strand of overweening ambition, as well. For all the bad rap prog-rock endured for its fussy song structures, pop master McCartney shared some of the same tendencies: "Band On The Run" eventually turns into one of Wings' catchiest songs, but two and a half minutes of prelude is an awfully long time to wait for a hook. Or maybe Wings itself was the problem. Being the undisputed leader of his own band gave McCartney greater liberty to play the game of rock stardom, and with it the freedom to send trite numbers like "Silly Love Songs" up the charts, or chase trends with the ersatz reggae of "C Moon" or the half-hearted disco of "Goodnight Tonight." Wings gave McCartney an excuse to be part of just another '70s rock band, a role he fell into only too well.