{"id":22513,"date":"2022-03-08T05:30:13","date_gmt":"2022-03-08T10:30:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=22513"},"modified":"2022-02-15T09:41:33","modified_gmt":"2022-02-15T14:41:33","slug":"march-through-time-george-harrison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/03\/08\/march-through-time-george-harrison\/","title":{"rendered":"March Through Time: George Harrison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"left\"><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><em>This month, I\u2019m hitting<\/em> pause <em>on coverage of new artists and releases, focusing instead for a bit on the bodies of work from some of my favorite artists. \u2014 bk<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-22514\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/mtt_george.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/mtt_george.jpeg 500w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/mtt_george-300x300.jpeg 300w, http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/mtt_george-150x150.jpeg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>The saying applied to The Who\u2019s John Entwistle \u2013 about him being a very good songwriter in a group that already had a great one \u2013 is doubly true for George Harrison. At his best, his material rivaled the quality of Lennon\u2019s and McCartney\u2019s. And when the Beatles ended, he had a massive backlog of material. But his solo work is admittedly uneven. That said, I treasure it all. But here\u2019s my perspective on each release.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Wonderwall Music<\/b><\/i><b> (1968)<\/b> \u2013 George\u2019s solo debut, leading in turns a band of pals and a gaggle of Indian musicians. Interesting music designed for a quirky film, it has its moments.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Electronic Sound<\/b><\/i><b> (1969)<\/b> \u2013 A curio. An all-analog-synth experiment, there\u2019s a real question as to Harrison\u2019s involvement with this; Bernie Krause\u2019s name is silvered out on the cover. Completists will want it, but will they play it more than once?<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>All Things Must Pass<\/b><\/i><b> (1970)<\/b> \u2013 A landmark, must-own record. Don\u2019t be put off by Phil Spector\u2019s mushy wall of sound; it works in this context. Every song is at least very good, and many are great. \u201cRun of the Mill\u201d is the sleeper classic. The third disc of jams is for the hardest of hardcores only, though.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Living in the Material World<\/b><\/i><b> (1973)<\/b> \u2013 The overlooked gem in George\u2019s catalog. It\u2019s filled with great songs (\u201cDon\u2019t Let Me Wait Too Long\u201d), superb production and all manner of guest stars working to serve George\u2019s songs.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Dark Horse<\/b><\/i><b> (1974)<\/b> \u2013 Cynics dubbed it \u201cDark Hoarse\u201d because of George\u2019s vocals, wrecked by a bout with hepatitis. The songs aren\u2019t very good overall; the whole record is something of a downer.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Extra Texture (Read All About It)<\/b><\/i><b> (1975<\/b>) \u2013 It\u2019s as if George completely ran out of ideas but made an album anyway. \u201cThis Guitar\u201d is self-parody but sti lla good song. \u201cYou\u201d is the best among the rest, and it\u2019s actually a leftover from the <i>ATMP<\/i> sessions (and sounds like it).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Thirty Three &amp; 1\/3<\/b><\/i><b> (1976)<\/b> \u2013 Quirky and wonderful, George\u2019s best since All Things Must Pass. His sense of humor shines through, especially on the weird-n-wonderful \u201cCrackerbox Palace.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>George Harrison<\/b><\/i><b> (1979)<\/b> \u2013 George isn\u2019t rocking too hard here, but the songs are lovely, and the production is superb.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Somewhere in England<\/b><\/i><b> (1981)<\/b> \u2013 The record company forced George to remake this album, claiming it was too uncommercial in its original state. I disagree; it\u2019s a fine if modest record.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Gone Troppo<\/b><\/i><b> (1982)<\/b> \u2013 Sadly, this is as dreadful as its reputation suggests. George seems to be phoning it in, not taking things seriously at all. Best avoided.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Cloud Nine<\/b><\/i><b> (1987)<\/b> \u2013 In retrospect, this is sonically almost indistinguishable from the other Jeff Lynne projects of its era (Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, Traveling Wilburys) but George\u2019s songs rise above. A delight.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p class=\"western\" align=\"left\"><i><b>Brainwashed<\/b><\/i><b> (2002)<\/b> \u2013 George\u2019s farewell. A sentimental pic, it gets love similar to <i>Double Fantasy<\/i>, for similar reasons. Not as great as fanatics would have you believe, but not an embarrassment, either.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This month, I\u2019m hitting pause on coverage of new artists and releases, focusing instead for a bit on the bodies of work from some of my favorite artists. \u2014 bk [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22514,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,65],"tags":[899],"class_list":["post-22513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay","category-review","tag-george-harrison","cat-27-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22515,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22513\/revisions\/22515"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}