offered in the title track, as well as the "lovely, romantic aura" of "Bluebird". While noting the importance of studio production on the overall effect, Alterman wrote: "McCartney has managed to make the complexities of multi-track recording sound as natural and fresh as tomorrow." Jon Landau of Rolling Stone described the album as "with the possible exception of John Lennon's Plastic Ono Band, the finest record yet released by any of the four musicians who were once called the Beatles". Rolling Stone named Band on the Run one of the Best Albums of the Year for 1973. Village Voice critic Robert Christgau wrote in 1981: "I originally underrated what many consider McCartney's definitive post-Beatles statement, but not as much as its admirers overrate it. Pop masterpiece? This? Sure it's a relief after the vagaries of Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway." He praised the title track and the "Afro-soul" introduction to "Mamunia", calling them "the high points". Christgau ultimately awarded the album a C+ rating, indicating "a not disreputable performance, most likely a failed experiment or a pleasant piece of hackwork". In his retrospective review for AllMusic, Stephen Thomas Erlewine feels that while some songs are excellent and the album overall is enjoyable, it is more showmanship than content. A subsequent review on Allmusic by Al Campbell was more generous, considering the arrangements and melodic hooks of the songs up to the caliber of McCartney's work in the Beatles and concluding, "Though it lacks the emotional resonance of contemporaneous releases by John Lennon and George Harrison, McCartney's infallible instinct for popcraft overflows on this excellent release." The Rolling Stone reviewer of the 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition said that "the real action still lies in the original LP's revved-up pleasures". Writing for Mojo magazine in 2011, John Harris included Band on the Run among "the trilogy of truly essential post-Beatles solo albums", along with Harrison's All Things Must Pass and Lennon's Plastic Ono Band. In 2000, Q magazine placed Band on the Run at number 75 in its list of the "100 Greatest British Albums Ever". In 2012, it was voted 418th on Rolling Stones revised list of "the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time". The album is featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. Commercial performance The commercial reception was unspectacular initially, with the record-buying public wary after Wings' preceding releases.Spizer, p. 179. On the