Band on the Run

The grand question - were the Beatles ever as good solo as they were together? The answer for Paul McCartney is clear. He's got some great solo tracks, but I don't think he was ever as good solo as he was with the Beatles. But that's not really a fair way to judge his solo albums, is it? A-hem, you must be as good as the Beatles to get a 5. So, I'm trying to listen without thinking, "This dude wrote Let it Be and Hey Jude and so on and so on." Great - Band on the Run, Let Me Roll It, Mrs. Vandebilt, Jet (at first, I classified this as "good not great" but then it got stuck in my head). Good - Mamunia (I really like the African stylings), No Words (sounds like it would fit on ELO's Out of the Blue), Picasso's Last Words, Nineteen-Hundred and Eighty-Five. Bluebird is probably the weakest song on the album - meh 70s soft rock. So, 4/9 great, 4/9 good, 1 meh. Probably makes it a 4.5 and now I'm going to add my bias of "but it's not as good as the Beatles" and round it DOWN to a 4. It just doesn't feel like a 5. Sorry, Paul. You're still awesome to me.

My knowledge of Wings pretty much begins and ends with Alan Partridge calling them "the band The Beatles could have been". He's probably not too far wrong - there's plenty of songs here that could easily fit onto a later Fab Four album if they'd had someone else to give them a good-looking over. The hooks and pop smarts are still there, but it doesn't quite work as well as his albums with the Beatles.

Reading the Wiki of the album was almost as entertaining as listening to it - deciding to record it in post-Biafran war Lagos amidst a Cholera outbreak for the exoticism (?!) and an irate Fela Kuti storming into their studio accusing McCartney of appropriating Nigerian music after visiting his club (only calmed by being played some of their recordings).

The album works best when it strays into Abbey Road medley territory, switching around mid-song and re-visiting previous hooks, and the final Nineteen Hundred and Eighty Five is a pretty funky jam - could work well with an extended edit of the piano.

Not an album I'd have listened to without this challenge, but glad I did. I was ready to give it a 4 or even higher on first listen, but the initial giddy high didn't quite stay on repeat listens and I doubt it's one I'll revisit in full too often. Sounds better on headphones too, some nice production. 3/5 on the 1001 scale, 3.5 for me.

heyy paull!