Blast From Your Past (1975)
1. You're Sixteen (Your Beautiful and You're Mine) 2. The No No Song 3. It Don't Come Easy 4. Photograph 5. Back of Boogaloo 6. Only You (And You Alone) 7. Beaucoups of Blues 8. Oh My My 9. Early 1970 10.I'm the Greatest
It was inevitable, really. Ringo, never quite the chart juggernaut some may wish to remember him as, nonetheless managed to accrue just enough commercial fodder in the early post-Beatles era to justify a greatest hits compilation. Blast from Your Past, released in 1975, stands as both a celebration and, unintentionally, a full stop. For after this, the hits—such as they were—simply ceased to arrive.
The irony, of course, lies in the album’s title. “Blast” might be overstating it. Of the ten tracks presented, only about half genuinely troubled the upper regions of the charts. The rest? Minor curiosities and pleasant filler from a period where the world still had some room left for the lovable drummer with the hangdog charm.
There’s no denying the appeal of Photograph, co-written with George Harrison, a song of genuine wistful beauty and perhaps the only cut here that could stand tall beside the solo work of his more celebrated ex-bandmates. It Don’t Come Easy, meanwhile, offers up something close to grit, and remains another highlight of his somewhat accidental songwriting legacy.
But there’s little else to cling to. The selections are brief, bordering on stingy, and in retrospect feel less like a retrospective and more like an intermission. The compilation has since been rendered obsolete by Photograph: The Very Best of Ringo Starr, a far more generous affair released decades later that scoops up everything here—and adds a dozen more moments from his sporadic but occasionally inspired later career.
In truth, Blast from Your Past is neither essential nor offensive. It’s a slight bow from a man who had the good fortune of being in the right place at the right time—and knew how to smile while keeping the beat.