Among the ex-Beatles, Paul McCartney achieved the greatest commercial longevity and stylistic range in his solo work, sustaining regular chart entries across Britain and the United States throughout the 1970s and 1980s while emerging as an enduring musical and cultural figure in later decades. His independent momentum started in 1970 after he became the first member to exit the group, promptly generating hit singles and strong-selling albums on his own. Late the following year he assembled Wings alongside his wife Linda and former Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine; the ensemble stayed together for a decade, issuing numerous successful albums and singles while mounting extensive tours. Although Wings dissolved in 1980, McCartney remained high on the charts for the next five years, aided by prominent duets with Michael Jackson. He relaunched his solo path in 1989 with Flowers in the Dirt and its worldwide tour, establishing a pattern of global concert support for new releases that continued into the new century. Between these large-scale efforts he explored classical composition, operated an electronica project called the Fireman with Youth, and supervised archival releases including the Beatles Anthology series. As the 2000s progressed he continued experimenting, cutting a set of Great American Songbook standards and teaming with rapper Kanye West to demonstrate his reach across popular music.
Like John Lennon and George Harrison, McCartney began testing options beyond the Beatles in the late 1960s, yet while his bandmates issued experimental solo records he focused on writing and producing for others, aside from scoring the 1966 film The Family Way. After marrying Linda Eastman on March 12, 1969, he started recording his debut solo album at home. McCartney appeared in April 1970, two weeks ahead of the Beatles Let It Be. Before its release he publicly declared the Beatles were finished, contrary to the wishes of the remaining members; the announcement heightened friction with Harrison and Lennon in particular and drew sharp criticism. Despite the backlash the album topped the American charts for three weeks. Early in 1971 he issued the single “Another Day,” his first solo hit. Several months later came Ram, another largely home-recorded set that included contributions from Linda.
By the close of 1971 the McCartneys had launched Wings as a complete performing and recording unit. Denny Laine and drummer Denny Seiwell completed the initial lineup, and Wild Life emerged in December 1971. The album drew unfavorable notices and modest sales. With ex-Grease Band guitarist Henry McCullough added, Wings toured and released three 1972 singles: the protest track “Give Ireland Back to the Irish,” the reggae-styled “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” and the energetic “Hi Hi Hi.” Red Rose Speedway arrived in spring 1973; although reviews remained lukewarm it became McCartney’s second American number-one album. After a British tour that year McCullough and Seiwell departed. Before their exit McCartney’s theme for the James Bond film Live and Let Die reached the Top Ten in both the U.S. and U.K. The remaining trio then recorded in Nigeria, resulting in Band on the Run, issued late in 1973. The album earned McCartney’s strongest reviews to date and spent four weeks atop the U.S. charts, later certified triple-platinum.
Following Band on the Run McCartney recruited guitarist Jimmy McCulloch and drummer Geoff Britton. This configuration appeared on the 1974 single “Junior’s Farm” and the 1975 album Venus and Mars. At the Speed of Sound followed in 1976, the first Wings release to feature songs written by other members. Strong sales were driven by McCartney’s own “Silly Love Songs” and “Let ’Em In.” The subsequent world tour set attendance records and was documented on the triple live set Wings Over America (1976). Wings paused in 1977 while McCartney released an instrumental version of Ram under the name Thrillington and produced Denny Laine’s Holly Days. That year Wings issued “Mull of Kintyre,” which became the best-selling British single ever, moving over two million copies. London Town arrived in 1978 and went platinum. After McCulloch joined the re-formed Small Faces, Wings released Back to the Egg in 1979; despite platinum certification it lacked major hits. Early in 1980 McCartney was arrested for marijuana possession upon arriving in Japan for a tour; he spent ten days in jail before charges were dropped and he was released.
Wings effectively ended after the Japanese incident, though the split was not formalized until Denny Laine’s departure on April 27, 1981. Back in England McCartney recorded McCartney II as a one-man-band project akin to his debut. The associated hit single proved to be a live Glasgow version of “Coming Up” taped with Wings in December 1979 and originally slated as the B-side; radio favored the live take and it reached number one. Later in 1980 he entered the studio with producer George Martin for Tug of War. Released in spring 1982, the album garnered the best notices since Band on the Run and yielded the chart-topping duet “Ebony and Ivory” with Stevie Wonder, McCartney’s biggest American single. In 1982 he also sang on “The Girl Is Mine,” the lead track from Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Jackson joined him on “Say Say Say,” the first single from Pipes of Peace (1983, though recorded two years earlier) and McCartney’s final number-one hit. Their partnership deteriorated after Jackson acquired the Beatles publishing catalog in 1985.
