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I paid for Paul McCartney's Memory Almost Full. Why? Because every time I walked into Starbucks I was accosted by that "Ever Present Past"'s ididadoodah and it sounded good. So, yeah, I'm a little P.O.ed that the folks in London will able to pick up the May 18th edition of the Mail On Sunday, a UK version of The New York Post, and whip out the album for FREE . McCartney is notorious for being a bad-tipper, so the fact he's giving away the album for free is WAAAAAAY surprising.
"ididadoodah" Memory Almost Full was certified Gold in the US (500,000+ copies.) It didn't do so well in the UK, selling only 100,000 copies. But according to Uncut the album has the potential to reach 2 million homes with the free giveaway in the Sunday paper.
It was only yesterday, that I was reminded of how last July Prince did the same exact thing with his album Planet Earth. The only difference was that the album had never been released before. McCartney's album was released Others to have released in the U.K. paper include Simply Red and UB40 , while The Kinks' Ray Davies gave away a new studio album last year via The Sunday Times.
Ummm... so can America please hop on this bandwagon. Hey New York Times I'll dish out the $5 for the massive Sunday Edition, instead of poaching it off a table at my local coffee shop, if you put a free album in there. What about Beck's summer release. If not the NYT , then surely the USA Today would go for something like this.
just to be pedantic, it's not just people in London who can get the Mail On Sunday.
newspapers do this sort of thing pretty much every Sunday here, usually the free CDs are by pretty obscure artists or compilations, but now and then there are very popular ones, like the Simply Red one a few weeks ago that you mentioned. It always comes across as a bit of a desperate act for renewed publicity, to me at least. So it is a bit surprising that Macca is doing it; I wonder what his motives are.
Also about the record sales figures, I would've thought it'd be normal for a record to sell less in the UK since we have about a fifth of the population that you do. So percentage-wise the figures are on a similar level? Though I can't say I know much about sales figures and their significance.
Good point, but here's where I am coming from...when the UK likes its music it goes nuts for it. The Arctic Monkeys went platinum 4x in the UK with Whatever People Say I Am.., while in the US it barely went Gold. Same thing goes for Leona Lewis. While the population difference is obvious, I have always been impressed at how the UK really can make an artist more successful or buzz-worthy than us Americans.
ah i see. looks like sir paul has lost a lot of popularity then, i don't think that very public divorce did him any favours. perhaps that's why he's resorted to giving it away for free.
but also, i can't say i was even aware of this album. you said you hear that song in starbucks but i can't say i've ever heard it here, not on the radio or in shops or anything. strange. maybe his publicity people messed up somewhere along the way. but really i think the british public are just a bit fed up with him lol.
i would def. recommend making the effort to grab it for free...it's great.
Not surprised about this, the only Stones material on my shelves came from a free newspaper give-away.
Makes me wonder if I could get a subscribtion here to Michigan, USA that would include CD's?
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Also, wondering if profits from this album might be considered joint property after recent spilt if it was made during time they were hooked up and thus Paul is sort of finding a way to screw her out of future value by throwing a couple million free copies out there.
.
and then wonder if this then makes this album public domain in some respects?
i have no idea...
The two singles from “Memory Almost Full” “Ever Present Past” (USA) and “Dance Tonight” ( UK) are boilerplate Macca at best (that’s not necessarily a bad thing, though in case of the latter is.)
The rest of the tracks are even more unremarkable.
A far deeper (musically and lyrically) offering from Paul is the album that preceded “Memory”:
“Chaos and Creation in the Backyard”
The title notwithstanding, it is one of Paul’s best efforts in years.
At least since “Flaming Pie” in 97
Here, from a live performance promoting “Chaos and Creation”, he demonstrates the inner workings of “How Kind of You”
I’ve deduced from Paul’s comments that this song has nothing to do with his ex wife, though the lyrics tell a different story from what I’ve also deduced from his public divorce, diligently brought to us by the “Daily Mail” and “News of the World”—Both mentioned in Beatle songs.
Of course, the “thank you” might be collective and meant for everyone who mourned Linda’s passing.
The two singles from “Memory Almost Full” “Ever Present Past” (USA) and “Dance Tonight” ( UK) are boilerplate Macca at best (that’s not necessarily a bad thing, though in case of the latter is.)
The rest of the tracks are even more unremarkable.
A far deeper (musically and lyrically) offering from Paul is the album that preceded “Memory”:
“Chaos and Creation in the Backyard”
The title notwithstanding, it is one of Paul’s best efforts in years.
At least since “Flaming Pie” in 97
Here, from a live performance promoting “Chaos and Creation”, he demonstrates the inner workings of “How Kind of You”
I’ve deduced from Paul’s comments that this song has nothing to do with his ex wife, though the lyrics tell a different story from what I’ve also deduced from his public divorce, diligently brought to us by the “Daily Mail” and “News of the World”—Both mentioned in Beatle songs.
Of course, the “thank you” might be collective and meant for everyone who mourned Linda’s passing.