You can’t walk into Starbucks without being aware that Paul McCartney’s “Memory Almost Full” has been out for awhile, and we figured it was time for Idol Chatter to weigh in on it.
The reviews have been mixed. From Entertainment Weekly’s “his zestiest music in eons” to the New York Times’ “more homespun sound than most of his recent albums,” there have been plenty of positive comments. Billboard called it “satisfying” and the L.A. Times concluded that “its high points outpace the lows.”

On the flip side, the Boston Globe saw the songs as “half-baked ideas and shallow reminiscences, a pair of dated rockers, and one meditation on mortality that manages to be maudlin and bubble-headed at the same time” and NOW magazine called it a “combination of insipid songs and uniformly soulless performances.”
I suppose the reason I was disappointed with “Memory Almost Full” wasn’t the music–I thought it was edgier and rockier than most of his recent stuff, avoiding the sloppy sentimentality you could have expected from an old guy going through a divorce. But by the time an icon is making his 21st solo album, I would have wished he had more to say about faith, about life, and about how our faith impacts our life. I know everyone in the world isn’t faith-based, but I wish they were. Paul McCartney has experienced a range of life events that few people have ever experienced, so I’d be interested in what he had to say. He called this a “rather personal” album; I hope it’s not the end. If his memory is almost full, I hope there’s enough disc space left, before his run is done, for something that is not only personal, but spiritual. I would hate to think that after all these years, it’s still just about making and marketing songs.