McCartney directed and starred in the 1984 film Give My Regards to Broad Street. Its soundtrack, mixing new material with re-recorded Beatles songs, produced the hit “No More Lonely Nights,” yet the movie itself was a critical and commercial failure. In 1985 he scored his last American Top Ten entry with the theme to Spies Like Us. Press to Play (1986) earned positive reviews but sold poorly. In 1988 he recorded Choba B CCCP, a set of rock oldies issued first in the U.S.S.R. and officially elsewhere in 1991. For Flowers in the Dirt (1989) he co-wrote several tracks with Elvis Costello, who also used their collaborations on his own album Spike, including the hit “Veronica.” Flowers in the Dirt received McCartney’s strongest reviews since Tug of War and was promoted by a major international tour documented on Tripping the Live Fantastic (1990). Guitarist Robbie McIntosh and bassist Hamish Stuart, hired for the tour, remained core band members until 1993.
Early in 1991 McCartney issued Unplugged, recorded for MTV’s acoustic series and the first such album released. Later that year he premiered his first classical composition, Liverpool Oratorio. Off the Ground followed in 1993 but yielded no major hits despite a successful tour. Paul Is Live appeared in December 1993. In 1994 he released an ambient techno album under the pseudonym the Fireman. He introduced his second classical piece, The Leaf, early in 1995 and hosted the Westwood One radio series Oobu Joobu. His main focus in 1995 and 1996 remained the Beatles Anthology project, comprising a documentary and multi-volume collection of unreleased material. After its completion he released Flaming Pie in summer 1997. The largely acoustic album drew his best reviews in years, debuted at number two in both the U.S. and U.K., and marked his highest American chart entry since leaving the Beatles. Its reception and McCartney’s own visibility benefited from the Anthology’s success; months earlier he had received a Knighthood.
Linda McCartney died of breast cancer on April 17, 1998. McCartney maintained a low profile before returning in fall 1999 with Run Devil Run, largely a covers collection. Liverpool Sound Collage, an electronica project, followed in 2000, and Driving Rain appeared in 2001. Back in the U.S. was released in America in 2002, with the slightly altered international version Back in the World issued shortly afterward.
McCartney’s next studio effort, produced in part by Nigel Godrich, resulted in the mellow Chaos and Creation in the Back Yard, released late in 2005 and reaching the Top Ten in more than a dozen countries including the U.S. and U.K. On Memory Almost Full (2007), produced by David Kahne, McCartney played nearly every instrument except on six tracks featuring his touring band; the album reached the Top Ten worldwide. Good Evening New York City, a live CD/DVD set, appeared in 2009. In 2010 he began an extensive reissue campaign with a Band on the Run box set and toured the U.S. in summer 2011 to support it.
Later in 2011 McCartney premiered his first ballet, Ocean’s Kingdom. Less than a year later he released Kisses on the Bottom, his first collection of pre-WWII standards, which topped the U.S. jazz charts and reached the Top Five in seven countries. During summer 2012 he closed the London Olympics opening ceremony with an extended “Hey Jude.” That December he joined surviving Nirvana members onstage at a Hurricane Sandy benefit concert.
In 2013 McCartney held sessions with producers Paul Epworth, Ethan Johns, Giles Martin, and Mark Ronson, ultimately using all four on New, his first album of original songs in six years. New debuted in the Top Ten across more than a dozen territories, and McCartney toured internationally in support over the following two years. In 2015 he continued the Paul McCartney Archive Collection with expanded editions of Tug of War and Pipes of Peace. Pure McCartney, a career-spanning overview available as a double-disc or four-disc set, appeared the next summer. An Archive edition of Flowers in the Dirt followed in early 2017. Egypt Station, his seventeenth solo album produced by Greg Kurstin, arrived in September 2018, preceded by the singles “I Don’t Know,” “Come on to Me,” and “Fuh You.” It became his first U.S. number-one album since Tug of War and debuted at three in the U.K.
Two non-album tracks from the Egypt Station sessions surfaced in 2019. An Archive edition of Flaming Pie was issued in July 2020. The major release that year was McCartney III, written and recorded alone during the global lockdown and released December 18, 2020; it gave McCartney his first U.K. number-one album since Flowers in the Dirt and debuted at two in the U.S. A companion set of reinterpretations, remixes, and covers titled McCartney III Imagined appeared in 2021.
McCartney balanced archival projects with the Got Back tour, which visited the United States in 2022, headlined Glastonbury Festival that year (making him the oldest headliner in its history), and continued worldwide through 2024. He published The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present in November 2021 and released the photo book 1964: Eyes of the Storm in 2023. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of Band on the Run he issued an “Underdubbed Mix” in early 2024, followed in June by the first official audio release of One Hand Clapping, a 1974 live-in-the-studio recording previously available only via the 2010 Archive edition of Band on the Run.
