The Beatles: 10 Perfect Solo Albums

As the public started to learn more about the Beatles' breakup, Paul McCartney started to become known as the real villain behind everything. Even though he didn't want the band to break up at all, the release of his first solo album and announcement that he wouldn't be making new Beatles records sent shockwaves through the music community, making him look like a dictator and unable to work with other people. The press had painted him into a corner, but Paul was determined to stretch out some more with his wife Linda.

Credited to him and his wife, RAM is one of the more rustic albums that Paul would ever make, recorded in a studio in New York but played to sound like a more homegrown album. After living life in the country for a little while, each song on this album seems to have its own character, from the pastiches of early rock and roll on Smile Away and Eat At Home to the kind of folksy ballads that we always knew he could deliver on Heart of the Country.

The best parts of this album are where Paul is tapping into stuff that we didn't know he could pull off, like the screaming sounds of Monkberry Moon Delight, the episodic structure of Uncle Albert, and finishing off with a showstopper on Back Seat Of My Car. Though the press and his former bandmates may not have understood this album, RAM might be the blueprint for what indie rock would become just a few years down the line.