 "Lay back George" | 2009-05-29 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1L0W641D2B10S |
| I have enjoyed this album more in my late 40's than when I was in my early twenties. George uses a lot more piano in his songs. Best tracks are You, The answer's at the end and can't stop thinking about you. |
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| "George's "PARTY" album..." | 2009-03-31 |
| - Reviewed By User: A141B209U26UCQ |
You may not think of this as a party album by listening to it. But in the summer of 1975 George and friends ventured into the Los Angelos A&M Studios. (A&M always notorious for some of the more shotty sounding recordings and that is why the sound of this album isn't quite up to snuff). George decided to record here to fulfill his contractual obligation to Apple Records and besides, most of the better cocaine dealers were in L.A...thus George's party album. I think the musicianship is very good. The songs aren't the best but I always throw this album on the old turntable late at night. First single "You" was penned (and backing track) was recorded in 1971 for Ronnie Spector. An uptempo song with a SNL sounding sax. The whole album overall has a nice late night R&B flavor to it giving George a vehicle to do his best Smokey Robinson and wallow in some heartbreak..."Grey Cloudy Lies", "Can't Stop Thinking About You", "This Guitar Can't Keep From Crying" & "The Answers at the End" are all standouts. While I personally dug Harri's voice on Dark Horse, most of the general listening audience would agree his vocals return to fine form on the effort.
I don't think the majority of listeners understand what a major role "production" and "mastering" mean to a record. To me, the production and mastering dogged this record. It could've got 4 stars intead of 3 if handled more apporopriately. |
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 "yes it is himagain!" | 2009-01-14 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3MPBLBMEDQGM6 |
Contrary to most reviews of this album, I find that I really like it. Even though you can still hear a little of the rawness in George Harrison's voice that plagued him throughout the Dark Horse recordings and tour, the music is solid.
The interesting thing about this album is the R&B influences, even acknowledged in a dedication to Smokey Robinson on Ooh Baby (You Know That I Love You). It defies the rock'n'roll sound, but seems completely in keeping with George's refusal to churn out "hits" based on the current formula. This album is true to itself.
My favorites on this little gem: This Guitar Can't Keep From Crying and Tired of Midnight Blue. The former does harken back to the original weeping guitar, but an artist takes license when he chooses. In this case, it produces a fine song with lyrics that continue to journal the life of the musician.
Additionally, the guitar work shows George doing some funky, bluesy work that continues to establish him as one of the most underrated guitarists ever.
Tired of Midnight Blue is addictive. The guitar work, piano (compliments of Leon Russell) and the vocals are mesmerizing. I think it's one of George Harrison's best pieces.
I just plain like this album. It's a shame it was panned by the critics, because a lot more people would have embraced it without the bad press. It has highs and lows, but the good dominates. It's just another example of how versatile George was as a musician and singer. |
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| "Harrison's "L.A." soft-rock album...and his best!" | 2008-04-21 |
| - Reviewed By User: A20JLLGQO3A0O9 |
By no means was this a perfect album by George. If I were to prune/edit the album, it would be the "hit" of the album, 'You' (and its minute-long reprise), and the last song, 'His Name is Legs (Ladies and Gentlemen)'. 'You' sounds not only dated (and, with good reason, the instrumental track was from the ATMP sessions)but, the overall tone of the song doesn't fit with the others. And, 'Legs' could have done without the second chorus/verse, which seemed to weigh down its intended light-hearted vibe.
That said, the rest of the album is virtually flawless. George wisely decided to avoid the bombastic nature of ATMP, set aside the preachiness of LITMW and forego the bitterness that pervaded DH. Each song, from 'This Guitar' to 'Grey Cloudy Lies', has a very relaxed feel to it. The lyrics are simple yet lovingly projected. The various backing band members provide a solid professionalism, without ever over-indulging. And, George himself is in fine form throughout.
This was the sort of soft rock that was being produced at the time. Just think of 'Long,Long,Long' and 'Something' taken to a lush, '70s level. Not surprisingly, the album was recorded at the L.A. studios of AM Records. And, it is exactly the laid-back quality of that city that is well represented here.
