This Is The Thread Where We Praise And Canonize Paul McCartney's "Ram"

I want that deluxe edition. I love, love, love this record, and did even as a kid. My father had it, and I think I wore out the binding opening and closing the gatefold cover. (Just as so many kids first hear "Yellow Submarine" as their gateway into the Beatles, I got into solo McCartney as a result of "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey.")

Sorry I missed on the covers project, totally woulda been into that!

One of my friends suggested a full-LP "Ram" cover band for Halloween one year, which sounds like a dream.

the backlash to the backlash!!!!!

http://www.pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16651-ram/

Is not wrong.

Half the album is listenable but "Uncle Albert" was and remains a piece of shit – and I'm the guy who defends Press to Play.

It's strange how UA/AH got to number one in the USA, but never even got released as a single here.

Also that "Back seat of my car" (which is great), only got to 37 or thereabouts. Were the great UK public really so bored of McCartney then?

^^^ Drunk talk, you'll regret that later

Bought the deluxe version of this with a gift card I had sitting around from Xmas. It sounds terrific, I've always loved this album. (My dad had it when I was a kid, and I remember hearing it a lot in like 1974-75). The accompanying disc with the singles from the same period is great as well, and mastered so well that, e.g., I hear backing harmonies in "Another Day" that I've never heard before, and I've heard that song at least a hundred times.

er xp to Alfred, not Mark G

oh I love "Another Day," which nails the domestic vibe that John kinda misses in "Just Like Starting Over."

#26 on the midweeks.

Too late for me, however, I did this review some while back with only the ancient vinyl original to hand.

I like the 'Uncle Albert' part of UA/AH, but I've never really been keen on the 'Admiral Halsey' part.

I've always had a fondness for Ram, although it's probably my 5th favourite McCartney album overall.

I always thought "Hands across the water" was pretty damn brilliant myself.

this album is amazing front-to-back imho

third best Beatle solo album behind ATMP and Imagine

yeah, Ram is really, really great. I grabbed a bunch of his other solo stuff based on the awesomeness of Ram and was kind of bummed that it's head and shoulders above the rest (there's some decent stuff on McCartney and McCartney II, and a few Wings songs that grab me, but nothing so consistently fantastic as Ram).

I haven't checked the credits lately but isn't the first and last Macca album until TOW to feature session men? Does he play that terrific bass lick in "Too Many People"?

Paul plays everything on this record, except for some random shit (vox/keybds) credited to Linda. He recorded it at home.

for someone so often pilloried for his sentiment and cloyingly obvious lyrics, it's funny how much of this album's lyrics are elliptical proto-nonsense. nothing is expressed in a very straightforward matter, everything is buried in a lot of goofy stoner imagery

matter manner

but Hugh McCracken, Dave Spinozza, etc are in the credits.

Paul plays everything on this record, except for some random shit (vox/keybds) credited to Linda. He recorded it at home.

Yeah, no. He recorded it at CBS Studios in New York, with Denny Seiwell on drums, the guitar guys listed above by Alfred, and orchestra overdubs arranged by George Martin.

In the book in the deluxe edition, Seiwell says he got a call from his booking place about an audition, showed up to discover Paul and Linda in some craphole studio with just a drum set, and Paul asked him to play various beats -- straight rock, a shuffle, something funky, etc. All unaccompanied. He just wanted to hear the dude play.

hmm maybe I was thinking of McCartney I

oh yeah he played everything on that one

whatever shakey, we know you've never even heard Ram before

THAT WAS YOUR FIIIIRST MISTAKE

that jayson greene review is wonderful! the paragraph on 'Smile Away' in particular, the track at the heart of the album, the self-consciously rockin' track that is almost annoyingly cute until it starts to dawn on you that this is a very odd person's way of tell you that he's actually already on the other side of being very pissed off

I am heading to the store to buy the 2CD of this and it had better already be there

/telling you

if not, smile on!

I dunno man, I rate Band On The Run, Venus And Mars, Flowers In The Dirt and Chaos And Creation In The Backyard over this one. With Flaming Pie and the very underrated Back To The Egg very very closely behind Ram. His weakest releases for me are: Wild Life, Wings At The Speed Of Sound and that run from 1983-1986 which I'd consider to be the 'dud stage' of his solo career (Pipes, Broadstreet, Press To Play), although there's one or two admittedly sterling tracks on these.

right there
that's it
YES

I take issue with 'Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey' being branded one of McCartney's five best solo songs... fucking hell, no. Don't agree with that whatsoever. At all.

Nothing makes me happier than infuriating the sententious, smug likes of Jon Landau and Dave Marsh and while I'm glad the Admiral Halsey part Killed The Sixties Dream it doesn't mean I have to relive it.

right there
that's it
YES

― go down on you in a thyatrr (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, May 24, 2012 5:24 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I don't mind 'Press' at all, even though it took me quite some time to warm to it. I'm still not a massive fan of the production values on the whole album, though!

I've always felt like "Big Barn Bed" from Red Rose should have been on this album as well. I mean, it kind of is, but it should have been on it for real...

Oh yeah, you can hear a snatch of it at the end of 'Ram On (Reprise)'... I keep forgetting about that. I remember reading at some point or another that Red Rose Speedway was meant to be a double album!?!

I never really got into this one on my own, but over the past year friends of mine (from different ends of my friendship spectrum, strangely enough) have been throwing it on during hangouts, leading me to believe it's been gaining some canon-momentum (or whatever) within the past few years. "Heart Of The Country" and "Ram On" stand out for me as pretty great and would've been worthy of placement on a Beatles LP that never happened.

yeah – it's been a sleeper for years. A Macca CD-R a friend burned for me in 2001 had practically the whole album.

an alternate universe where young Paul skipped church the morning of July 6, 1957

wtf how do people know this shit

i thought i was a beatles nerd

the problem with nerdom is that someone always knows a squib you don't.

'Too Many People', 'Dear Boy', 'Eat At Home' and 'Back Seat Of My Car' were the ones that stood out to me on first listen to Ram, if I remember. 'Long Haired Lady' and the title track are still incredible. 'Smile Away' and 'Heart Of The Country' are decent/alright. 'Monkberry Moon Delight' and '3 Legs' less so.

The end of "3 Legs" is pretty sweet, where it cuts into that half-time bit or whatever it is.

Two-disc version of this is on Spotify btw.

And I haven't said it yet on this thread, I don't think, so I'll say also that Thrillington rules.

I like it how it took McCartney until 1989 to clear up for once and for all how involved he was with the Thrillington album. Nobody had ever bothered to ask him what his role was in the Thrillington album up until then. I don't think his name is even mentioned anywhere on the sleeve, except for the songwriting credits. It became so much more of a collectors item after that, of course.

And yeah, Thrillington does indeed rule. I prefer Ram, of course, but Thrillington is a highly listenable vanity project. And McCartney likes his vanity projects.

Eh, I don't know why it has to be called a "vanity project."

Also disagree with the Jayson Greene, Pitchfork assertion that Ram is "utterly lacking grandiose ambitions."

Eh, I don't know why it has to be called a "vanity project."

― timellison, Thursday, May 24, 2012 11:34 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Aw, come on. Re-recording your album in instrumental form under a pseudonym with an arranger before the actual album is even out, for NO OTHER REASON or PURPOSE than BECAUSE YOU CAN just absolutely reeks of 'vanity project' to me!