Lennon and McCartney go head-to-head yet again.
Ram was McCartney’s second solo album, released in 1971, and is a prime example of how popular music, on its release, is adjudged by so many factors other than music. Macca was in disfavour in 1971, regarded, wrongly, as the man who broke up The Beatles and also as the politico-spiritual lightweight of the quartet (Ringo has always been given a pass on these matters!). 50 years later, disconnected from all such blather,
Ram is a jolly thing, scrappy but fun, with an unpretentious thrown-together quality, songs such as lo-fi Beach Boys pastiche “Dear Boy” rubbing up against the entertainingly silly, music hall rockin’ ode to marjuana “Monkberry Moon Delight”. It does, indeed, sound like a man decompressing after the monumental, generational expectations placed on his previous band. In gatefold, it also comes half-speed mastered so sounds great. Lennon’s first solo effort, the
You get all the good stuff on Luke Haines’
Setting the Dogs on the Post-Punk Postman: oblique references, great tunes, and lyrics often laugh-out-loud funny.
Setting the Dogs on the Post-Punk Postman
Luke Haines
26 March 2021
It may be a little early in the year for this sort of thing, but I think we already have a winner for the “Song Title of the Year Award, 2021”. If something is released this year with a snappier appellation than “Andrea Dworkin’s Knees”, I will eat my hat, earmuffs, and cummerbund. If this title appeared on an album by Jon Bon Jovi, or Keith Urban or Beyonce, you’d be genuinely concerned that they’d had a psychotic episode, but for Luke Haines, it’s par for the course. Mr. Haines has a tatty old plastic carrier bag, full of the leftist of left field, pop-culture references, which he uses as source material for his work. Fortunately, it’s great work.
Ian Rushbury
It s all my big brother s fault. If he hadn t played me Abbey Road a thousand years ago, I d have turned out normal. Being a bassist, writer, and music geek is huge fun though. And the hours are great. Favourite Beatle: still Paul.