Although sales were modest initially, its commercial performance was aided by two hit singles – "Jet" and "Band on the Run" – such that it became the top-selling studio album of 1974 in the United Kingdom and Australia, in addition to revitalising McCartney's critical standing.

[3] The studio was of poor quality and conditions in Nigeria were tense and difficult; the McCartneys were robbed at knifepoint, losing a bag of song lyrics and demo tapes.

[5][6] After completing a successful UK tour with his band Wings in July 1973,[7] he planned their third album as a means to re-establish himself after the mixed reception given to Wild Life and Red Rose Speedway.

McCartney had chosen Lagos, as he felt it would be a glamorous location where he and the band could sun on the beach during the day and record at night; the reality, however, was that, after the end of a civil war in 1970, Nigeria was run by a military government, with corruption and disease commonplace.

[18] The song "Band on the Run" was partly inspired by a remark George Harrison had made during one of the many business meetings the Beatles attended in 1969[15] in an effort to address the problems afflicting their Apple Corps enterprise.

[20] Doggett writes that McCartney was perhaps liberated creatively by this recent development, resulting in Band on the Run bearing "a frothy self-confidence that was reminiscent of the Beatles at their most productive".

We decided to take him outside for some fresh air ... [but] once he was exposed to the blazing heat he felt even worse and began keeling over, finally fainting dead away at our feet.

"[22] Another incident was the confrontation with local Afrobeat pioneer and political activist Fela Kuti, who publicly accused the band of being in Africa to exploit and steal African music after their visit to his club.

McCartney agreed to go there for one day, and the song "Picasso's Last Words (Drink to Me)" was recorded at ARC, with Baker himself shaking a tin can filled with gravel on the track.

[1] Upon returning to London, the McCartneys received a letter from EMI dated before the band had left England warning them to not go to Lagos due to an outbreak of cholera.

[26] In October, two weeks after the band's return to London, work began at George Martin's AIR Studios to transfer many of the eight-track recordings made in Nigeria to sixteen-track.

[27][28] The McCartneys and Laine carried out further overdubs on the Lagos recordings during this period; all of the orchestral arrangements for the album were taped at AIR in a single day, conducted by Tony Visconti.

The spotlight's low potency meant everyone had to stand still for two seconds for proper exposure, which was made difficult by the photographer and subjects reportedly being in a "substance haze" following a party held by Paul McCartney.

[35] Rather than having the band promote the album on radio and television or with a tour, McCartney undertook a series of magazine interviews, most notably with Paul Gambaccini for Rolling Stone.

[36] The conversations with Gambaccini took place at various locations from September 1973 onward,[37] and combined to form, in the words of authors Chip Madinger and Mark Easter, "a remarkably forthcoming interview in comparison to the 'thumbs-aloft' profiles usually allowed by [McCartney]".

Early versions of the Capitol release fail to list "Helen Wheels" on the label or the CD insert, making the song a "hidden track".

[4][24] Writing in 1981, Bob Woffinden described Band on the Run as the first Beatles-related release to be "planned with a marketing strategy",[40] as Capitol Records now assumed a fully active role in promoting the album following the removal of Klein's ABKCO Industries as managers of Apple.

[47] The single's success provided new impetus for the album,[48][49] which hit number 2 in the UK at the end of March[50] and topped Billboard's listings on 13 April.

[44] Apple issued "Band on the Run" as a single in America on 8 April, backed by "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five";[51] the UK release followed on 28 June, with the non-album instrumental "Zoo Gang" as the B-side.

[52] Due to the popularity of "Band on the Run",[24] the album returned to number 1 on the Billboard chart on 8 June, when the single simultaneously topped the Hot 100.

In addition to praising McCartney for using synthesizer "like an instrument, and not like an electric whoopee cushion", Shaar Murray concluded: "Band On The Run is a great album.

While noting the importance of studio production to the overall effect, Alterman wrote: "McCartney has managed to make the complexities of multi-track recording sound as natural and fresh as tomorrow.

"[74] 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".

[76] 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.

"[8] The Rolling Stone review of the 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of the album said that "the real action still lies in the original LP's revved-up pleasures".

[80][81] In 1993, Band on the Run was remastered and reissued on CD as part of The Paul McCartney Collection series, with "Helen Wheels" and its B-side, "Country Dreamer", as bonus tracks.

[86] In promotion of the Archive Collection edition, a Record Store Day 2010-exclusive vinyl single of "Band on the Run" backed with "Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five" was also released.

[89][90] The US version of the album, with "Helen Wheels" included, was "cut at half speed using a high-resolution transfer of the original master tapes from 1973 at Abbey Road Studios, London".