Paul and Linda McCartney - Rams (50th Anniversary Half-Speed Master Edition)

UMC/Virgin

£29.50
~~£31.37~~

Format: 1LP
Catalogue No.: 3557723
Barcode: 0602435577234
Release Date: 1 Oct 21 [SALE]
Genre: Pop, Rock

To mark the 50th anniversary of the release of RAM, the album will be pressed from a master cut at half speed using the original master tapes at Abbey Road.

The only album credited to both Paul and Linda McCartney, RAM reached Number 1 in the UK and stayed in the US Top 10 for five months. Recording after he’d left The Beatles and before the formation of Wings, Paul initially flew with Linda to New York to record the songs they’d written but arrived without a band. As Paul recalls, “We were thinking of forming a group at that time, Wings. We went to New York, found a really grotty little basement somewhere and auditioned a bunch of people. We got someone to throw a lot of drummers at us, out of which we picked Denny Seiwell who’s one of the best, and his personality fitted. Then we went in, worked with him, Hugh McCracken, Dave Spinozza, a couple of New York session men, and did RAM.” To avoid arousing too much interest, the auditions were held under the guise of a session for a commercial jingle. As well as Paul’s lead vocals there are harmonies from Linda. “I gave her a hard time, I must say, but we were pleased with the results. Elton John later said somewhere that he thought it was the best harmonies he’d heard in a long while. It was very much the two of us against the world at that point.”

Tracklists
RAM LP 50th anniversary half-speed master edition
1LP - Side A
Too Many People
3 Legs
Ram On
Dear Boy
Uncle Albert / Admiral Halsey
Smile Away
1LP - Side B
Heart Of The Country
Monkberry Moon Delight
Eat At Home
Long Haired Lady
Ram On [reprise]
The Back Seat Of My Car

To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Paul and Linda McCartney's 1971 masterpiece RAM, the album will be reissued May 14, 2021, as a limited-edition half-speed mastered vinyl pressing via UMe.

Paul's most recent release, the #1 album McCartney III, recorded in "Rockdown" last year, saw a return to the homespun, lo-fi style of the earliest days of his solo career. The eclectic charm and intimacy of 1970's McCartney and 1971's RAM found Paul redefining his post-Beatles creative identity, while unconsciously rewriting the rules of pop music and creating new genres along the way—or as Pitchfork would later describe RAM's sustained influence on generations of fans and musicians alike, "inventing an approach to pop music that would eventually become someone else's indie-pop."

The only album to be credited to both Paul and Linda McCartney, RAM was created mostly at Paul and Linda's farm in Scotland (following initial, more traditional studio sessions in New York). Unlike the completely solo sessions that resulted in Paul's eponymous debut album, the recording of RAM found Paul and Linda enlisting a number of musicians, including Denny Seiwell, who would become a founding member of Wings, Paul's next musical adventure.

The RAM sessions were completed in early 1971, also yielding the standalone single Another Day, a worldwide hit that preceded RAM's May 1971 release.

RAM's singular sonic palette was unlike its predecessor—or anything else for that matter—and has grown exponentially in stature and influence over the decades. Critically polarizing at the time, the album was instantly beloved by fans, hitting #1 in the UK and giving Paul his first post-Beatles American #1 single, the GRAMMY-winning Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey. In recent years the record has continued to solidify its standing as one of the most loved in Paul's unparalleled output. Fans and critics alike continue to sing its praises: Rolling Stone has hailed the album as a "masterpiece" and "a grand psychedelic ramble full of divine melodies," Pitchfork has praised it as "a domestic-bliss album, one of the weirdest, earthiest, and most honest ever made," and Mojo, perhaps most accurately of all, has deemed RAM "quintessentially McCartney."