Memory Almost Full is the fourteenth solo studio album by English musician Paul McCartney. It was released in the United Kingdom on 4 June 2007 and in the United States a day later. The album was the first release on Starbucks' Hear Music label. It was produced by David Kahne and recorded at Abbey Road Studios, Henson Recording Studios, AIR Studios, Hog Hill Mill Studios and RAK Studios between October 2003, and from 2006 to February 2007. In between the 2003 and 2006 sessions, McCartney was working on another studio album, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (2005), with producer Nigel Godrich.
Memory Almost Full reached the Top 5 in both the UK and US, as well as Denmark, Sweden, Greece, and Norway. The Grammy-nominated album has sold over 2 million copies worldwide and has been certified gold by the RIAA for shipments of over 500,000 copies just in the United States. The album was released in three versions: a single disc, a 2-CD set, and a CD/DVD deluxe edition, the latter of which was released on 6 November 2007.
Nine demos were recorded at Hog Hill Mill studio in September 2003 by Paul McCartney and his touring band. A month later, in October, album sessions for Memory Almost Full began, and were produced by David Kahne and recorded at Abbey Road Studios. McCartney and the band recorded the songs "You Tell Me", "Only Mama Knows", "Vintage Clothes", "That Was Me", "Feet in the Clouds", "House of Wax", "The End of the End", and "Whole Life". However, the sessions were cut short and put on hiatus when McCartney started another album, Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, with producer Nigel Godrich.
In the website constructed for the album, McCartney stated: "I actually started this album, Memory Almost Full, before my last album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, released September 2005. (...) When I was just finishing up everything concerned with Chaos and had just got the Grammy nominations (2006) I realised I had this album to go back to and finish off. So I got it out to listen to it again, wondering if I would enjoy it, but actually I really loved it. All I did at first was just listen to a couple of things and then I began to think, 'OK, I like that track – now, what is wrong with it?' And it might be something like a drum sound, so then I would re-drum and see where we would get to. (...) In places it's a very personal record and a lot of it is retrospective, drawing from memory, like memories from being a kid, from Liverpool and from summers gone. The album is evocative, emotional, rocking, but I can't really sum it up in one sentence".
Many songs from Memory Almost Full were from a group of songs, which also included songs from Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, and some intended for the former nearly ended up on the latter. Any songs that were started, but not finished, for Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, McCartney didn't want to re-do for Memory Almost Full. As sessions for the album progressed McCartney wrote some more songs, something that McCartney used to do when he was in the Beatles. An early version of "Ever Present Past" was recorded at either one of the three following studios: RAK Studios, AIR Studios or Ocean Way Studios; sometime between November 2003 and April 2005. Two years after the 2003 session, sessions for the album started again. The book Paul McCartney: Recording Sessions (1969–2013). A Journey Through Paul McCartney's Songs After the Beatles reports that the recordings of the album were started in September–October 2003 and resumed in February 2004 at Abbey Road, with other sessions taking place between March 2006 and February 2007.
New tracks were recorded at the following studios: McCartney's home studio in Sussex, Hog Hill Mill, Los Angeles' Henson Studios, London's RAK Studios and AIR Studios, and New York's SeeSquared Studios. The songs recorded at those studios were "Nod Your Head", "In Private", "222", "Gratitude", "Mr Bellamy", "See Your Sunshine", and "Ever Present Past". Of those songs, "Mr Bellamy", "Ever Present Past", "Gratitude", "Nod Your Head", and "In Private" were all recorded on the same day, in March 2006. As well as working on songs from the first Memory Almost Full album session in 2003, "Why So Blue" was re-recorded. In total, between 20 and 25 songs were recorded for the album. "Dance Tonight" was recorded, along with "Feet in the Clouds" and "222" being reworked, between January and February 2007 at RAK Studios, as the last song recorded for the album. The album was mixed by Kahne and Andy Wallace.
Some people mentioned that the album's title, Memory Almost Full, is an anagram of "for my soulmate LLM" (the initials of Linda Louise McCartney). When asked if this was intentional, McCartney replied; "Some things are best left a mystery". In an interview with Pitchfork Media, McCartney clarified, "I must say, someone told me [there is an anagram], and I think it's a complete mystery, because it's so complete. There does appear to be an anagram in the title. And it's a mystery. It was not intentional." The album's title was actually inspired by a message that came up on his mobile phone. He thought the phrase summed up modern life.
