Paul McCartney Now Caught Up To The Year 2000

Brian Raftery | May 11, 2007 9:53 am

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Ex-Wings frontman Paul McCartney is finally getting into the digital-music world: After long refusing to put any of his solo catalog online–a bummer to those of us who want to use “Say Say Say” as our ringtone–Billboard reports that he’ll make his forthcoming Memory Almost Full available for download.

As part of its digital marketing strategy, Starbucks plans to give “Memory Almost Full” prime positioning in its Hear Music area in the Apple iTunes Store. The digital distribution deal for McCartney is believed to pertain solely to the new album and not back catalog.

However, the pact signals increased willingness on the part of the former Beatles to make music available for consumption online. Music from the Beatles and the band’s former members has been conspicuously missing from digital distribution offerings, and a glaring content hole for operators of music download and subscription services.

Two purely speculative thoughts on this: 1) Steve Jobs will give a keynote speech at a Mac conference next month in San Francisco, which could be the perfect time to formally announce the Beatles deal; and 2) that “glaring content hole” line is going to draw a lot of confused late-night Googlers.

Exclusive: McCartney Goes Digital, Beatles ‘Virtually Settled’ [Billboard]