This book provides fresh insight into the creative practice developed by Paul McCartney over his extended career as a songwriter, record producer and performing musician. It frames its examination of McCartney’s work through the lens of the systems model of creativity developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and combines this with the research work of Pierre Bourdieu. This systems approach is built around the basic structures of idiosyncratic agents, like McCartney himself, and the choices he has made as a creative individual. It also locates his work within social fields and cultural domains, all crucial aspects of the creative system that McCartney continues to be immersed in. Using this tripartite system, the book includes analysis of McCartney’s creative collaborations with musicians, producers, artists and filmmakers and provides a critical analysis of the Romantic myth which forms a central tenet of popular music. This engaging work will have interdisciplinary appeal to students and scholars of the psychology of creativity, popular music, sociology and cultural studies.

The Beatles are probably the most photographed band in history and are the subject of numerous biographical studies, but a surprising dearth of academic scholarship addresses the Fab Four. New Critical Perspectives on the Beatles offers a collection of original, previously unpublished essays that explore 'new' aspects of the Beatles. The interdisciplinary collection situates the band in its historical moment of the 1960s, but argues for artistic innovation and cultural ingenuity that account for the Beatles' lasting popularity today. Along with theoretical approaches that bridge the study of music with perspectives from non-music disciplines, the texts under investigation make this collection 'new' in terms of Beatles' scholarship. Contributors frequently address under-examined Beatles texts or present critical perspectives on familiar works to produce new insight about the Beatles and their multi-generational audiences.

A sympathetic but clear-eyed exploration of Paul McCartney’s work in the 1990s, arguably his most important since the rise of the Beatles. Paul McCartney’s 1990s was an era like no other, perhaps even the most significant decade of his entire career after the 1960s. Following a shakier 1980s, the decade would see McCartney reemerge with greater energy, momentum, and self-belief. JR Moores’s sympathetic but not uncritical new book explores McCartney’s ’90s, with its impressive studio and live albums, colossal tours, unexpected side-projects and imaginative collaborations, forays into classical composition, some new Beatles numbers, and a whole lot more besides. Moores reveals how McCartney’s reputation began to be perceived more generously by the public, and he argues that Macca’s output and activities in the ’90s would uncover more about the person behind them than in any other decade.

Based on exclusive first-hand interviews, a chronicle of Paul McCartney's struggles in the first decade after the Beatles' breakup discusses his reclusive life, substance abuses, arrests, and efforts to launch his band Wings.

The acclaimed director of such films as Brideshead Revisited shares the story of his youth and career, providing coverage of such topics as his childhood as the son of star Geraldine Fitzgerald, his relationships with Hollywood elite and the allegations that Orson Welles was his real father.

In the space of just seven years, the Beatles released twelve landmark albums and 22 groundbreaking singles - a total of 208 songs that would influence artists and musicians for decades to come. And the Band Begins to Play is the definitive guide to the complete catalogue of songs recorded and released by the Beatles between their first EMI session in 1962 and their break-up in 1970. Each track is fully analysed, giving the story behind the composition, a brief musical analysis, and a description of the recording process, studio techniques used, peculiarities of the released track including mono/stereo anomalies or notable overdubs, and other interesting aspects of the song or its recording. Unquestionably, the Beatles remain the key band of the rock era. And the Band Begins to Play tells the story of their unique musical legacy.