George Harrison: Search & Destroy

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.

What's this post desperation

What's that supposed to mean? Looks like an anti-intellectual gesture to me. And a denial of your silly characterization.

Here Comes the Sun got synth all over it

I'm just messing with you, Tim. I'm aware that Harrison's used synths before, but "Wake Up My Love" sounds like a desperate attempt to be current, a limp "Gloria" (Laura Branigan, not Van Morrison).

I could believe that there was maybe some kind of record company push to get a more "contemporary" sound, rather than Harrison not having an interest in synths as such. It's an okay song IMO but definitely a one-riff deal without a lot to say. To be fair, he scored a huge hit on a similar formula with "Got My Mind Set On You" so who knows. Listening to the album through again, louder this time, to see if anything else jumps out at me.

http://orig09.deviantart.net/aead/f/2011/191/7/d/droppo___321_by_futuredami-d3lkztm.png

Droppo
Gone Droppo
Droppo
It's time you know I gone Droppo
Oh!

I could believe that there was maybe some kind of record company push to get a more "contemporary" sound

Warners initially rejected Somewhere in England, so it wouldn't be surprising if they kept the pressure on for this one. Equally unsurprising for Harrison to be all, "You want contemporary? Here ya go, some cheesy synths! Have fun trying to promote my lack of effort!"

It was also apparently the inspiration for this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxxhb34_iGg

lol

Yeah, idk, I feel okay about calling this inessential - and unfortunately in the bad way. I love a lot of inessential McCartney records but George just doesn't have the tune-finding knack or range of oddball arrangements to make otherwise hookless (if amiable and well-intentioned) songs interesting or easy on the ear. Most of this just goes by without me noticing at all. Several times he seems to hope that if he repeats the chorus enough it'll become memorable or powerful. It works on "Dream Away" but not the others I fear. YMMV though!

I love a lot of inessential McCartney records but George just doesn't have the tune-finding knack or range of oddball arrangements to make otherwise hookless (if amiable and well-intentioned) songs interesting or easy on the ear.

Yeah, that's the key difference between them. McCartney can just whip up a delightful (if utterly inconsequential) tune like it's nothing, but George seemed to treat songwriting like a chore.

Similarly with their approaches to the guitar: McCartney could tear off a blinding solo without breaking a sweat, while George would labor for hours over creating The Perfect Solo (in the case of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," he spent eight hours trying to get a "weeping" backwards guitar effect only to say, "Nuts to this, I'll just get Eric Clapton.")

Well, tbh I can dig spending a working day trying to figure out the sound/form of a guitar solo! But yeah in general George doesn't strike me as someone that just thinks of great new songs every day; often it feels more like he has something he wants to say and is looking for a song to do it in. Which is also fine! Just that when he doesn't have something he wants to say you start to wonder why he's even in the studio. Whereas McCartney is clearly in love with the idea of being a rock musician, making albums and recording things, often to the point where he annoys the shit out of his collaborators (including, notably, George, though of course there are other issues between them). My impression of George's solo career benefits enormously from that first big, excellent record, significantly formed as everyone knows out of songs slowly accumulated on the backburner over a half-decade span. I don't mean this as a slam; some people's talents and way of approaching music just don't align with the very specific and arbitrary task of cranking out an LP every year.

he spent eight hours trying to get a "weeping" backwards guitar effect

I find this endearing myself but then I am also a Kevin Shields fan

You guys, I'm listening to "Crackerbox Palace" right now and the arrangement on this is so freaking amazing.

I won't keep arguing the point about "Wake Up My Love" other than to say that I don't recall reading anything about continued record label pressure after Somewhere in England or about it being a reaction. I don't think it's a stretch to say that it's in the vein of things like "Crackerbox Palace."

Several times he seems to hope that if he repeats the chorus enough it'll become memorable or powerful.

Totally otm. Just count how many times he repeats the chorus of Blow Away next time you hear it. George was pretty economical when hitting those three-minute quotas.

But yeah in general George doesn't strike me as someone that just thinks of great new songs every day; often it feels more like he has something he wants to say and is looking for a song to do it in. Which is also fine! Just that when he doesn't have something he wants to say you start to wonder why he's even in the studio.

George's not regarding his career as a job is one of his most charming qualities. The periods when he released unfocused, indifferent albums were brief (1974-1975 and 1981-1982 really). Forced to think of record making as a career, he wilted, as one might when the sullenness that served as a muse stopped rewarding the audience's attention, and the Indian philosophy that brought him peace couldn't inspire many good songs. In my youth George was my favorite Beatle because he was stifled, unappreciated, whatever; I adore Cloud Nine and the Wilburys records, especially since they validate the claim made by Tom Petty and others that George was a riot to be around; that it took the presence of Paul and Beatle chatter to provoke the sour, rather nasty guy beneath the surface (Cubans call this sort of person pesado).

When it came to collaborations, however, George deserves credit: as producer and enabler for Ringo’s best singles and Badfinger’s “Day By Day” and "Sour Milk Sea"; as player of solos as scabrous as his wit on John Lennon’s “How Do You Sleep.” With the exception of his great friend Bob Dylan, the sixties never produced a less sentimental relic(“in Beatles lore alone, he’s something of a relief,” Bill Wyman wrote in 2011).

Yeah, George was wonderful, even if he'd accomplished nothing else, for his refusal to play along with 60s mythos, Beatles mythos, all that stuff. His Anthology segments made a big impression on me as a teen and maybe helped inoculate me against the too-earnest love of everything Sixties to which teens like myself are otherwise susceptible. On Haight-Ashbury: "...it was a bunch of spotty kids getting high." On LSD itself: "I put it under a microscope and it just looked like little rope and I said I'm not putting that in my brain anymore." On the adrenaline rush of Beatlemania: "We couldn't really do much."

You guys ever hear this? I never knew this had been put out as a Wonderwall bonus track:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N65kPFtxDis

it was ona Beatles single so yes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a82-7ozS_MI

Watching this video cold, you'd think George had always been the leader. Ringo and Paul defer to him at the table.

Οὖτις, - alternate take, no vocals