Had Harrison been able to replace 'You' with, say, 'Far East Man' from DH, this would had elevated the album to "classic" status amongst the solo Beatles canon. Still, warm and loving, ET(RAAI)is that one George Harrison album that can be very soothing after one of those long and hectic days. So, sit back and enjoy George' soft, jazzy leanings. |
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| "Better Than Nyquil" | 2007-10-12 |
| - Reviewed By tgromek |
| This isn't a bad album but it sure is a boring album. From the dull orange cover to the music inside. I agree with another reviewer that this slow, prodding, walking through mollasses music is probably fallout from George's divorce. A more appropriate title would be "Break-Up Blues". "You" is the only song worth cranking on the stereo. The rest will put you to sleep. "Ooh Baby", "World Of Stone" and "Can't Stop Thinking About You" all sound like clones of each other more or less. And many of these songs are way too long. Just when you think one of these yawners is over, it fades back in again. I only bought this to complete the record collection. Put this one on if your kids won't go to sleep. It'll do the job. |
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 "Utterly embarrassing" | 2007-08-15 |
| - Reviewed By markofcain |
I went into this album with a fairly open mind. Sometimes if one has already heard the worst and isn't building the album up to be awesome, one's expectations won't be dashed, and one might even really like the album and find it wasn't nearly as bad as a lot of people say. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case for me with this particular album. I'll agree that there is some very soulful beautiful singing on it, but that doesn't really cancel out or make up for the overwhelmingly uninspired dull amateurish repetitive crummy lyrics and melodies. 'Dark Horse' might have the serious impediment of the hoarse vocals, but if you can get past that, there are actually a lot of strong songs on that record. This album didn't seem quite so awful after I gave it a few more listens, but it didn't come to seem like an unsung masterpiece either.
The opening track, "You," is fun, catchy, and upbeat, though it does have some pretty simplistic lyrics, and since George sang it in a register higher than his natural one, it sounds a bit speeded-up. (I suppose that's partly due to how he originally wrote it for Ronnie Spector and not himself.) "The Answer's at the End" is a bit better, a nice spiritual song, perhaps one of his most underrated songs. "This Guitar (Can't Keep from Crying)" is truly horrible and embarrassing, a horrible retread of the far superior "While My Guitar Gently Weeps." It's embarrassing to listen to this song, and many of the others on here! "Ooh Baby (You Know That I Love You)" is similarly embarrassing, particularly because the lyrics consist of little more than constantly repeating "Ooh," "Baby," and "I love you." "World of Stone" is a bit of an improvement over these songs, but not so much so to elevate it into one of the album's relatively good songs.
"A Bit More of You" is a 45-second instrumental delivering exactly what the title says--a bit more of "You." At least it provides a short break before launching back into yet another embarrassing uninspired repetitive song, "Can't Stop Thinking About You." I actually like the next two tracks, "Tired of Midnight Blue" and "Grey Cloudy Lies," though not so much so I'd ever count them among George's best songs. There's some really beautiful singing on "Grey Cloudy Lies" in particular, but again, a beautiful voice doesn't cancel out a bad song. The closing track, "His Name Is Legs (Ladies and Gentlemen)," is upbeat and catchy enough in a harmless way, like "You," but just seems really weird and out of place here. Nearly all of the other songs are very slow, sad, and depressing, and to make it even worse, a bunch of them were demos.
In addition to generally crummy uninspired lyrics and melodies (even the guitar-playing is suffering here!), the album is also rather overproduced. Overproduction isn't necessarily a bad thing, but not when it means that the music is drowning out the singer. It also gets really old and annoying when a number of the songs consist of little more than "Ooh-ooh-ooh" over and over again. How could the man who wrote such great songs as "Something," "Here Comes the Sun," "All Things Must Pass," "Who Can See It," and "What Is Life" suddenly put out an album full of such embarrassing far-below-par dreck? He was writing better songs in 1964 and 1965 when he was just getting started as a serious songwriter! Probably the best things about this tired bottom of the barrel album are the bits of quirky tongue-in-cheek humor, the "OHNOTHIMAGEN" caption on one side of the paper sleeve and the fact that the Apple logo isn't a full green apple, but rather, respectively, an eaten apple core and a rotten apple core. I would only recommend this to completists, or people who want a cure for insomnia. |
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