- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- McCartney is Paul McCartney’s first solo album and was released during the final months before the break-up of the Beatles.
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Paul McCartney – McCartney (1970): McCartney is Paul McCartney’s first solo album and was released during the final months before the break-up of the Beatles. Paul McCartney refused to abide by the release schedule of Apple Records, putting out McCartney three weeks before the final Beatles album Let it Be came out, which led to McCartney’s receiving most of the blame for the dissolution of the band. McCartney might be viewed as a vanity project, since Paul McCartney plays all of the instruments and performs all of the vocals. McCartney was #1 on the Billboard 200 albums chart until displaced by Let it Be. The standout track on McCartney, “Maybe I’m Amazed” was never released as a single but has been praised in virtually every review of the album. McCartney has been described as one of the first lo-fi albums and has been cited as influential on the “do-it-yourself” aesthetic that arose around the time of the punk rock movement.
One of the songs on McCartney, “Teddy Boy” is the only song on the Beatles bootleg album Kum Back (1969) that I didn’t particularly call for, but mostly because of its length. The version of “Teddy Boy” on McCartney clocks in at 2:23, whereas “Teddy Boy” on Kum Back runs nearly 6 minutes. Having been unofficially released in January 1970, Kum Back is an early mix of the Let it Be album from about one year earlier. Though raw and rough in places, Kum Back is better in almost every respect than the official Let it Be album. In 2011, McCartney was reissued with bonus tracks as part of the Paul McCartney Archive Collection. Also, Paul McCartney has recorded two successor albums to McCartney: McCartney II (1980) and McCartney III (2020).