Music Monday-8/18/2014 The Beatles

john says:

Though I’ve been procrastinating in making my post-Beatles Beatle Album, aka The Black Album, based on the song line up as suggested by director, Richard Linklater, and actor, Ethan Hawke (a link to a short explanation and track listing for the “album” can be found HERE), I have gotten around to listening to a number of Beatles solo albums on my walk to work in the morning.  Reacquainting myself with Beatle solo work got me to wondering which of their solo album is pound for pound, song for song, the best solo Beatle Album.  I came up with this answer:

Yeah, yeah I know: George Harrison’s brilliant post-Beatles, tension releasing All Things Must Pass.  And if he hadn’t put all of those jams on the album this would be a different blog post.  Keeping those jams in mind I have to go with McCartney’s 1973 release Band on the Run.  It’s a fantastic album from start to finish.  Pure rock.  Pure Pop.  The album is fun.  It’s melodic.  Band on the Run is a Paul McCartney greatest hits album on its own.  If you don’t believe me check the title track, Jet, Bluebird, Let Me Roll It, and Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five.  Hell, even John Lennon had something good to say about Band on the Run in his 1975 Rolling Stone Interview:

“Band on the Run is a great album. Wings is almost as conceptual a group as Plastic Ono Band. Plastic Ono was a conceptual group, meaning whoever was playing was the band. And Wings keeps changing all the time. It's conceptual. I mean, they're backup men for Paul. It doesn't matter who's playing. You can call them Wings, but it's Paul McCartney music. And it's good stuff. It's good Paul music and I don't really see the connection.”

Band on the Run was also made under duress.  Two members of Wings quit before the recording.  The location of the recording (Lagos in Nigera) was corrupt and militaristic.  Paul and Linda were robbed at knifepoint.  Lyrics and demos were lost/stolen, the recording equipment was subpar, and according to the geniuses over at Wikipedia, Paul even suffered a bronchial spasm from too many smokes.

Band on the Run is not without its share of hokey moments.  The album does move into stereotypical, critical McCartney territory.  Some of the lyrics are bad.  To this day I still don’t have a clue what Jet is about.  The suffrage movement?  It can be schmaltzy at times, although Picasso’s Last Words (Drink to Me) is Paul at his schmaltzy/avant garde best.  But if you’re looking for the closest thing to a Beatles album as done by a solo Beatle, Band on the Run is a sure bet. 

Paul McCartney has had a rather pleasant late-career creative resurgence.  For further listening check out: Flaming Pie (1997), Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005), Memory Almost Full (2007), and New (2013).