Dark Horse (1974)
1. Hari's on Tour (Express)
2. Simply Shady
3. So Sad
4. Bye Bye Love
5. Maya Love
6. Ding Dong, Ding Dong
7. Dark Horse
8. Far East Man
9. It is "He" (Jai Sri Krishna)
 
Quite possibly the worst solo album of
any member of The Beatles. What's really sad is that it sounds like
that just might be the intention - or at least that George wasn't really
going to do anything to improve it while he was in the studio.
It must be stated that back in the time, record albums weren't
necessarily always produced with the idea that they would be around
forever. In many cases they were looked at as dispensable, or in this
case, an excuse to go on tour. The whole album is belittled by bad
songwriting, bad performances, bad ideas, bad concepts and even bad
singing. George sounds on some songs that he's fighting a bad cold and
needs to go back to bed. Many years later, no artist nor record company
would dare think about recording an album where the singer can't
even sing.
It's been well documented that Harrison was heavily into Eastern
Mysticism throughout his solo career, and the early seventies seemed to
be when he was in it the deepest. That shouldn't necessarily be a
determent though, when you consider that we were inflicted by this same
message on his first two solo albums. No, the problem here is that
everyone sounds as if they're going through the motions. The very first
track, Hari's on Tour (Express) is a prime example of things
starting off very wrong. This is an instrumental track that doesn't
sound like it should be an instrumental track. In other words,
it sounds like the vocals were removed after the song was completed.
It's not too difficult to imagine why since the vocals that are on the album
are so poor. What's the real tragedy is that this song
ends up being the best thing on the album.
It's debatable what the worst thing on the album is. There are
so many prime contenders. My vote would have to be for the atrocious,
almost unrecognizable cover of Bye Bye Love which actually
features backing vocals from his ex wife - along with Eric Clapton - the
man she ran off with in the first place. O.K., well, at least
George was demonstrating his forgiving nature.
It also probably didn't help that he produced the album by himself. Had
he had a professional person behind the controls, such as a Phil
Spector, maybe the songs could have come across as slightly better.
Maybe.
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