Five Paul McCartney albums you should listen to before you die
If you add up the 12 albums The Beatles made, the 18 solo albums he made, and the seven albums Wings released, Paul McCartney has put out a lot of records. With so much material, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and not know where to start in order to get a thorough understanding of the artist and his evolution, but these five records are must-listens.
When Paul McCartney first emerged onto the world’s stage, he was barely an adult. After joining The Beatles as a teenager, he and John Lennon learnt to write songs together. Typically, Lennon is often considered the more experimental one, especially later in life when he linked up with Yoko Ono and encouraged the band to get a little while. Meanwhile, McCartney is often held up as a shining example of classic songwriting. He gave the band the most number one thanks to his foolproof songcraft and knack for writing timeless hits.
However, digging deeper, McCartney is revealed to be just as experimental and exploratory as any of his peers. Throughout the band’s discography, his own solo work and his time in Wings, his music has crossed genres, dared to rip apart the musical rule book and been presented in all forms from catchy pop songs to lengthy storytelling opuses.
His huge discography and on-going presence in the music world is also testament to his enduring and seemingly limitless passion for music. McCartney’s love for music knows no bounds as he’s influenced by a whole range of genres and routinely shares his spotlight with artists from different sonic spheres to his own. He’s remained a student of sound, remaining forever hungry for new inspiration as his incredible career continues.
There is no arguing about or denying the fact that Paul McCartney is one of, if not the most, beloved songwriters to ever exist. It would be tough to find a soul out there who doesn’t know his name, but often, that’s only limited to his biggest hits or his legacy as a Beatle. So, for a more thorough education on his musical world, these five albums need to be heard.
Five Paul McCartney albums you should listen to before you die:
Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles (1967)
While The Beatles were obviously a band and obviously existed on the foundation of McCartney and John Lennon’s duo writing partnership, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was McCartney’s conception. It all began with his eventual foray into hallucinogenics after shrugging acid off for so long. When he did finally trip, he said the experience afforded him a new and “expansive new sense of possibility”, encouraging him to experiment more.
Until this point, McCartney had always been pretty tied to a more classic songwriting style, but this 1967 album saw him switch it up and morph into the artist he would further grow into later down the line. It’s here that the sounds of his storytelling become clear and vivid, mixing weird and wonderful characters with catchy instrumentals and adventurous, meandering melodies.
Even on John Lennon’s side, they key to the album was McCartney’s world. While Lennon had previously been off in his own little world, during the process of this album he began existing in McCartney’s, going with him to gigs and galleries and getting interested int he same avant-garde art scene as his friend. So even on the songs he didn’t write, the project is the result of McCartney’s mind.
McCartney – Paul McCartney (1970)
When The Beatles finally split, McCartney retreated. “I was depressed. You would be. You were breaking from your lifelong friends,” he said of the period. He admitted that for a while, he even wondered “whether I was still going to continue in music”, contemplating fully calling it quits after the painful divorce of the group.
But eventually, as artists know well, the artistry came back. Suddenly, there were new songs in his head, demanding to be made. However, his debut solo album, McCartney was made very differently to any other album by the musician. “I was like a professor in his laboratory. Very simple [set-up], as basic as you can get,” he said of the project as he essentially hid away in his home studio and made an album in secret. Featuring no other musicians beyond a few backing vocals by his wife Linda, it’s a solo record at its most extreme and isolated.
The songs, however, are incredible. For an album made as an attempt to tiptoe back into the music world, tracks like ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’, ‘Junk’ and ‘Every Night’ show McCartney’s talent brighter than it had shone in some time as he was not only able to hold the whole spotlight but was able to be uncompromising on his vision.
Ram – Paul and Linda McCartney (1971)
If McCartney was him getting back into making music, Ram was him getting back to enjoying the process. After the isolating creation of his solo debut, the process of creating RAM with Linda and a band saw him return to the joy of collaboration and reuniting with the electric energy in the room when a collective of talented musicians came together.
“If you ever get a block, just steamroll through it and fix it later,” he said was his philosophy on this album, and the result is a record full of the kind of fun and imaginative compositions he’d made in The Beatles, but with an even more playful streak. The instrumentals, especially as vast and varied as he weaves between a bunch of different references, no longer need to be cohesive or in keeping with the movements of bandmates. It’s a must-hear record, even just for the track ‘Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey’, which stands as one of McCartney’s finest characterful creations.
Band On The Run – Wings (1973)
Some albums are essential because of one song and one song only. Sure, each and every track on Wings’ third album is great, but ‘Band On The Run’ could be argued to be McCartney’s magnum opus, finally articulating how he felt in The Beatles and how he felt in the years since.
Wings are an interesting phenomenon. While the rest of the Beatles seemed thankful for the split to be able to go solo, McCartney always seemed itchy to get back into a band setting. First, he linked up with Linda McCartney, and then finally, he bit the bullet and started a new group. He seemed to be trying to recreate the chemistry The Beatles had right when they began as he explained, “I thought that to get a real band and to get a new direction, you’ve got to start at the bottom, square one — start there,” he said. “So we got a band like The Beatles had formed, which was really just a couple of friends, and in this case, one of them was my new wife.”
Wings have several great albums, but it’s the title track of this 1973 album that makes this one a must-listen. ‘Band On The Run’ is so moving and emotive, with such interesting melody shifts and instrumental switch-ups, that it makes goosebumps stand to attention. Lyrically, it deeps with McCartney’s thoughts on fame and the trapping nature of success, using his new group to finally work through some feelings regarding his old one.
McCartney III and McCartney III Imagined – Paul McCartney (2020)
In 2020, Paul McCartney got his first number-one album since 1989 with McCartney III. As the third instalment of his self-titled records, his choice of title established this new release as a serious thing. The other two earlier records felt like landmark moments, each capturing the artist’s songwriting at a distinct period. So in 2020, this new release felt like the latest check in to see where McCartney was at now, and prove that he was still one of the great.
However, perhaps even more so than the original record, McCartney III Imagined feels oddly essential. Listen to McCartney’s own, then go straight here as the reimagined versions by a selection of cross-genre modern artists further highlight the ex-Beatles’ musical genius.
Through the fresh eyes and lens of a new cast, the talent in his songcraft shines through as the tracks still stand up, even when beamed through the sound of Dominic Fike’s hip-hop, Phoebe Bridgers’ sad indie or with Khurangbin sharing this tropical take on the instrumental. In doing this album is also a beautiful reminder of McCartney’s unending passion for music, as he not only supports the next generation but is more than happy to share his spotlight with them.
The five most essential Paul McCartney albums:
- Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
- McCartney
- Ram
- Band On The Run
- Mccartney III
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