People in the News

button can be good for the mind

PARIS — Paul McCartney says the inspiration for the title of his latest album, "Memory Almost Full,” came from a phrase he saw on his cell phone.

"It seemed symbolic of our lives today,” the 65-year-old ex-Beatle said Monday. "Your messages are always full. And your mind is full. And it doesn’t matter if you’re my age or 20. I think that we all need to delete stuff every so often.”

McCartney is in Paris for a concert at the Olympia theater. He made his first appearance at the Olympia in 1964 with the Beatles, a performance that caused havoc in the streets. He returned to the theater nearly a decade later with Wings, the group that gave him a new life on the stage in the post-Beatles era.

Dressed casually in jeans and sneakers, McCartney gave the press a concert preview of "Let It Be” and "Lady Madonna,” singing and playing the piano.

He reminisced about visiting Paris with John Lennon before they became famous.

"I think the only time we came to the Olympia was when we played here,” McCartney said. "It was too expensive so we went to a little dirty dance hall instead.”

He released "Memory Almost Full,” his 21st solo album, on Hear Music, a startup label launched by coffee retailer Starbucks Corp. and Concord Music Group. The album was released earlier this year.

"The business was changing, everything was changing,” said McCartney, who left EMI Music, a unit of EMI Group PLC. "I started to think that the record companies didn’t know how to deal with it and they were getting boring and jaded.”

"If you’re among 300 artists whose album is coming out, they have no time for you,” he said.

McCartney was less talkative about his divorce from Heather Mills.

"We are here to talk about music,” a press officer said. "Artistic questions and only artistic questions are welcome.”

Mariah Carey talks about her new fragrance ‘M,’ new album

NEW YORK — Even though Mariah Carey has a new fragrance, she never was the type to spray on a scent before she left the house. In fact, Carey says she never really wore perfumes until she fell in love with her own creation, "M.”

"This is the first fragrance that I wear,” Carey told The Associated Press in an interview Monday. "I’m not really a perfume person at all ... Things that are too strong and overwhelming, that’s what I was always not a fan of.”

But when Elizabeth Arden approached the superstar to create her own perfume, it piqued her interest — mainly because the cosmetics company didn’t want to use just her name, but wanted her input in the creation of the scent, which she describes as light, sensual and memorable.

"They were welcoming in my involvement just in every detail, and that was what was the most exciting thing to me,” said Carey.

Carey says the fragrance, which comes in a purple bottle with her signature butterfly icon on top, was based on some of her favorite things. One is a Moroccan incense; another is a flower called the Living Tahitian Tiare. But another scent mixed into the fragrance is unexpected: toasted marshmallows.

That aroma was added because it evoked happy memories of her childhood around the campfire. But she adds: "It’s blended in there — it’s not like you’re gonna walk around smelling like marshmallows.”

Carey worked on "M” while on tour and working on her latest album, and said she spent as much time on launching the fragrance as she did working on her music career: "I’m obsessed with it!”

But now she’s back to putting most of her focus on the new record, due out early next year. The as-yet-untitled album is the follow-up to her multiplatinum comeback disc, "The Emancipation of Mimi,” which earned her three Grammys.

"It’s hard for me to sit here and talk about it without sounding like I’m bragging if I’m in love with it, but I’m in love with this album,” she says. "I think that having the success with the last record allowed me to have more freedom. ... and just make records that I like. It’s kind of a really fun record.”