George Harrison - All Things Must Pass

Well, now that I no longer have a stiffy for King Crimson its back to the Beatles I guess. After the ‘fab four’ all left the group simultaneously on the grounds of the other three being dicks they went off to have highly successful solo careers (particularly Ringo who became a household name following his exceptional contribution to Thomas the Tank Engine). George Harrison, after years of being held back by Lennon and McCartney was finally allowed to unload with his first solo record, the triple LP: All Things Must Pass. Except, the last of those is a jam made up on the spot (not a particularly great one at that), so let’s call it a double and be done, yeah?

Where the overlength of the White Album is part of its charm, the same doesn’t quite apply to the first George Harrison record. It’s pretty easy to see why something like I Dig Love was dismissed when John was finishing overdubs to You Never Give Me Your Money or something. I’m not sure I could edit it down to a single LP without leaving some great stuff off, but upon trying, I managed to take the run time down to fifty-three minutes from an hour and fourty-three. And if I was to ignore the fact that the reason I have such a connection to Let it Down due to it being used as a warm up on the first day of the Get Back sessions, I could probably take a further five off. Take some time off Wah-Wah and we’re just about there.

Do you know what I hate? Phil Spector. This is the equivalent to George Lucas putting heaps of useless crap into the original Star Wars films. Okay, credit where credit’s due. Isn’t it a Pity is where the grand Spector production really makes the track better and gives it a grandness it probably wouldn’t have had otherwise. Let It Roll probably wouldn’t have been as interesting either. Now that’s out of the way, how could you have put so much STUFF into the title track? It worked better as a rough demo track on Beatles Anthology 3. On this record it’s actually a pretty decent job done. I’ll resume this rant when it comes time to reviewing Lennon’s Imagine or comparing Let it Be to its Naked mix
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The sound of the recent digitally distributed master is beautiful. Good thing it’s not on disc really, I’d spend time making sweet love to it rather than listening to the music on it. While the album isn’t quite the best solo Beatles record, it’s pretty close. It’s definitely one of the most Beatles-sounding solo records. The original advice at the time of issue is probably still the best advice to take: start from the singles and work your way out slowly.

Phil Spector is a tool as evidenced in comparing these two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GytPv_v29lc and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT7IKoleDfA
What is Life: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2oFESUMWhU
Isn’t It a Pity: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuStBNkvwhE