Flaming Pie

Flaming Pie is the tenth solo studio album by Paul McCartney, first released in 1997. His first studio album in over four years, it was mostly recorded following McCartney's involvement in the highly successful Beatles Anthology project. The album was recorded in several locations over two years, 1995 and 1997, featuring two songs dating from 1992. The album featured several of McCartney's family members and friends, most notably McCartney's son, James McCartney. In Flaming Pie's liner notes, McCartney said: "[The Beatles Anthology] reminded me of The Beatles' standards and the standards that we reached with the songs. So in a way it was a refresher course that set the framework for this album."

Flaming Pie peaked at number two in both the UK and US and was certified gold. The album, which was well received by critics, also reached the top 20 in many other countries. From its release up to mid-2007, the album sold over 1.5 million copies.

Background

"Calico Skies", which Paul McCartney had written when Hurricane Bob had hit while McCartney was staying on Long Island in 1991, and "Great Day", which features backing vocal from his wife Linda McCartney, hailed from a 1992 session, recorded even before Off the Ground had come out. Starting from the mid-1990s for four years, McCartney was involved in The Beatles Anthology, a documentary on the history of the Beatles. The documentary was originally titled The Long and Winding Road, named after McCartney's song of the same name. During 1995, as the Anthology albums were starting to be released over a two-year period, EMI did not want McCartney to release a solo album in the meantime. McCartney said that he "was almost insulted at first" before then realising that "it would be silly to go out against yourself in the form of the Beatles. So I fell in with the idea and thought, 'Great, I don't even have to think about an album.'" McCartney was occupied with working on Standing Stone in the interim.

Revelations (Audioslave album)

Revelations is the third and final studio album by the American rock supergroup Audioslave. The album was released on September 5, 2006 in the U.S., and a day earlier in the UK. Lead vocalist Chris Cornell departed the band shortly after, in February 2007. Brendan O'Brien, who has produced or mixed the albums of numerous major rock acts of the past twenty years, including Rage Against the Machine, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, The Offspring, Pearl Jam, King's X, Incubus, and Bruce Springsteen, reunited with Tom Morello, Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk after producing the Rage Against the Machine albums Evil Empire and The Battle of Los Angeles and their cover of Springsteen's "The Ghost of Tom Joad".

Background

Audioslave had 20 songs written (a few of which were sampled during their 2005 tour), and returned to the studio in early January 2006 to finish recording them. For Revelations, which was influenced by 1960s and 70s music, Cornell adopted his "seventies funk and R&B-flavor vocals." Guitarist Tom Morello described the sound as "Earth, Wind and Fire meets Led Zeppelin". Musically, the album is similar to Audioslave's previous album, but with a twist. The band incorporates soul and funk influences in many (if not all) of the songs on the album. Love, life and loss are all themes on the new album. Political activism is also starting to rear its head in Audioslave's music with songs such as "Wide Awake", which uses the Hurricane Katrina disaster and George W. Bush as subject matter.