George Harrison: Search & Destroy

Jim Keltner and Ringo doubling their drum parts during the Bangladesh Concert is one of the alternately most pointless/entertaining things about ti

When I hear him mangle the line "you made me such a big star" on the Bangladesh "Wah Wah", I'm inclined to say "can't sing worth a damn".

I've honestly never seen Bangladesh straight through, just snippets here and there (must rectify) but damn if that youtube didn't give me chills. I didn't hear that line (or any of his singing on that song) as mangled; I think he sounds ragged but right.

yeah it's not like he Amy Winehouse'd it or anything

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2wrte1ijlY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ng511CKPt3w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D9JuiJNizw

George stuff I like from the seventies:

"Blow Away" (who needs Macca when you've got this chorus?)
"This Song" (not very funny, but he sounds like he's enjoying himself over this 'ere beat)
"Don't Let Me Wait Too Long" (a God song about being real horny; one of the few times he understood Al Green)

I've honestly never seen Bangladesh straight through, just snippets here and there (must rectify) but damn if that youtube didn't give me chills. I didn't hear that line (or any of his singing on that song) as mangled; I think he sounds ragged but right.

Also, he seems pretty at-ease and comfortable for a guy who hadn't been on a concert stage in five years.

George is maybe the best thing about this tune (apart from the lyrics)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQwWp98IuGE

His dual slide guitar solo on "Day After Day" is great, too.

I've always had a soft spot for this drunken hootenanny of a b-side:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lum7Pow-vTA

If I haven't already mentioned it upthread, Simply Shady from Dark Horse is one of those snake charmer melodies he did so beautifully, though never better than Beware of Darkness

Martin Scorsese documentary airing on HBO in October:

http://www.georgeharrison.com/#/news/archive/201107/george-harrison-documentary-and-book-announced

Trailer for the movie.

The Worst of George Harrison.

Pete Prown? I thought that was a 'fakey' name, but it seems not

Wonderwall is one very decent soundtrack too.
― t**t, Wednesday, June 29, 2011 10:33 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, I'd call it the very definition of "overlooked"
― Mark G, Wednesday, June 29, 2011 10:38 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

OTM. So good.

some of the wonderwall stuff really invent the "wes anderson" vibe, particularly mark devo's stuff on the rushmore soundtrack

I don't know what's being particularly identified as "slick and overproduced" about the 1979 self-titled album or why a song like "Love Comes to Everyone" is singled out as an "overt stab at polished LA pop." That album sounds a lot like the production on the other albums from that period to me. Not exactly the same, but nothing radically different.

I also think it's too easy to make assumptions based on his personality that lead to claims about how "alienated by the current pop scene" he was. "Blood from a Clone" strikes me as far less serious than the writer makes it out to be (he says it's "supposedly his savage commentary on the state of popular music") and actually remarkable for how of its time it sounds, at least in Harrison's own way. It's an easy rival of "Coming Up" for eccentric older guy new wave with some cool funky bass.

"Wake Up My Love" from Gone Troppo is another one. The synthesizers on that are like something you'd hear in an Italo tune.

I like "Love Comes to Everyone" and disagree with how he tosses "dated" to signify something he doesn't like. He could've criticized him in other ways.

Just listening to the iTunes clips of the '06 Living in the Material World and it is awfully good sounding.

Living in the Material World remaster, I meant to say.

Harrison was the third-best songwriter in the Beatles, sort of like Uruguay ranks third in a list of who has the most nuclear devices after the USA and Russia. Proof that McCartney wasn't a control freak is that mewling, turgid pomposity like "While My Guitar Noisily and Repititiously Whines" and "Something"(genius lyric - "I don't kno-o- ow, I-I-I don't know") was allowed on their albums.

― dave q, Thursday, August 30, 2001 8:00 PM (11 years ago)

even after these all years i feel compelled to say Fuck you dave q, fuck yoooooouuuu

:)

the self-titled is a gorgeous album. such a strong run of simple, beautiful songs on there. it stands up bloody well.

