Paul McCartney is set to return musically with his first studio release in five years, after confirming that his latest album will be released on February 7th 2012 and will feature a mix of covers and - excitingly - original compositions. MCCartney was relatively prolific in the mid to late noughties, releasing 2005's 'Chaos and Creation In The Backyard' and 'Memory Almost Full' in 2007, as well as recording 'Electric Arguments' in 2008 with Youth under the moniker The Firemen. However it'll be over three years since that, and so the latest announcement will delight long-standing fans of the performer.
In a statement reported by the UK's Daily Telegraph, MCCartney revealed that the album will contain two new tracks alongside covers of classic American songs that inspired he and fellow Beatle John Lennon. "When I kind of got into songwriting, I realized how well structured these songs were, and I think I took a lot of my lessons from them," explained the star, "I always thought artists like Fred Astaire were very cool. Writers like Harold Arlen, Cole Porter, all of those guys - I just thought the songs were magical. And then, as I got to be a songwriter I thought it's beautiful, the way they made those songs."
Away from music, MCCartney has been fairly busy this year, getting married for the third time to NANCY SHEVELL.