POLL: How do you rate Paul & Linda McCartney's "Ram" album?

Exactly! Well said, I could not agree more. Nothing could be too melodic IMO, and melody is the most important part of music for me.

 

I know these polls are "over", but I thought I'd vote in a few. Ram is one of my favorites and has steadily moved up in the Paul rankings for me over the years.

 

Among the 3 I enjoy the most. Today I will rank them as follows, but the relative order may change tomorrow.
1. London Town
2. Ram
3. Wild life

 

Both of those would make my top 10 as well.

 

Funny, I’m actually listening to it now, as I found this thread. Such an underrated album, and his best in my books!

 

Loved it when it first came out, love it even more now!

 

For me, it's his best and he's made quite a few excellent albums. That early era of Beatles solo albums was quite remarkable. Along with Ram, we got "All Things Must Pass" (the best of all Beatles solo albums, IMHO), "Imagine", "McCartney", "John Lennon Plastic Ono Band", Ringo had a couple of good singles with "It Don't Come Easy" and "Back Off Boogaloo" - we had to wait 'till '73 for "Ringo". I was thinking at the time, if this is the way the Beatles sound as solo artists, the break-up was a good thing. Unfortunately so many (not all) of the rest of the solo albums disappointed and were good for one or two cuts at best.

 

I find attitudes to this album really interesting. It's an album which sounds completely different to anything else in his catalogue, yet most fans think it's among his best. Most critics seemed to hate it for years; yet now a majority rate it as one of Paul's 'must-haves'. Some non-Macca fans like it, yet some hardcore Paul fans I know don't get it at all.

Personally, I think it's a bit of a flawed masterpiece. In songwriting, arrangement and production terms, I think it's a huge step forward from 'McCartney'. It runs the gamut of emotions: bitter, blissed-out, defiant, happy and whimsical. And at its best, the material is just breathtaking: Too Many People and Back Seat of My Car are as good as anything he's released, and Dear Boy isn't far behind.

But...I do find some of the songs a little too ragged and/or silly for my taste -- Smile Away, Uncle Albert, Heart of the Country, etc. True, they do fit in with the overall vibe of the album, and are not without merit. But compared with Paul's best songs, they fall short.

It's a hugely enjoyable, rewarding album, but not quite in the top McCartney echelon for me. So, on the voting scale we're given here, I plumped for 'A pretty solid effort'.

 

Ram is one of my favorite Paul albums so guess what I picked

 

underrated?

 

I hear that you want to keep Ram all to yourself and don't want to share it with anyone. So you chose:

Clearly one of his worst - avoid at all costs...

 

76.6% are nuts.

 

Smiley Smile maybe.

 

Always loved RAM! especially this original U.S. Sound Recorders Studio acetate.
two-sided disc Stereo

 

2 years later I finally found this poll!!!

The "Archive release" massive box set has helped me move RAM from a "good album" to me to a "very good" album......remastering was superb...also love the RAM "mono" CD as well!

 

I just picked up my first copy of Ram after all this time (the 2012 two disk set). I was already familiar with several tunes, but only out of context -and context does matter, as this is a well sequenced album. I really like it so far, though I still favor both Band On The Run and Venus and Mars (to be fair, they have had much longer to grow on me).

 

What is POB? Dennis Wilson solo? Respectfully Ram is superior.

 

Plastic Ono Band

 

POB is plastic Ono Band

 

Aha. Of course. Then I’d put POB > Ram.

 

I'm not sure why this Plastic Ono Band is being pitted against Ram...but now that it is (!), I went back and listened to POB from start to finish, the first time in 40 years, a few weeks ago. I've been nodding along to all the accolades it gets but, while listening after a decades long absence, realized that it includes some really good, powerful stuff...along with a few throwaways. I went through the exercise to see if I had overlooked a Top 100 album (my own list) and decided, nope.

Ram is fully entrenched, though.

 

Better and far more consistent than his other albums from around this period - and that includes Band, great though some of those tracks are, and Venus, with which it can wipe the floor.