I just learned "Think For Yourself" on guitar. It's crazy! It's not a song from 1965, it's like something off Nevermind. There some proto-Devo in this as well.

The good things that we can have if we close our eyes it's a beautiful world

Wonder what it would sound like if he saved it for ATMP.

He should have rerecorded all his Beatles songs instead of the "Apple Jam."

I could listen to the first four seconds of Think For Yourself over and over.

Everything on Spotify, including Electronic Sound and Wonderwall. Albums with bonus tracks.

Nice!

Wonderwall really is a treat. Electronic Sounds is.... less entertaining.

His catalogue is now on Apple Music as well.

Lotta stuff grayed out as unavailable on his overview page, but I started clicking on it and it played anyway.

Wonderwall is so great. The move is fun too. And I love this nearly lost Harrison-produced masterwork:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVRmdrM0Mmg

Finally grabbed a cheapie Gone Troppo, after all these years of wondering. Man is it a silly, inessential sort of record. So many songs that just feel like "I'm a musician, I suppose writing songs is what I do, right?" in the most canonical rocker-at-40 sort of way. And yet kind of lovable for precisely that reason? Still, there are these flashes of joy in the playing and singing here and there, amid the sea of forgettable and nearly-hookless songs, so I don't think this will be my last time putting it on. I think the thing I liked the most (besides the title track and "Wake Up My Love," which I already knew) was the instrumental (?) track somewhere on Side One.

Well, for starters, I might actually think "Dream Away" is the best song he ever wrote. But the record in general is lovable in my opinion - some really good songwriting and a nice production/sound. I like all of Side One. "That's the Way It Goes" is probably the best of the kind of mellow, non-"Dream Away," non-instrumentsl, non-early-'60s-cover tunes he wrote for the album (and there's a really nice version of it on Concert for George). "Mystical One" is probably my second favorite of those, or the title track, if that qualifies.

Might be my favorite of the Dark Horse albums. That one or 33 1/3.

Start up the cement mixer.

I find 33 1/3 to be one of his best post-All Things Must Pass records, and Gone Troppo to be thoroughly awful - the very definition of a contractual obligation record. There's some good moments on most of Harrison's solo records, but my god did he sound like he was phoning it in at times.

I haven't heard it, but noticed that "Circles" was written (or started) in 1968. Kind of amazing that in the early 80s he still had Beatles-era songs to pick from to fill out his records.

Yeah there's a beatles demo of circles.

Yup, it's on the White Album demos you'll find floating around the internet somewhere.

Isn't McCartney II also a "silly, inessential" record? I like Gone Troppo as much as I like McCartney II.

I usually found one standout on all the later albums, like Simply Shady on Dark Horse

Yeah, 'Simply Shady' is a good Harrisong, sadly marred by the weak vocal like the entire album.

That OPP Dark Horse comp from 1989 creates the impression that those albums are stronger than they are; nevertheless, I still like "That's The Way It Goes" though. "Wake Up My Love" stinks of I-need-a-hit-what's-this-synth desperation.

Yeah I'm loathe to assign motives to artists, but from the sound of the records, it doesn't seem like he had much respect for new wave at all, cf Paul

what's-this-synth desperation

I think you're projecting. He made a Moog album before the Beatles broke up. He's credited as playing synthesizer on "Dear One" and "Crackerbox Palace," Billy Preston as playing one on "Beautiful Girl," and both Preston and Gary Wright credited as playing them on "See Yourself," all on 33 1/3. Steve Winwood and Neil Larsen are credited as playing Moogs on the self-titled album from '79. Five people are credited as playing synthesizers on the Somewhere in England album: Harrison, Larsen, Gary Brooker, Al Kooper, and Mike Moran. Moran may have been the big synth guy on Gone Troppo, too, though Harrison and Preston are also credited with playing them.

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