A significant proportion of the CD release of Memory Almost Full incorporated a cover insert whose top-right corner was intentionally folded down to the center of the insert, leaving the CD tray visible. The folded-down white corner covers up the corner of the armchair image, but has the artist and album names printed so that the text is complete despite the fold. Upon opening and flattening out the cover insert, the armchair is complete, but the portion of the text which is printed on the folded-down corner is not printed on the front of the cover, leaving the text incomplete. This was the first time such an artistic intervention occurred within a standard jewel-case, and at first glance had the possibility of being viewed as a mis-manufactured copy. McCartney on the CD case/album artwork: "I really wanted to make the CD a desirable object. Something that I know I'd want to pick up from the shelf, something that would make people curious."
The chair on the cover is the etching Black Love Chair by Humphrey Ocean printed by Maurice Payne and chosen by Paul McCartney after a visit to Miankoma Studio, Amagansett, Long Island.
The album was his first for Starbucks' Hear Music record label, after previously having a 45-year-old relationship with Capitol/EMI. The recording contract with Capitol/EMI ended a few months prior to the release of the album, after McCartney had found out that EMI were planning to take six months to set up a promotional plan for the album. McCartney was the first artist to sign to Hear Music. The Rock Radio website leaked a track listing for the album on 12 April 2007. A day later, producer David Kahne stated on the same site that the leaked listing was bogus. The first US single, "Ever Present Past", made its radio debut on 20 April. A music video for "Dance Tonight" premiered on 23 May via YouTube. The album was released on 4 June 2007 in the UK, and a day later on the 5th in the US, and with a vinyl edition later in the month on 25 June.
It was also McCartney's first album to be available as a digital download. The lead single for the rest of the world is "Dance Tonight", released on McCartney's 65th birthday in the UK, 18 June as a digital download, with a physical release a month later, on 23 July of a CD single and a 10" shaped picture disc. The music video features Natalie Portman and Mackenzie Crook, and was directed by Michel Gondry. The third single, "Nod Your Head", was released as a digital download single on 28 August via the iTunes Store. "Ever Present Past" was released as a single in the UK, on 5 November, as a CD single and 7" single.
Promotion for the album came in several forms, such as a worldwide listening party at over 10,000 Starbucks stores on the day of the album's US release, with an approximation of 6 million people hearing the album. At ten of the Starbucks stores, fans contributed in a video tribute, that aired on the internet on 18 June 2007. Other promotions included a limited edition Paul McCartney Starbucks card, similar to what they had done for Ray Charles's Genius Loves Company, the Starbucks-owned satellite radio station XM Channel made a program about McCartney and the album, released one song prior to the album on iTunes, performed at iTunes Festival: London, and playing free shows. On 6 November 2007, the album was re-released as Memory Almost Full – Deluxe Edition. The set included one CD and one DVD. The CD included the standard album plus the three extra songs from the 2-CD edition. The DVD contained five tracks recorded live at The Electric Ballroom in London, and two music videos.
Track listing
All songs written by Paul McCartney.
- "Dance Tonight" 2:54
- "Ever Present Past" 2:57
- "See Your Sunshine" 3:20
- "Only Mama Knows" 4:17
- "You Tell Me" 3:15
- "Mr. Bellamy" 3:39
- "Gratitude" 3:19
- "Vintage Clothes" 2:22
- "That Was Me" 2:38
- "Feet in the Clouds" 3:24
- "House of Wax" 4:59
- "The End of the End" 2:57
- "Nod Your Head" 1:58
Total length: 41:59
Disc 2: limited edition bonus disc
- "In Private" 2:08
- "Why So Blue" 3:11
- "222" 3:38
- "Paul talks about the music of Memory Almost Full" 26:04
Total length: 35:01
Mixed at See Squared Studios New York, Soundtrack Studios New York and Hog Hill Mill Studios Sussex
Mastered at Gateway Mastering Portland ME
CD rim & back cover text:
All tracks published by MPL Communications Ltd. / Inc. ℗ 2007 The copyright in these sound recordings is owned by MPL Communications Ltd. under exclusive licence to Starcon, LLC. © 2007 MPL Communications Ltd. Under exclusive licence to Starcon, LLC.
Comes in a special 4-fold out digipak with photo, and a postcard-style booklet containing the lyrics for all the songs.
Track 2-4 contains samples from the tracks on the album, with Paul speaking about each one.
Hype sticker: Deluxe Limited Edition contains 3 Unreleased Bonus Tracks.
Recording information:
David Kahne – producer and programming
Adam Noble, David Kahne, Steve Orchard, Geoff Emerick, Paul Hicks – engineers
Jamie Kirkham, Eddie Klein, Adam Noble, Chris Bolster, Kevin Mills, Mirek Stiles – assistant engineers
David Kahne, Andy Wallace – mixing
Bob Ludwig – mastering
Humphrey Ocean – cover art front: black love chair (aquatint) and cover art back: black love chair (gouache)
Max Vadukul – inlay photography
Rebecca and Mike – ideas
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