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McCartney is the debut studio album by English musician Paul McCartney. It was issued on Apple Records in April 1970 after McCartney had resisted attempts by his fellow Beatles to have the release delayed to allow for Apple's previously scheduled titles, notably the band's Let It Be album. McCartney recorded his eponymous solo album during a period of depression and confusion, following John Lennon's private announcement on September 20, 1969 that he was leaving the Beatles, and the conflict over its release further estranged McCartney from his bandmates. A press release in the form of a self-interview, supplied with UK promotional copies of McCartney, led to the announcement of the group's break-up on 10 April 1970.

Apart from wife Linda's vocal contributions, McCartney performed the entire album by himself, playing every instrument. Featuring loosely arranged (and in some cases, unfinished) home recordings, McCartney explored the back-to-basics style that had been the original concept for the Let It Be (then titled Get Back) project in 1969. Partly as a result of McCartney's role in officially ending the Beatles' career, the album received an unfavourable response from the majority of music critics, although the song "Maybe I'm Amazed" was consistently singled out for praise. Commercially, McCartney benefited from the publicity surrounding the break-up; it held the number 1 position for three weeks on the US Billboard 200 chart and peaked at number 2 in Britain. The album was reissued in June 2011 as part of the Paul McCartney Archive Collection.

Following John Lennon's announcement in a band meeting on 20 September 1969 that he wanted a "divorce" from the Beatles,Paul McCartney withdrew to his farm in Campbeltown, Scotland. Author Robert Rodriguez describes his frame of mind as: "brokenhearted, shocked, and dispirited at the loss of the only job he had ever known". While the announcement was not made official, partly for business reasons, McCartney's period in seclusion with his family coincided with widespread rumours in America that he had died – an escalation of the three-year-old "Paul Is Dead" conspiracy theory. The rumour was broken only by journalists from BBC Radio and Life magazine tracking him down at his farm, High Park.

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