Did George Harrison have the best solo career of all the Beatles?

I fear that this sales figure was based on his tragic death memorabilia.

 

To me, "So Sad" is a superb and a superbly played song instrumentally. The intertwining guitars (electric and acoustic) are wonderful. BUT George's voice is extremely shot on this take though.

 

Miss me Georgie...BIG TIME

 

I think Paul was on top of the world, with his World Wide Tours (Wings Over America, Wings Over The UK, etc..) in the mid 70’s. Nobody else in the Beatles came close to that!

 

That's an odd argument to make, IMO. Yes, The Beatles were more than the sum of their parts, but that doesn't mean that their solo work is incomplete. Each Beatle created their various solo albums as solo albums, not surrogate Beatles albums, and it's unfair to judge them as if they were just parts that you need to manually interchange with other Beatles solo songs.

I think Ethan Hawke is way off the mark. The problem isn't that Lennon was too pained, or McCartney too trite, or Harrison too spiritual, it was that none of them rarely had a full album's worth of excellent material. When they were a band Lennon and McCartney only had to create about half an album of great material per record, and Harrison had one to three songs. Now they're expected to be the sole authors of a full album's worth of music every time out. And sometimes they did knock it out of the park, but often they had a few misses or filler tracks.

The other big component of it is that each member of the band benefited from the contributions of the other members. Lennon and McCartney were a team even when they weren't explicitly writing a song together, and Harrison also benefited from the aid of his bandmates. That went away with the solo work. Making playlists that mix together songs from their solo albums doesn't make them feel more like The Beatles unless you think The Beatles were three isolated individuals writing in complete isolation from one another and only coming together to record (I'm not including Ringo there because he wrote a whopping two songs for the band).

 

"Wings Over America" was mainly solo material and it's freakin' AWESOME!

Totally disagree with the notion that George had the best solo career. After the sublime "ATMP", his solo work was exceedingly spotty - he doesn't have a single truly strong album other than "ATMP", as all mix some good songs with a lot of meh material/filler.

Paul had the best solo career easily, and John was second. George comes in a distant third...

 

Yup. From 1970 to 2000, George put out 9 studio albums - 11 if you wanna count the Wilbury stuff.

In the same time period, McCartney produced 19 albums...

 

No he didn't, Paul did. (and I would say that even if we only judge it on the years John, Paul, George, and Ringo were all recording). I would say George and John are pretty close for 2nd best solo career.
But you could make the argument that George had the solo career that most exceeded his output during the Beatles (actually his biggest competitor in that category would be Ringo).

 

Yes, even All Things Must Pass has its share of filler IMO, and not just the Apple Jam disc.

 

And as has been pointed out by others (as well as me) over the years, people tend to overlook that the bulk of ATMP was stuff left over from George's Beatles-years writing. Once that was exhausted, his albums became a series of diminishing returns. It seems he needed John and Paul to spur him on to greater material as much as John and Paul needed each other to be at their best.

 

I suspect George had the least "career drive" of John, Paul and George - and he had the least natural songwriting talent. I don't get the impression George became a songwriting because it was what he really wanted to do, but it was more because J&P did it so he felt he should write. A lot of his career comes across that way, like he continued to be a musician because it was expected of him, not because he loved it. (And he needed money.)

I don't mean this to sound as harsh as it probably comes across - I think George was really talented and enjoy plenty of his solo work - but I still believe he just wasn't close to being as good a writer as J&P.

Not being as good as Lennon and McCartney shouldn't be viewed as an insult!

 

I totally agree with you 100%.

 

Totally disagree with most of your disagreements.

WOA is mostly meh, even though some of the versions are better than the studio originals (definitely not Maybe I'm Amazed). I never listen to it anymore though, and rarely did even when it was new--way too many tracks to skip to bother with it.

Brainwashed is as strong, and to me stronger, than any of Lennon's solo albums, so at the very least there is a double album (ATMP) and a single album that totally beat Lennon. Then you have the mix of other great and good songs on the "spotty" albums. I'm hard pressed to put together one single disc of all Lennon solo material I love enough to not get tired of it. It's easy to put together two, or maybe three discs of the best George and Wilbury material. Add in what they both gave to Ringo and the gap between them is still the same with George far out-doing John in quality material.

Paul had the best solo career, but didn't reach as many sublime highs for me, and had way more total trash lows. The sheer output numbers, and overall okay middle ground material tips the scale in his favor. Putting together discs of Paul songs I love wouldn't be that much more, or longer, than a George collection would be for me.

John as a solo artist is a huge disappointment compared to what he contributed to the band. All of his albums (even the best ones) mix a few good songs with a lot of meh material/filler.

John is the distant third in the solo assessment. In some ways he may even be fourth. These days I get more enjoyment out of the best solo Ringo material than I do most of John's solo output... Meat City excepted of course.

 

Staying just from the solo output angle, I think people get caught up in the differences of singing ability and lyric content to either hail or slog either side under the pretense of solo songwriting ability. People don't care for George's preaching, or sometimes awkward shoe-horned lyrics when he's trying to get a message across. George isn't as good of a natural singer as John was. But that doesn't equate that George was somehow the lessor songwriter in their solo careers. John had tons of terrible solo lyrics too, and political preaching. If you look at song structures, chording, melody, harmony, and musicianship, George even when he didn't seem to be trying to stay in the music industry far surpasses the quality John was producing in his solo career.

This spin that George wasn't "close" to being as good of a songwriter as John in the solo years is as ridiculous as it is wrong. John was a great songwriter when he was in The Beatles. John was coasting on his reputation once he left. Same can be said that some of John's strongest solo material were left-overs from Beatle days, like Jealous Guy. When you listen to the boots of John composing songs there sure isn't much natural songwriting talent evident. They all sound very amateur and a struggle to put anything together that is even remotely usable... but that's the way you guys try to categorize George's songwriting.

 

This is the definition of "fighting words"!

 

haha. I knew that would wake you up.

 

Watch out - calling "WOA" "meh" can get you killed on the streets! You're lucky I'm a kind-hearted gentleman!

 

Yeah but Macca and George couldn't have done this....

 

And it's Boogie not Boooooogie, ya Randy Scouse Git Walls And Bridges baby. What a great album!!!

 

And singing "his little Scouse heart out". What a Rock voice!!!'

 

I truly love George and he occupies a very special place in my heart, but he simply wasn't productive enough from the early 80's onward to warrant such a claim. I LOVE several of his albums, and really like most of the rest; I can totally dig "Gone Troppo," for example. That said, Paul has to get the nod. He has a greater body of work just from the sheer amount of it, which has given him more opportunities to create awesome tunes. I can say with all of my heart that all four of them offered lots of special moments as solo artists. Like nearly everyone, I wish John and George were still around; maybe both would have had productive late career runs like Ringo, who has made some very memorable and enjoyable music in his post-sobriety years. I still want to hear all of the music George recorded at FPSHOT.

 

Right there despite Spector ! My favorite Beatle, Wings member and solo, is Paul though.

 

Yep.

 

Great read all you Gentlemen