Band on the Run

I'm not sure if Paul was a good musician, but for sure he was a charmer.

i like the beatles stuff more

5
This was great. Bluebird, let me roll it, nineteen hundred and eighty five... wouldn't be at all out of place on any Beatles album quality-wise

Third listen and I'm upping it to a 5

One of the better pop rock records of the seventies. The list of great songs is impressive, and the musicianship is of course very solid. McCartney’z best.

Had I known this would turn up this week I would’ve watched the documentary last weekend!

I like how it’s McCartney with a band again. I hope the others were given the autonomy to try things out. But I suspect it was an autocracy

A lot of strong songs occasionally hamstrung by complex arrangements for complex arrangements sake. This is particularly clear on the lps best song - Picasso’s last words. A simple song written from a magazine article to prove to Dustin Hoffman he could (any songwriter can do that btw), over complicated by bring motifs from earlier songs. Sometimes there’s joy in a simple drinking song Paul

Quite simply s classic. Both Band on the Run and Jet sound timeless today, as i can only imagine they did on release.
Bluebird and Mrs Vandebiliit are prime cuts of McCartney melodic storytelling, but Let Me Roll On it is the true star. It is the most Beatlesy song here, especially the riff that permeates throughout.
Some more classic stories, including a revisited snippet of Jet before you reach another of the album’s highlights Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five before Band On The Run gently wanders off the stage where it came in.

Oh we're back to "albums that got played a lot in the house when I was little". Both parents were fans of Paul McCartney (my mother's favourite Beatle, though not my father's: he was a George Harrison man) so this was in regular rotation. Unlike most of those albums however, this did not leave much of an impression and I've never listened to the album as an adult.

I take after my Mum Beatles-wise, so really like Paul's vocals and Paul's writing. I really like Jet, Mrs Vanderbilt, Let Me Roll It, No Words (love the Bee Gees vocals!), Picasso's Last Words (Drink To Me), Nineteen Hundred And Eighty Five... it's probably easier to list the songs I'm not so fussed about to be honest. I like the instrumental choices on this album a lot - lots brass and woodwind and strings.

I will say that, I'm not sure a solo Beatle album can ever really surpass an actual Beatles album, but also it feels wrong to judge them in that way. In it's own right, this is a really inventive, interesting album that doesn't outstay it's welcome. And Paul's voice remains beautiful.

I'm not sure why this didn't grab me as a kid, but I love it as an adult.

5/5

2/16/26 - listened driving to take my car into the shop. Was fine. Highs were high, lows were low.

Best Song - Jet!

Decent, but nothing special really.

Paul had a lot of ideas for this album. They were all bad.

2.8

Fav track: Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five
Least fav: Picasso's Last Words

All 4 members legitimately have a claim to have each written some of the greatest songs ever made, and all of their solo careers have something to offer. BotR is no exception. Several exceptional pop hits with still-excellent production all throughout

As someone who hadn't been born while Wings were active, I had always thought Wings was just a weird footnote in musical history as the band Paul McCartney used to get his feet under him post-Beatles. So when this popped up I was afraid it would be shit.

I was right.

You'll be totally fine if you don't listen to this before you die. You're not missing anything at all.

All things considered: McCartney's exit from The Beatles was pretty graceful, at least in hindsight. It feels like people are slowly becoming kinder to McCartney's post-Beatles output and more cynical about Lennon's. And, honestly, that's a development I'm fine with. A few years separated from The Beatles, Band On The Run seems to be the fan favorite McCartney album. And there's a lot to like here. We've basically got a bunch of grand, ambitious pop tunes, any of which could have feasibly been a hit. But, it does make sense that the title track gets most of the attention here. It's multi-phased and every part of it has merits. It captures some of the magic seen in The Beatles' biggest, most well executed moments. And immediately following it with the rockin' Jet doesn't hurt. Honestly, I don't have a lot to say about every song here, but I do want to say that I liked them all, at least to an extent. The biggest downside here is pacing. Honestly, I don't know how he did it, but this is a *long* 42 minutes. None of these songs are *that* long, but somehow half of them feel a good 2 minutes longer than they are. I guess, in short, even though I like the songs, I think the album drags a bit. But I did enjoy it, more than Lennon's Imagine for anyone keeping score.

Continuing my Liz Phair briefly interrupted run of great classic rock albums leads me to this one. I was lucky enough to see Paul McCartney play live, and as I am more a fan of the Lennon penned Beatle’s tracks, it wasn’t his performance of his own Beatles songs (think Ob-La-Di/When I’m Sixty Four for example) but his Wing’s tracks that made me cry with joy. Such nostalgia, such a wondrous album. Literally.

Speaking of Beatleses! Interestingly, I think the John Lennon album sounded a lot more Beatlesy than this one does, which is contra my expectation. This is still poppy but the songs are a little more self-indulgent, or at least longer. Also a little more (electric) guitar focused. It's OK, but 'Bluebird' is no 'Blackbird'. Very funny and British to think Lagos is an ~exotic~ location to record an album. I like the random sax solos.

Everything about it is great (but especially the "Let Me Roll It" riff).

Better than Coldplay

Really enjoyable listen 👍

Beautifully produced

Lett me roll it to you is McCartney doing Lennon.

Lyrics are nonsense.

Paul probably needed someone to tell him "no" and John George and Ringo weren't around.

Bluebird is probably the best thing on the album.

Pretty enjoyable.