The Paul McCartney who appeared in grainy, black-and-white footage on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964 could’ve never imagined this. The ex-Beatle announced Wednesday that he had partnered with Skype to create a series of ten animated, love-themed Mojis — which feature exclusive new music by the rocker.
“Today’s announcement marks the launch of a new kind of digital expression – the audio emoticon,” a press release explained. “Mojis are short animated clips that you can use during Skype chats when words just aren’t enough.” McCartney also shared his thoughts about the project in a statement. “It turned out to be a great laugh at the same time as challenging because you suddenly realize you’ve got to compress a musical interpretation of an expression into less than five seconds,” he said. “It was like doing a huge crossword puzzle and coming up with all these solutions. And at the same time it was musical so it was great practise for me in the studio.”
McCartney recorded the Mojis in Sussex over the course of the week and used instruments including guitars, drums, xylophone, and a Moog synthesizer, the latter of which he chose to “give it a modern flavor.”
This article originally appeared on EW.com
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