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Sir Paul McCartney: Making music was easier in the past


Sir Paul McCartney thinks it was "easier" to make music in the past.

The Beatles star has been in the music industry since 1957 and has seen changes in technology affect how he produces his hit tracks, encouraging him to brand modern music production "luxurious".

He said: "The process of making the music, I do [go] on sometimes to young bands, younger people I’m working with, and say it was kind of easier [before].

"Everyone who made records used this routine. 10.30, be ready to go. 1.30, we expect you to have finished two songs, mixed, taped, done. You go home at the end of the day and you would have accomplished four songs. And I look back at them now, and it’s ‘Michelle’, it’s ‘Nowhere Man’, it’s ‘Yesterday’. It’s songs that have lasted.

"I really advise kids now: ‘You have to write the song before you go in.’ Sounds obvious but people don’t do this so much these days. They go in and say, ‘That was a good bit. Get that on the ProTools’.

"It’s just a new way of working, which is much more luxurious, but I don’t think it’s productive."

Sir Paul McCartney – whose recent collaborators include Kanye West and Rihanna – also admits that he is less bothered by the way music is delivered but disagrees with streaming because it means the songwriter is paid much smaller amounts.

He said: "The actual technology of how you deliver music doesn’t matter to me because we’ve been through vinyl, tapes, cassettes, CDs, downloads, streaming."

When asked why he removed some of his music from the streaming sites like Spotify in the past, he added to BBC News’ Click: "I feel sorry for the young composer whose written what may be his only hit, and it’s huge and he doesn’t get paid for it. I don’t think that’s right."