Music Review: Paul McCartney And Wings Release Bare Bones 'Band On The Run' On 50th
Sometimes less is more.
At least that’s the thought behind Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Band on the Run (Underdubbed).”
Fifty years after its debut, the beloved album gets yet another rerelease, this time with a version that doesn’t include bonus tracks but instead pulls back some of the layers that were added after the original rough mixes. Hence, “underdubbed” in the title.
This isn’t the first time McCartney has revisited an album to strip off some of the bells and whistles to get closer to the original recording. He did it with the unfortunately titled “Let It Be Naked” back in 2003.
The “underdubbed” version of “Band on the Run” is notable for a slightly different song order from the U.S. release that will be jarring for those with the original sequencing committed to memory after decades of listening. The new order mirrors how the original tapes were discovered in McCartney’s archives and omits “Helen Wheels,” which McCartney didn’t intend to include on the album but did after it was a hit single.
Some of the changes with the songs themselves are subtle: a missing guitar riff or echo here, no backing vocals there. Others are more noticeable, like no orchestral overdubs, what sounds like a vocal flub on the title track and no vocals at all on “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five.”
Source: The Greenville Sun
