h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I found Band On the Run to be one of Paul's most mediocre albums. "McCartney" and "Ram" which preceded it were of a far higher calibre.
Of the following Wings' albums, "Venus and Mars" and "Back to the Egg" are the most notable in my view; "Venus and Mars" in particular simply outshines "Band on the Run", and is one of my favourite Wings albums.
I regarded Paul's Wings era as a blip, his '80s albums were a return to form.

Concerning the theft of the "Band on the Run" tapes : the Wingspan documentary has Paul inferring that the tapes were not recovered.

I enjoy listening to both McCartney and Ram, and indeed all of Paul's albums, both Wings and Solo. I wouldn't say I have a favourite, but if forced I probably prefer his "Flowers In The Dirt" and "Flaming Pie" to "Band On The Run", yet I would place that third.
I think there are strengths and weaknesses in both his 70s and 80s albums, and indeed his 90s work too - at the end of the day, it's ll down to personal taste. I agree that "Venus And Mars" is a great album, though.

<BB<

Hi. I enjoyed this article for a good reason. I can see this was written a long time ago but I've just joined and it's a good coincidence because I just borrowed my friend's 'Band on the Run' box set that came out a couple of years ago. It has lots of extra tracks and many details so I thought you might like some information from it.

The first thing is that although Paul wasn't getting good reviews from the press with the previous solo albums, he had been having success, particularly in America and actually the two singles you mention 'Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey' from 'Ram' and 'My Love' from 'Red Rose Speedway' earlier in the same year, 1973 were BOTH number one singles in the USA.

Of course, what was happening was that Wings hadn't yet found a 'sound' they wanted to stick with and therefore Paul was challenging press and listeners alike with a lot of different things from 'Give Ireland Back to the Irish' to 'Mary Had a Little Lamb'.

'Band on the Run' settled on a concept and sound that even John Lennon loved.

Also, as someone else says here, the cassettes of the demos of the album's songs were never recovered so he had to remember them but was lucky because he and Lennon had always used memory rather than tape when writing for The Beatles so it wasn't too difficult.

Hello – welcome to h2g2 – I see you've had a good look around the Beatles-related articles. You may have noticed that the first articles about Beatles I wrote were an awful lot shorter than the ones I'm writing now. I do also enjoy both 'Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey' and 'My Love' – 'My Love' is a classic that I've been lucky enough to see and hear Paul sing live twice now, and often occurs on his live albums.

I think in the last decade I've changed my mind and would call 'Band on the Run' my second favourite Paul album, after 'Flaming Pie'. 'Flaming Pie' was the first McCartney album that I bought and discovered, and so I suspect will always be top of my list. I keep meaning to write about it too...

<BB<