Paul McCartney's fifth album since the break up of The Beatles, 1973's Band on the Run, was made under difficult circumstances: band members Denny Seiwell and Henry McCullough left before recordings began in Lagos, Nigeria – which itself proved a challenging environment to work in. Despite the setbacks, Paul, Linda and Denny Laine persevered and Band on the Run proved to be both a critical and commercial triumph. The album soared to No. 1 in both U.K. and U.S. album charts, went triple platinum, yielded two Top 10 singles ("Jet" and "Band on the Run"), and became the best-selling U.K. album of 1974.

Band On The Run is an unequivocal pop masterpiece to this very day and as thorough a vindication to McCartney's post-Beatles critics as was possible. Even ever-discerning ex-songwriting partner John Lennon told Rolling Stone it was "a great album...you can call them Wings but it's Paul McCartney music. And it's great stuff." It has sold over six million copies worldwide, appears regularly in lists of 'Greatest Albums of All Time' and was the last record McCartney made for the Apple label.

The striking cover was also a talking point, featuring the band plus six very assorted celebrities of the day - Michael Parkinson, Kenny Lynch, James Coburn, Clement Freud, Christopher Lee and John Conteh - posing as convicts caught in the spotlight whilst attempting escape. It remains Wings' crowning glory and an album that ranks with the very finest of its era.