 George Harrison The Best of Dark Horse compilation does its best to argue that George Harrison's later solo career was full of unfortunately neglected moments of brilliance, but for the most part I'd say it gives you a good idea of why people stopped buying Harrison's albums after awhile, but without making you sit through the entirety of albums like 33 1/3 and Gone Troppo (the latter being one of the easiest punchlines in Beatle history; if I'm not mistaken it remains the lowest selling release by any solo Beatle – and I'll include Julian in that – hell, I'll even include Billy Preston). Culled mainly from those albums along with George Harrison, Somewhere in England, and Cloud Nine, the CD also includes three new tracks (sadly, some of his last material before dyin' of the cancer). There are no big discoveries on the disc, no "Wow! That's a great song! I can't believe I never heard that before!" types of songs. The Lennon tribute "All Those Years Ago" is still a great listen, and the Jimmy Buffett-esque "Gone Troppo" is surprisingly good. From there you sort of have to adjust your definition of "good" – no track is awful (although "Wake Up My Love" does not benefit from the Frank Stallone/Flashdance synth lines), but at best these songs are merely pleasant. George was hardly pushing himself to the limit in the late 70s, and you're only going to get a certain level of quality by throwing a former Beatle in the studio with a bunch of California session musicians (as much as George and Ringo tried this approach, time and time again it proved predictably boring). The standout tracks are the ones from Cloud Nine ("Got My Mind Set on You," "When We Was Fab," "Cloud Nine") and the new tracks are decent ("Poor Little Girl," "Cockamamie Business," and "Cheer Down" – the last of which being about as good as a song can be coming from the Lethal Weapon franchise). If I had to pick a favorite among the pre-1987 tracks, I'd take "Crackerbox Palace," mainly because I enjoy using that one as a punchline whenever someone sincerely brings up the topic of "Best solo Beatle song ever." Not a bad disc, but not one I ever listen to. I'd wager it's still more interesting than, say, Beck's Mutations. Beatle fans will of course love it, because they're too much of pussies to ever call a spade a spade. "No, Ringo's Rotogravure is seriously a very underrated album!!!" Sure, and Caveman was a triumph of modern cinema.
Review by Penny Oat-Groat |