Rock

The Paul McCartney album that Ringo Starr hated

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Every member of The Beatles left the group and pursued their own individual creative paths after the Beatles broke up. The “Fab Four” had begun to look beyond themselves after living in each other’s bubble for almost a decade and had ventured into new terrain. While George Harrison may have found his voice as a composer on All Things Must Pass and John Lennon may have exorcised his demons on Plastic Ono Band, Paul McCartney established himself with the rootsy rock sounds of Ram.

Before all that, Ringo was not happy when the band disbanded. Some of the musicians, including Harrison and Lennon, experienced relief. But Starr was left with bitterness that would last for the following two decades. While talking with the New York Daily News, he said, “I was mad, For 20 years. I had breaks in between of not being.” Ringo Starr didn’t criticize McCartney as harshly as his colleagues did, but Starr was blunt when discussing his music.

Even though Starr disparaged McCartney’s persona, he was even harsher on the bassist’s individual compositions. Starr described some of Lennon’s solo tracks as “just incredible” and Harrison’s All Things Must Pass as “sensational” in a discussion about his former bandmates. There are a lot of excellent tracks, great tracks, and a lot of hard work on it (via The Beatles Diary Volume Two). When talking about McCartney’s record Ram, he wasn’t nearly as gracious.

Talking about the album, Ringo said that he was not sure if Paul’s career would be good enough like the Beatles’. He said to Melody Maker, “I feel sad about Paul’s albums. I don’t think there’s one tune on the last one, Ram. I just feel he’s wasted his time. He seems to be going strange.”

Ram has aged beautifully among the McCartney fanbase and inspired a variety of artists after being in the rearview for many years. It was published years before the concept for Wings emerged, and it was McCartney’s first attempt to create music that was truly his own. Linda contributed backing vocals and the sporadic lead vocal break.

Although the critics may not have grasped McCartney’s intent when he released Ram, it wouldn’t take long for the ‘Cute Beatle’ to mend fences with them after releasing the hugely successful Band on the Run album. Ram was too far ahead of its time for people to understand what McCartney was attempting to do at the time, despite the fact that he might not have had the best history with the rock and roll media.

Since the early 1970s, the relationship between Starr and McCartney has considerably improved. Over the years, they have worked together numerous times, and McCartney worked to get Starr inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Even though he and Starr still quarrel occasionally, according to him, they understand that they are related.

While talking about Ringo, McCartney told Rolling Stone, “It’s family. Sometimes we get pissed off at each other. I’ll want something from him and he won’t give it to me, and I’ll get pissed off. But then it passes. Brothers fight sometimes. There’s this revisionist history that it was all John and Paul. But it was four corners of a square; it wouldn’t have worked without one of the sides. Ringo was the right angle.”

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