McCartney (1970)

McCartney is the debut solo studio album by the English rock musician Paul McCartney, released on 17 April 1970 by Apple Records. McCartney recorded it in secrecy, mostly using basic home-recording equipment at his house in St John's Wood. Mixing and some recording took place at professional London studios. In its loosely arranged performances, McCartney eschewed the polish of the Beatles' records in favour of a lo-fi style. Apart from occasional vocal contributions by his wife, Linda, McCartney performed the entire album alone by overdubbing on four-track tape.

McCartney recorded the album during a period of depression and confusion, following John Lennon's private departure from the Beatles in September 1969. Conflicts over the release of McCartney's album further estranged him from his bandmates, as he refused to delay the album's release to allow for Apple's previously scheduled titles, notably the Beatles' album Let It Be. A press release in the form of a self-interview supplied with UK promotional copies of McCartney led to the Beatles' break-up.

McCartney received mostly unfavorable reviews, while McCartney himself was vilified for seemingly ending the Beatles. The record was widely criticised for being under-produced and for its unfinished songs, although the ballad "Maybe I'm Amazed" was consistently singled out for praise. Commercially, McCartney benefited from the publicity surrounding the break-up; it held the number 1 position for three weeks on the US Billboard Top LPs before yielding that position to Let It Be. It peaked at number 2 in Britain.

In later years, the retrospective reviews became more favourable, and the album was credited for influencing DIY musicians and lo-fi music styles. McCartney also recorded two successor albums: McCartney II (1980) and McCartney III (2020). In 2011, the first McCartney record was reissued with bonus tracks as part of the Paul McCartney Archive Collection.

Background

After John Lennon requested a "divorce" from the Beatles in a band meeting on 20 September 1969, Paul McCartney withdrew to his farm in Campbeltown, Scotland. Author Robert Rodriguez describes his frame of mind as "brokenhearted, shocked, and dispirited at the loss of the only job he had ever known". While Lennon's departure was not made official, partly for business reasons, McCartney's period in seclusion with his family coincided with widespread rumours in America that he had died – an escalation of the three-year-old "Paul Is Dead" rumour. The rumour was dispelled by journalists from BBC Radio and Life magazine, who tracked him down at his farm, High Park.

McCartney's two months in Scotland created an estrangement between him and his bandmates, further to the division caused by their appointment of Allen Klein as business manager in May that year. McCartney later cited Klein's appointment as the first "irreconcilable difference" within the Beatles, since he continued to favour New York lawyers Lee Eastman and John Eastman – father and brother, respectively, of his wife Linda. For McCartney, the period following Lennon's departure was also marked by a bout of severe depression, during which, in his own estimation, he came close to suffering a nervous breakdown.