Goofy.net

This feature at Pop Matters is the best:

Detours

It's about albums from established or semi-established artists who released totally bizarre (at the time or still) albums that alienated half their fanbase. Funnily enough (wow, funnily is apparently actually a word, thanks spellcheck), a lot of the albums they talk about A) I didn't know about B) are really good.

For instance, Paul McCartney made a solo album called Ram. It's amazing, a really homespun record that sounds like it's just Paul & Linda having fun, but without any of the desperate qualities that sometimes prevail in Paul's work. At the same time that they're having fun, they're also creating some really really wonderful songs.

Ram On
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey

So, sometime after finishing Ram, but before it was released, Paul had this wild idea:

"Woah, I should get a big band together and record an instrumental version of Ram more or less note for note with this new big band and make a ridiculous easy listening orchestral near-musak version of it."

And then, because that wasn't enough, he had another wild idea:

"That Ram cover album is pretty sweet, I think I'll release it seven years later under a made up name."

And thus, Percy "Thrills" Thrillington's album Thrillington was born.

Ram On
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey

The thing is, I used to Hate (yes capital) Paul McCartney. I just couldn't stand his dumbfaced, thumbs up, love me bullshit. I thought that he was a worthless idiot who was cursed with the gift of pop melody, and nothing else.

What reading this article, and discovering Thrillington, and his Techno album, did for me, was re-evaluate what I thought of Paul.


I like Paul McCartney, he is a pretty sassy guy. I admire his sassiness.

More on other great albums I just discovered, like this: