Paul McCartney - Return To Pepperland (1987)

Between March and April 1987 Paul McCartney recorded a number of songs with producer Phil Ramone, while he was going through a phase of trying out new material with various producers following the disappointing flop of 'Give My Regards To Broad Street'. It wasn't necessarily aimed at producing an album, but was just testing the waters for future projects. Some of the Ramone tracks used Billy Joel's band as backing musicians, and the songs were a mixture of ballads, classic pop, and some more experimental dance-based music. Some of them have since turned up on b-sides and rare Japanese albums, and sixteen of them have been bootlegged as the 'Return To Pepperland' album, but not every track was classic McCartney, and there are a few songs which are generally considered to be well below par. I've therefore taken the best of the recordings and compiled a nine track album, which at 41 minutes is exactly the right length for a record of the period. I felt that 'Beautiful Night' went on a bit too long so I've edited that, but all the rest are direct from the '...Pepperland' bootleg.

Track listing

01 Lindiana
02 Beautiful Night
03 Loveliest Thing
04 Squid
05 This One
06 Love Came Tumbling Down
07 Love Mix
08 Same Love
09 Return To Pepperland