Y Not (2010)


 

  1. Fill in the Blanks
  2. Peace Dream
  3. The Other Side of Liverpool
  4. Walk With You
  5. Time
  6. Everyone Wins
  7. Mystery of the Night
  8. Can't Do It Wrong
  9. Y Not
  10.Who's Your Daddy

 

When an artist such as Ringo Starr releases a new album around his seventieth birthday, the temptation is to offer kind words out of sheer admiration. After all, the man still sounds astonishingly youthful—his voice seemingly frozen somewhere around 1975—and the fact that he’s still writing, recording, and touring is, in itself, remarkable. But musical merit must prevail over sentimentality, and unfortunately, Y Not is Ringo’s most uninspired release in over three decades.

To the casual listener—perhaps someone who hasn’t heard a solo Ringo album since Ringo in 1973—this record might seem perfectly serviceable: harmless, cheerful, and lightly nostalgic. But for the handful of devoted fans who’ve followed him through the creative resurgence that began with 1992’s Time Takes Time, this album marks a notable regression.

Gone are The Roundheads, the loyal songwriting and studio partners who had helped shape his strongest run of solo work since the early '70s. In their place is a rotating cast of collaborators and guest stars, a return to the more scattershot approach of his earlier efforts. Ringo also takes on production duties for the first time, and while one admires the initiative, the result is an album that suffers from a lack of cohesion. There’s no real throughline—just a series of songs pulling in different directions, none particularly anchored.

Still, there are bright spots. Chief among them is Walk With You, a long-anticipated duet with Paul McCartney. There’s undeniable charm in hearing these two voices together again, and the track boasts a memorable chorus that shines despite the muddled production. Similarly, Mystery of the Night, with strong contributions from Richard Marx, feels like a lost ballad from a better album. And Peace Dream stands as one of Ringo’s better recent efforts—earnest, melodic, and unmistakably Beatle-esque in sentiment.

But these highlights are too often eclipsed by weaker material. The Other Side of Liverpool revisits the same autobiographical territory as Liverpool 8—a song that was itself barely salvageable—and somehow manages to offer even clunkier lyrics. One begins to wonder if the well of Merseyside nostalgia might, at last, be dry. Y Not, the song, is a meandering affair that adds little to the proceedings, and the closing track, Who’s Your Daddy—a duet whose guest vocalist is as forgettable as the song itself—feels more like a misjudged studio jam than a finished piece of music.

One cannot fault Ringo for trying something different. At seventy, he’s still searching for relevance in an industry that rarely extends second (or seventh) chances. The instinct to shake up the formula is understandable. But the result here is a collection that, while occasionally charming, is largely uneven and ultimately forgettable.

You want to root for him—you always do. But Y Not is the rare Ringo album that even his most forgiving fans may struggle to spin more than once.


Go back to the main page
Go to the next Review