McCartney (2011 Remaster)

Paul McCartney’s first solo album is a homemade affair, with instruments plugged directly into a tape machine and fragmentary musical ideas (“Valentine Day,” “Hot as Sun / Glasses”) sitting next to immaculately realised pop songs (“Every Night,” “Man We Was Lonely”). There are Beatles offcuts, such as the hugely underrated and lightly swung “Junk” and the sweet “Teddy Boy,” while the soulful, star-dazzled ballad “Maybe I’m Amazed” is a song to fully consolidate his formidable songwriting reputation for the years ahead.