Skip to main content

Volume 7 & 8 of What if the Beatles never broke up?

 With the commercial success of Band on the Run and Venus and Mars, Paul had all but erased the demon of being "merely" the cute Beatle.  He had his own success, with Wings, and could stand his own compositions up next to what he did in the Beatles.  

Wings at the Speed of Sound went to number one on the strength of "Let "Em In" and "Silly Love Songs," which I chose not to include because in this project the critique that lead to its creation may not have been an issue.  Instead, I include his great, "With A Little Luck" that came out in 1978 on  London Town and the great single "Mull of Kyntyre," which is so damn Scottish its easy to see why it was a hit in Great Britain but no where else.

I certainly don't agree with the contemporary critics who characterized George Harrison's Thirty Three and 1/3 as his "best release since All Things Must Pass."  In fact I think the earlier releases of Living In The Material World and Dark Horse are much better.  Such is the beauty of this project and I include two songs from Thirty Three and 1/3 regardless.

Ah Ringo!  Ringo's Rotogravature features him working with all the Beatles (once with John, once with Paul, and once with George).  Though, frankly, not that great they certainly hold up well to his work with them on various Beatles projects, so they obviously belong on this volume.

John Lennon's Rock 'n' Roll was his last release of the 1970's.  Even that release was not original material and Lennon's absence is largely said to be because he was raising his son, Sean, who was born in 1975.  

Volume 7-43 Minutes

Albums:

  • Wings At The Speed of Sound
  • Thirty Three and 1/3
  • Ringo's Rotogravure
  • London Town
  • Mull of Kyntyre (single)
  • Ringo the 4th
Songs:

  1. Let 'Em In (PM)
  2. This Song (GH)
  3. Beware My Love (PM)
  4. Crackerbox Palace (GH)
  5. Cookin' (In The Kitchen Of Love) (RS)
  6. Warm And Beautiful (PM)
  7. Pure Gold (RS)
  8. I'll Still Love You (RS)
  9. With A Little Luck (PM)
  10. Mull of Kyntyre (PM)
  11. Can She Do It Like She Dances? (RS)

Though never a critical favorite, Paul was clearly the most commercially successful Beatle.  With Band on the Run, Venus and Mars, and Wings at the Speed of Sound, he'd scored a series of three #1 albums over four years.  But that streak wouldn't hold up with London Town (4 songs on Volume 7) and Back to the Egg (3 songs on Volume 8).  

Though pop was fully in the throes of Disco, none of the Beatles seemed to dabble in it.  In fact George Harrison's George Harrison, is entirely personal, albeit positive album that highlights his interest in formula one racing and his feelings on his newest relationship.  

John Lennon, who'd taken almost four years off from recording to raise his son, Sean, also released a very personal, almost domestic, release in Double Fantasy.  It's a great album, featuring many great songs.  

And then there's Ringo.  He is still, in my opinion, trying to figure out what exactly it means to be Ringo Starr and released an unheralded and flop of a release in Bad Boy.

Volume 8-45 Minutes

Album:
  • Double Fantasy
  • George Harrison
  • Back to the Egg
  • Bad Boy
Songs:

  1. Watching the Wheels (JL)
  2. Blow Away (GH)
  3. Getting Closer (PM)
  4. Who Needs a Heart (RS)
  5. Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy) (JL)
  6. Faster (GH)
  7. Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette) (RS)
  8. (Just Like) Starting Over (JL)
  9. Arrow Through Me (PM)
  10. If You Believe (GH)
  11. Dark Sweet Lady (GH)
  12. Not Guilty (GH)
  13. Winter Rose/Love Awake (PM)



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

"That's Scaughtland for ya!"

The United Kingdom Up at the top of that map, basically the top half, is a tiny nation with a big footprint.  With roughly the same population as Minnesota, Scotland has a land mass the size of South Carolina, yet there are more people in the United States that have Scottish and/or Scotch-Irish ancestry than live in Scotland. My family is one of those. In the course of growing up, I was indoctrinated to celebrate my Scottish ancestry (primarily by my grandmother but we'll talk about that later).      So a year ago, my wife took a trip with her mother to Japan.  I looked at the pictures that she posted, and when I'd talk to her on the phone, I noticed something.  She was happy.  This is not to say she's always unhappy, but this was different.  She was having a good time, engaged in the world, curious, and happy-like no matter what the challenge.  And traveling to Japan with her mother posed some interesting challenge...
Post a Comment
Read more

Peregrinating the Albuquerque Bosque

  The Map. Overview: Starting in the San Juans in Colorado, the Rio Grande "is the twenty-second longest river in the world and the fourth or fifth longest in North America" ( Texas State Historical Society ).  While the river is characterized by the area it flows through, the river from Elephant Butte Dam to the south to Cochiti Dam in the north is called the Middle Rio Grande.  And in the middle of the middle Rio Grande is the roughly 20 plus miles that flows through Albuquerque.  From an airplane, the Rio Grande is a brown ribbon bordered a green ribbon.  That green ribbon is the Bosque .  I've always been fascinated really exploring an area, getting a sort of overview of an area then drilling down to really get it.  It's led to me hiking the Sandias from end to end and then hiking outlying trails multiple times, biking all the trails in the Cedro Peak area because someone put them on a map, trying different routes to get to ...
3 comments
Read more

The Day the War Began

Originally written shortly after the protest in 2003, an audio of this was broadcast on KUNM on the year anniversary of the war's inception. Hopefully, reasons for writing about this will become fewer and fewer. The Day the War Began.             Three deep and two dozen across, the Albuquerque police department blocked eastbound Central Avenue. They wore Army fatigues, gas masks and helmets, held black batons, yet had no badges or name tags that identified each as a person, an individual. Judging from the surrounding army of police cars and police horses, and the four cruisers that closed Central further to the east, their function was clear. Not only do the authorities want to silence dissent, but they want to keep those not politically vocal from becoming aware of dissent at all.             One of the cops held what looked like a toy water cannon and swung it back and fo...
Post a Comment
Read more