POLL: How do you rate Paul McCartney/Wings' "Band On The Run" album?

As others have noted, McCartney suffered from no "desperation" at all at that time. Just months earlier, "Red Rose Speedway" went to #1. "My Love" also hit #1, and "Live and Let Die" hit #2. McCartney's only "rough spot" in the US came from the back-to-back releases of "Give Ireland..." and "Little Lamb", which peaked in the 20s. 1972's "Hi Hi Hi" went to #10, and the 1971 singles both went top 5.

McCartney's worst showing album-wise was "Wild Life", which peaked at #10 US. "McCartney" and "Speedway" both made #1, and "Ram" went to #2.

So to sum up: prior to "Band on the Run", McCartney had released 2 #1 albums, one #2 album and a #10 album. He'd put out two #1 singles, one #2 single, one #5, one #5 and 2 in the 20s.

Most artists "desperate" to regain success aren't coming off of a number one album and 2 top-two singles in the prior six months, are they?

And I've never heard or discerned any indications Paul specifically went into "BOTR" with "top of the charts" goals. I think he made an album he wanted to make and it just happened to be successful.

There are albums in the solo Beatles canon that reek of desperation - "BOTR" is not one of them...

 

You would've ranked it #1 if it included "Soily"!

 

Exactly.

 

If one desires empty, soulless solo Beatle product, I have a suggestion:

 

Oh, thanks. I do feel it would have sat better on BOTR than Red Rose Speedway. You can see where McCartney's writing was heading with Live And Let Die.

 

Best sequence of songs on any of his albums. Fine tunes the closing suite format he experimented with on Red Rose Speedway, and tried to nail again on Venus and Mars, but not as successfully. "Down in the jungle, living in a tent...."

 

*
Clearly one of his best works - essential listening for Paul fans

 

This one wipes the floor with BOTR, sorry. There's more soul in one line here than in half of Macca's catalogue.

 

Can't stand both. To each his own I guess.

 

True but in this case you seems to belong to a small(but loud ) minority

 

Not bad - some good/great tracks, but plenty of the usual throwaways.

For me, it's an album of high peaks and low valleys......averaging out to a slightly above average album. BOTR, Jet, Let Me Roll It, and Helen Wheels (if that counts) are as great as any non-Beatles stuff he's ever done. 1985 is decent. I dislike Picasso, Bluebird, the Denny Laine song, and don't love "his most popular song in Russia."

It may be one of Paul's best for most (I prefer most of his recent stuff from Flaming Pie onwards), but it's (my opinion) far behind Plastic Ono Band, Imagine, All Things Must Pass etc.

 

Sometimes I think your pro-GH and anti-PM biases get the best of you, and this is one of them. I've listened to "Extra Texture" repeatedly and tried to like it, but as the saying goes, there's no "there" there - it's just bland, manufactured material with no heart behind it...

 

Although not my personal favorite Paul LP, it is his best by far, and on a par "artistically" with POB and ATMP. Just took Paul a few more years.

Ram remains my personal favorite, but I can understand how it is sappy to some. I like sappy sometimes.

 

First, thanks MrJinks, again, for the opportunity to play along with your poll.

This is as strong as some of his Beatle output. His suites, Uncle Albert, Venus and Mars, and this title track are always a joy to listen to.

I don't consider any of this filler. I love that he revisits some of the songs again later on the album.

In fact, I'd suggest this album, maybe more than any other, shows off all of the great things Paul does as a musician.

 

This is a rare album where the quote-unquote "overplayed" songs are truly the highlights. BOTR and "Jet" are genuinely fantastic songs, and I don't feel like they really belong in the same category as truly unavoidable tracks like "Stairway to Heaven" or "Yesterday" where they've been that exposed to the point of burnout.

The fact that they happen to be surrounded by songs like "Bluebird," "Mrs. Vandebilt," "Let Me Roll It"--I'm just gonna stop before I wind up listing every single song--makes this clearly one of his best works. And come on, if he wanted to do a contrived stab at producing hits, he wouldn't have gone to friggin' Nigeria to record it.

Just a suggestion/request to @mrjinks--for future polls, could you re-order the albums by average rating, rather than by the order the polls were created?

 

Band On the Run came out December 1973. That WAS the early 70s, wasn't it?
Of course, I'd expect nothing else but a contrary view from ya!

 

I had considered doing just that, but I didn't want anyone to think I was "playing favorites" or "stacking the deck" for or against any particular album. I could see someone quickly scanning the list and seeing a certain album at top (or bottom) and being inclined to vote only for that reason (if that makes any sense) and that's not really how I chose to go about it. I'm enjoying the "scattershot" method, as opposed to doing them chronologically. Whether that was a wise or stupid decision, I'll leave up to the masses to decide.

I know at some point - when I get through all the albums (early next year?), I will do a "ranking-to-date" which will make things easy to scan. It's pretty cool that each album seems likely to get probably 200+ ratings. Even with the scale as potentially flawed as it may be - I take full responsibility for that! - it makes for interesting comparisons, I hope...

 

Well, most Macca fans would agree that BOTR started an entirely different era from rather low-profile and dare I say low-fi? 1970-1972 period.

 

Essential listening for MUSIC fans! Probably the strongest post Beatles album from any of them.

 

Well, there is a good reason for my overwhelming pro-GH bias but that would be off-topic here. As for Extra Texture - I prefer it to Beethoven's Ninth, Dark Side of the Moon and Sgt.Pepper combined so I guess we disagree on this one!

 

1. ram
2. mccartney
3. wild life
4. red rose speedway
5. band on the run

 

Clearly one of his best. Ram and Venus & Mars are in the same league, but it's better than anything else I've heard.

 

no deal, as BOTR is still not available in MONO.

 

Along with DSOTM the most overrated album of 1973 in my book.