Memory Almost Full (Paul McCartney, 2007)

Since around 1997, in the glow of the Anthology project with his fellow Beatles, Paul McCartney has been enjoying a pretty good run of things, musically anyway. Considering he experience the death of his first wife and an acrimonious split with his second during this time, it's a minor miracle that Paul was capable of delivering such as series of quality albums, from 1997's Flaming Pie through last year's New. And that's just the rock albums released under his own name. Clearly, he has made the most of simply being alive, a refreshing attitude among musicians. A lot of his peers probably would have called it a day long ago.

Although Paul overall tends to insert his life less in his music than his old songwriting colleague (four words: how, do, you, sleep), he hasn't been immune from it. In fact, some of his finest moments come at a time when he's got something to get off his chest. Sometimes when the going gets rough, he will turn to the standards with a fierce abandon (Run Devil Run), but eventually he'll get around to saying something. While albums like Driving Rain and Chaos and Creation in the Backyard were speckled with little love notes to Heather Mills, Memory Almost Full is instead a big bag of hate mail he dumped on the soon-to-be-divorced Mills, be it exacting, metaphorical, or sarcastic ("Gratitude"). In spite of the changes in Paul's personal life, the album is a natural successor to Chaos and would, in turn, smooth the way to New.

Jammed into all of the aforementioned albums are live albums, Fireman albums, concertos and other releases. Not only is Paul making the most out of being a living Beatle, he is showing no signs of slowing down.