Paul McCartney finds love on the charts with debut of ‘Memory Almost Full’

By M&C News Jun 17, 2007, 15:38 GMT

On June 18, Hear Music will release a one-a-kind video tribute filmed at the Global Listening Event in honor of McCartney’s 65th Birthday and distributed via a host of viral video portals. The video features well-wishes from celebrities, music lovers and McCartney fans from London, New York, Berlin, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Seattle, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Miami.

Widely hailed by critics as one of the best albums in Paul McCartney’s solo career, ‘Memory Almost Full’ sold 160, 541 copies across all retail outlets in the U.S. in its debut week, landing the record at #3 on Billboard Top 200 chart.

The inaugural release from Hear Music brought McCartney his highest chart debut in ten years as a solo artist (1997’s ‘Flaming Pie’ debuted at #2 on the Billboard Top 200 chart). This week’s sales saw a significant increase over McCartney’s 2005 release, ‘Chaos and Creation in the Backyard,’ which peaked at #6 on the Billboard chart with first week sales totaling more than 90,000 copies. In addition, ‘Memory Almost Full’ is the first McCartney album to be made available digitally, selling 15,598 digital albums in its first week.

“We are delighted ‘Memory Almost Full’ is receiving such a warm and enthusiastic reception from fans,” said Ken Lombard, president of Starbucks Entertainment who also oversees Hear Music. “The success of Paul’s new album illustrates our unique ability to connect artists with audiences across a broad retail spectrum.”

The renowned musician is experiencing a career renaissance with ‘Memory Almost Full’ earning critical praise and strong support from radio with the first U.S. single, “Ever Present Past.” 

The single continues to gain momentum across multiple radio formats including the #1 new and active single at AC, #3 at Classic Rock, and # 10 on the AAA Tracks Chart. The video single, “Dance Tonight” has been added in medium rotation at VH1 and part two of McCartney’s exclusive interview with ABC’s Good Morning America airs Thursday, June 14.

On June 5, Starbucks launched the album by hosting a Global Listening Event in which more than 10,000 locations in 29 countries played the record all day long. The unprecedented event introduced an estimated six million customers to the new album and resulted in Starbucks most successful single day of album sales of any title in the Company’s history.  More than 23,000 copies of ‘Memory Almost Full’ were sold at Starbucks on the album’s first day of release.

On June 18, Hear Music will release a one-a-kind video tribute filmed at the Global Listening Event in honor of McCartney’s 65th Birthday and distributed via a host of viral video portals. The video features well-wishes from celebrities, music lovers and McCartney fans from London, New York, Berlin, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Seattle, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Miami.

‘Memory Almost Full,’ reunites McCartney with longtime producer and friend David Kahne and provides a very personal retrospective drawing upon childhood memories from Liverpool, summers long gone, and the times spent writing music with John Lennon.