Paul McCartney has set himself a New Year’s resolution to complete his next album.
In a short Q&A with fans posted on his website, McCartney said he was “working on a lot of songs” but wasn’t ready for the Got Back tour (which started in 2022 and ultimately concluded). A special London show will be held every month featuring Ringo Starr and Ronnie Wood, who admitted he had to put the album “on the side” because of the album.
“I’m looking forward to getting back on track and finishing more songs,” McCartney wrote. “So, how about that? My New Year’s resolution is to finish a new album!”
McCartney released his latest solo album, McCartney III, in 2020. The album was a follow-up of sorts to his two predecessors, 1970’s McCartney and 1980’s McCartney II, although it came on the heels of his 2018 solo effort Egypt Station.
In 2021, McCartney shared a remix album, McCartney III Imagined. The LP features a slew of new collaborators and remixers, including Beck, St. Vincent, Phoebe Bridgers, Damon Albert, Khruangbin, Dominic Fike, Josh Homme, and Anderson .Paak.
McCartney hasn’t released any new solo music lately, but this year he ushered in the appearance of the last Beatles song, “Now and Then.” The song is based on a piano demo recorded by John Lennon in 1977 and given to the surviving members of the band by Yoko Ono in 1994. At the time, George Harrison prepared several guitar parts for possible inclusion on the Beatles Anthology box set. However, the quality of the original demo was so poor that the group decided to abandon the song.
However, several years later, McCartney was able to clean up the demo using the same technology that Peter Jackson’s team had developed to restore and preserve archival audio for the Get Back film project. McCartney and Starr recorded new drums and vocals and mixed them with Lennon’s demo and Harrison’s old guitar parts. “Now and Then” was also recently nominated for several Grammy Awards, including Record of the Year.
