If we ever get out of here

Paul McCartney & Wings - Band on the Run - 1973

When writing about the first Wings album, Wild Life, I mentioned something along the lines of Paul trying too hard to sound less "neat", to get away from his good, clean-cut guy image. And I mentioned how I thought that, while I do like that album, it failed because it did feel as if he was trying too hard.
I think that one of the things that makes this album so great is that it feels as if him and the band were finally done with trying to be something, or sound in a certain way. Ironically, in doing so, they came up with an album that is more varied, more fun, and crazier than anything Paul had done up to that point.
While this is nowhere near a conceptual album, there's a theme underlying all the tracks, which seems to be freedom: freedom from jail, from pressures, freedom to chill out and do what you feel like, the freedom of travelling.
Ironically, maybe all the troubles the band went through when recording the album ended up helping create that feeling: at the time Paul was in fights with Apple, two of the members of Wings left right before recording, they decided to record the album in Lagos, Nigeria, only to find out the studio was in very poor condition, apart from getting mugged at knife-point, losing all their valuables plus all the demo tapes.
Whether or not all the trouble they went to had something to do with it, this is most likely the best album Paul McCartney released, both with Wings and on his own, and because of its unique mix of styles, it has the advantage of having aged very well.

• The title of this entry is from the beginning of the title track. The inspiration was, apparently, something George Harrison had said at some point with respect to their relation to Apple. He was saying that they were like prisoners, and said that phrase. 
• The song "Jet" refers to.... well, who knows? Paul has said that the name referred to a black dog they had, who they called "Jet" (but at a different time he said that it referred to a horse). There's a line there that goes: "I thought the Major was a lady suffragette", which always makes me think of Bowie (although as far as I know, Paul never mentioned anything of the sort). 
• "Picasso's Last Words" came into being on a dare by no other than Dustin Hoffmann. They had met and Hoffmann doubted that Paul could write a song "about anything", so he pulled out a newspaper about the death of Picasso (who died in April 1973) and challenged to write about it. The article mentioned his last words: "Drink to me, drink to my health. You know I can't drink anymore". Paul wrote the song on the spot. Also, best last words ever.
• I'm putting the title track here because it's like putting 3 songs at once, and it is a very good representative of the album.

Something tells me you're the devil's daughter

David Bowie - Pin Ups - 1973

It's always seemed very puzzling to me that, after releasing such brilliant albums in the past two years (and before that too, but the last two were particularly good), Bowie decided to make a covers album from songs from the 1960s mostly. 

Not only are these songs from the 60s, but they're also quite little known tracks, mostly from British bands, and most of them released originally between 1964 and 1967. 

Covers are always difficult, I have mentioned that already, because for me, the vast majority of cases, I wonder why anyone would think there was any need to do them again. 

Probably because I'm not terribly familiar with the originals, though, I can appreciate the tracks for what they are, almost as if they were Bowie originals. But that poses the problem that the album has nothing to do with what Bowie had been doing so far. 

Still, the versions are very good and this is an enjoyable Bowie album (because all his albums are).

• The only song I am really familiar with here is Pink Floyd's "See Emily Play", from the Syd Barrett days. It's actually a very good cover of a song that I have the feeling wouldn't be too easy to cover.
• The cover has David Bowie and a woman with her head on his shoulder. The woman was no other than famous supermodel Twiggy. 
• Still, I'm choosing "Sorrow", which for a very long time I had thought it was a Bowie original. It actually was a song by a band called The Merseys, which I don't think I ever heard. The video is pretty awesome too. 

Bonus track 

• The Pin Ups Bowie is the one that Gillian Anderson used for her uncanny impersonation for the series American Gods. I have to watch that series at some point.