Paul McCartney reissues McCartney III

Paul McCartney has announced a third anniversary vinyl reissue of his 2020 album, McCartney III.

The ‘3×3 Edition’ constitutes three tri-colour vinyl pressings that will be allocated randomly to fans who place an order. Each includes a “print handwritten by Paul”, new cover art and an Ed Ruscha sketch poster (Ed’s the guy that designed the cover to ‘Now and Then’).

These records are only available D2C (Direct-to-Consumer via Paul/Universal stores) and you are only allowed to order two copies per customer. On top of that there’s no guarantee you will receive two different variants (i.e. you may get the same vinyl twice). All this means it’s impossible to get all three variants, without getting creative.

At the time of release (December 2020), McCartney III was issued in at least nine different vinyl pressings (includes a ‘333 Edition’ limited to 333 units via Third Man Records). Seven months later the remix-type album McCartney III Imagined was released, also with multiple vinyl variations. Therefore, it’s very surprising that McCartney has chosen to do this and even that he wants to do this. Give it a rest, why don’t you?

He’s just announced a 50th anniversary reissue of Band on the Run, the third time he’s reissued that particular album in the last 13 years. Paul seems wilfully determined to not address the elephant in the room which is that it has been almost three and a half years since his last Archive Collection Reissue. Fans are waiting for Wings’ London Town and Back to the Egg albums to be properly reissued for the first time ever. He’d do well to concentrate on that rather than giving McCartney III a frankly unwelcome third outing, in 36 months!

There is no indication at the time of writing as to how limited these are. The release date is this Friday, 15 December 2023, via Capitol Records. You can pre-order via this link.