McCartney III

McCartney III was recorded in early 2020 at McCartney's studio in Sussex, England while in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic.[6][7] McCartney began by recording the instrument on which he wrote the song, then adding further layers. He said: "It was a lot of fun. It was about making music for yourself rather than making music that has to do a job. So, I just did stuff I fancied doing. I had no idea this would end up as an album."[8]

Like previous McCartney albums, McCartney performed all the instrumentals himself.[2] He had also performed most of the instruments on his 2005 album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard (described at the time by journalist David Hajdu as being "essentially McCartney III"[9]) and on his 2007 album Memory Almost Full. McCartney also played all the instruments on Rushes (1998) and Electric Arguments (2008) under the name the Fireman.[10]

The album's cover art and typography was designed by artist Ed Ruscha,[11] an acquaintance of the McCartney family.[12]

The domain name mccartneyiii.com was registered on 28 August 2020 by CSC Corporate Domains, the company that previously registered paulmccartney.com and flaming-pie.com (for the reissue of Flaming Pie, McCartney's 1997 studio album). Its landing page originally appeared with a 303 error notice, instead of the usual 404 error notice.[13]

On 16 October, teasers for the album started appearing on the streaming service Spotify with animations over the artwork for McCartney and McCartney II showing a dice with three pips facing upwards. The following week, McCartney's Twitter account started posting photos at 33 minutes past the hour with a recurring motif of three.[5] On 21 October, McCartney's social media channels officially announced the forthcoming release of the album on 11 December.[14] On 19 November, it was announced that due to unforeseeable production delays, the album release date had to be moved back one week to 18 December.[1]

Starting from 4 December 2020, McCartney sent via his Facebook page the first post of a series of 12 daily posts unveiling the titles of each of the 11 new tracks from his new album through murals painted in 12 different cities all over the world.[nb 1] Each mural is showing the title of a new track, an excerpt from its music score and its author (Paul McCartney) along with the album title and its release date.[15] McCartney also asked all musicians to post their video covers of his 11 new songs through his special website #12DaysOfPaul.[16]

During his appearance on The Howard Stern Show on 15 December 2020, McCartney revealed that American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift originally decided to postpone the release of her album Evermore by one week to respect the original 11 December release date of his album. Upon learning this, McCartney decided to release his album on 18 December instead so that Swift could move forward with the rollout of Evermore as initially planned.[17]

On 17 December, a day before the album release, two live appearances were confirmed for that day: one on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and a YouTube Released special featuring Chris Rock, alongside the release date for the lead single "Find My Way", which was released at the same time as the album.[18]

McCartney III was released on 18 December 2020 on CD, vinyl, cassette and digital formats. The vinyl editions include a variety of colours: standard black, Third Man Records exclusive yellow-with-black-dots limited to 333 copies,[19] Third Man Records exclusive red limited to 3,000 copies,[20] #SpotifyFansFirst 130g Coke-bottle clear vinyl limited to 3,000 copies worldwide,[21] 130g yellow limited to 3,000 copies worldwide,[22] 130g violet limited to 3,000 copies worldwide,[23] Newbury Comics exclusive pink limited to 1,500 copies,[24] Target exclusive green,[19] uDiscover exclusive orange,[25] selected retailers exclusive blue,[26][27] other record stores exclusive white.[19]

McCartney III performed strongly across a number of international charts. The album debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart on 25 December 2020, marking his first number one solo album in his home country in thirty-one years (since 1989's Flowers in the Dirt). The album reached the top spot by selling 33,079 album-equivalent units.[28] The album also reached the top 10 of many other European markets.

In the US the album debuted at number 2 of the Billboard 200 with 107,000 equivalent album units – of which 104,000 were album sales – behind Taylor Swift's Evermore.[29] The placement earned McCartney the feat of being the first artist to have a new album in the top two chart positions in each of the last six decades.[29] McCartney III was also the top-selling album in its debut week in the US, outselling Swift's Evermore and Eminem's Music to Be Murdered By – Side B in pure sales (not including equivalent album units).[30] The album also recorded the third largest US vinyl sales week since Nielsen SoundScan tracking era began in 1991.[30]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
AnyDecentMusic?	7.6/10[31]
Metacritic	81/100[32]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[33]
The A.V. Club	B[34]
The Daily Telegraph	[35]
Exclaim!	9/10[36]
The Guardian	[37]
The Independent	[38]
NME	[39]
Pitchfork	7.2/10[40]
Rolling Stone	[41]
Uncut	[42]

McCartney III received critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album has an average score of 81, based on 21 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[32] Aggregator AnyDecentMusic? gave it 7.6 out of 10, based on their assessment of the critical consensus.[31]

All tracks are written by Paul McCartney.

McCartney III – Vinyl edition

Sources[2][43]

Musicians

• Paul McCartney – vocals, electric and acoustic guitars, bass guitar, double bass, acoustic piano, harpsichord, mellotron, harmonium, Fender Rhodes, synthesizers, Wurlitzer electric piano, drums, percussion, recorder, producer
• Rusty Anderson – electric guitar (track 7)[44]
• Abe Laboriel Jr. – drums (track 7)[44]

Production

• Steve Orchard – engineer
• Greg Kurstin – co-producer (track 7)
• Keith Smith – assistant engineer at Hogg Hill Mill
• Alex Pasco – engineer (track 7)
• George Martin – co-producer (track 11)
• Bob Kraushaar – engineer (track 11)
• Randy Merrill – mastering at Sterling Sound

Artwork

• Ed Ruscha – cover art and typography
• Mary McCartney – cover portrait, photography
• Sonny McCartney – photography
• Nick Steinhardt – art direction and design
• Brian Clarke – stained glass