Kisses on the Bottom
| Kisses on the Bottom | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Cover photo by Mary McCartney
|
|||||
| Studio album by Paul McCartney | |||||
| Released | 6 February 2012 | ||||
| Recorded | March 2010 at Capitol Studios, Los Angeles 2011 in New York City and London |
||||
| Genre | Jazz, traditional pop | ||||
| Length | 49:19 | ||||
| Label | Hear Music | ||||
| Producer | Tommy LiPuma | ||||
| Paul McCartney chronology | |||||
|
|||||
| Paul McCartney studio album chronology | |||||
|
|||||
| Singles from Kisses on the Bottom | |||||
|
|||||
 "My Valentine" Music video– from McCartney's official account on YouTube |
| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 62/100 |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   |
| The A.V. Club | C+ |
| Chicago Tribune | |
| The Daily Telegraph | |
| The Guardian | |
| The Independent | |
| Mojo | |
| PopMatters |   |
| Rolling Stone | |
| Spin | 3/10 |
Kisses on the Bottom is the fifteenth post-Beatles studio album by Paul McCartney (discounting his Wings-era discography, his orchestral works and his output as the Fireman), consisting primarily of covers of traditional pop music and jazz. Released in February 2012 on Starbucks' Hear Music label, it was McCartney's first studio album since Memory Almost Full in 2007. The album was produced by Tommy LiPuma and includes just two original compositions by McCartney: "My Valentine" and "Only Our Hearts". The former features Eric Clapton on guitar, while the latter features Stevie Wonder on harmonica. Kisses on the Bottom peaked at number 3 on the UK Albums Chart and number 5 on the US Billboard 200, while also topping Billboard magazine's Jazz Albums chart.
In addition to the standard release, the album was made available in a "Deluxe" edition, which added the songs "Baby's Request" – written by McCartney and originally recorded by Wings for their 1979 album Back to the Egg – and another cover, "My One and Only Love". In November 2012, an expanded edition of Kisses on the Bottom, subtitled Complete Kisses, was released exclusively on the iTunes store. The latter release features the fourteen-track album with four bonus tracks, and the complete iTunes Live from Capitol Studios performance.
A year prior to recording the album, jazz producer Tommy LiPuma and an unnamed keyboardist tried out some ideas for five days with Paul McCartney at McCartney's home studio in East Sussex. Featuring just vocals and piano, the trio "put about 15-20 songs on tape", to see what tracks would work. Around this time, an unknown McCartney original was recorded, with the help of engineer Geoff Emerick. The songs that McCartney would work on were voted upon democratically: McCartney comments, "I pulled up some [songs] from my memories, when I was a kid and we had family sing-songs, which was the original inspiration for the whole idea, I said to Tom, 'Let's look at these ones. This is the kind of era I want to look at.' Tommy himself suggested some; a girl in my office; [...] Diana [Krall] suggested some. Then I played Tommy a couple that I'd written, and he said, 'Whoa, that's a great idea,' so we selected a couple of those. [...] We all made suggestions, and we took all those suggestions to the studio."
...
Wikipedia