George Harrison Albums Ranked

One thing I never liked about George was his constant shitting on Beatles. He was an intelligent man. He must have known well that without the Beatles he would be absolute nobody. He would have ended up as a musicians’ favourite session guitarist and occasional author of more or less unsuccessful singles, like all those nice guys on stage on Concert For George. In the best scenario like Ronnie Wood – substitute guitarist in a famous band. Professionals would have loved him, public wouldn´t care so much.

It is really difficult for me to be so harsh on him but I never shared other fans´ enthusiasm for his solo records. I often read how great he was after the Beatles, how successful his career was and how great his solo records are, and how John and Paul can only polish his shoes at best.

Where did this myth that he always produced extra quality records come from? Most of his albums are lifeless, weak, dull and boring, and if they were not signed by his name, no one would be really interested. (I know where it comes from.. from Paul´s haters, of course).

It is very clear on my fantasy Beatles albums, where I really struggled to find at least two good George’s songs for each year. During his Beatles career he was allowed to have only two, sometimes three songs on the LPs. And that was the best thing that John and Paul did for him. It was a big favour. Not to ruin his reputation. Solo George simply never had enough good songs. And that’s why Beatle George sounds so great and solo George so .. not so great.

I was watching a few interesting ranking videos on Youtube and was pleasantly surprised, that we all have pretty much same ranking order. With a few minor differences, of course, but that’s not important. But I was also surprised that all the fans gave even to those bad albums quite big number of stars or percentage or whatever ranking method they use. Six stars for Extra Texture was quite common. And that´s weird, really. And wrong.

It seems that you all are very devoted and grateful fans. And not very critical. Too generous, maybe. Which is nice, of course, but.. 6 out of 10 for the worst albums is pretty much delusion, I think. And very unfair to the other bands and artists. Look, I love him, too, but it doesn’t mean I’m brainwashed.. We can’t accept everything they did just because they are ‘the Beatles‘. They all produced some disgraceful albums that really suck over the years. And George probably most of them. 

So, I´m afraid I will go against the official trend again, same like with my John’s raking. But come on, be honest to yourself. Most of his work after ATMP is rubbish absolutely incomparable to John and Paul´s. Or Krishna forbids to the Beatles. Frankly, I don’t understand at all where both John and George got the audacity to criticize Paul’s songs, that it’s muzak or elevator music. Because George – with a few exceptions – produced nothing else during his solo carreer..

You can make very good best of album, maybe even double from the whole decade but that’s all. And it makes me feel sorry. Because expectation were high. For me George is simply an underachiever! The only good thing on his solo career is, that it was his way. Like he wanted it. Without John and Paul´s mocking and without George Martin´s polishing. And I actually admire that.