Celebrating 80, Paul McCartney in the 21st Century

Paul McCartney has turned 80 years old.  Approximately half of the population in the developed world never reach 80, so getting there is an accomplishment, but what Paul McCartney has done this century, leading up to 80, is a tremendous accomplishment.  Consider, in this century, beginning when he was already 57 years-old, McCartney released:

- Six rock/pop albums, on which he played most of the instruments and wrote or, in few cases, co-wrote all of the songs:

• Driving Rain (2001)
• Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005)
• Memory Almost Full (2007)
• New (2013)
• Egypt Station (2018)
• III (2020)

- Two electronic albums:

• Twin Freaks (2005), with producer The Freelance Hellraiser
• Electric Arguments (2008), with producer Youth, released as “Firemen”

- One standards album:

• Kisses On the Bottom (2012)

- Three classical albums:

• Liverpool Sound Collage (2000)
• Ecce Cor Meum (2006)
• Ocean’s Kingdom (2011)

- Five live albums:

• Back in the US (2002) with Concert DVD
• Back in the World Live (2003)
• Live in Los Angeles (2007)
• Good Evening New York City (2009) with Concert DVD
• iTunes Live from Capitol Studios (2012) with Concert DVD

- Two Retrospective albums with DVDs:

• Wingspan (2001)
• The McCartney Years (2007)

In all, 12 LPs in 22 years of original recordings plus 5 live LPs and two compilations.  On top of that, he has been involved remasters and new releases from The Beatles including:

• Let It Be... Naked (2003)
• Love (2006)
• On Air: Live At the BBC, Vol. 2 (2013)
• Live At the Hollywood Bowl (2016)
• Get Back (2022)

And then there are vocal performances McCartney did on recordings with other artists (and they’re all good songs, check them out on-line!), such as:

• George Michael – “Heal the Pain,” 2006
• Tony Bennett – “The Very Thought of You,” 2006
• George Benson & Al Jarreau – “Givin’ It Up,” 2006
• Nitin Sawhney – “My Soul,” 2009
• Ringo Starr – “Walk With You,” 2010
• Steve Martin & The Steep Canyon Rangers – “Best Love,” 2011
• The Bloody Beatroots – “Out of Sight,” 2013
• Eric Clapton – “All of Me,” 2013
• Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic & Pat Smear – “Cut Me Some Slack,” 2013
• Kanye West – "FourFiveSeconds" and "Only One" 2015
• Hollywood Vampires – "Come and Get It" 2015
• Ringo Starr - "We're On the Road Again" 2017

McCartney also performed on five tribute/film soundtrack albums:

• “Vanilla Sky,” 2001, from the soundtrack to the film Vanilla Sky
• “(I'm Partial to Your) Abracadabra,” 2001, tribute album honoring Ian Dury
• “I Want to Walk You Home,” 2007, tribute album honoring Fats Domino
• “Whole Life,” 2007, tribute album honoring Nelson Mandela, featuring Dave Stewart
• “(I Want To) Come Home,” 2009, from the soundtrack to the film Everybody’s Fine
• “It’s So Easy,” 2011, tribute album honoring Buddy Holly

In addition, McCartney has conducted 14 concert tours as well as performing at the 9/11 concert, the 12-12-12 concert for Hurricane Sandy relief, the 2012 Olympics, Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005 and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in
2012, all of which required much organizing and rehearsal. 

Simply put, at a time in his life when most artists are resigned to nostalgia package tours and retirement, Paul McCartney in his 60s and 70s was more productive than almost any other artist on the planet (U2, for example, released just 5 studio albums and 2 live albums in the same span).  

At 80, Paul McCartney clearly has a lot less time in front of him than behind, but enjoy him now because we are not at all likely to see another singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and perform like him in our lifetime.