All Things Must Pass -- George Harrison (1970)

 


By 1970 George Harrison had built up a huge stockpile of songs to draw from for his first post-Beatles album (he had released a couple of albums earlier: the first one Wonderwall is actually a pretty good psychedelic/raga rock record; the second one, Electronic Sound is total shit, an "avant-garde"  rip off that John and Yoko could be proud of: one side is literally taken from an uncopyrighted sample on a Moog synthesizer. He literally just copied it and sold it as some original work.)

Anyway, it turned out, that George Harrison's stockpile of songs was actually very good: so good that he was able to relase a double album with All Things Must Pass, and not only a double album but one of the great double albums of all time, with excellent, tuneful, intelligent songs that go from acoustic soft rock, to country-pop, to Dylan-esque folkish singer-songwriter, (George's friend, Bobby D. in fact wrote or co-wrote a pair of songs here)to straight up pop to pure guitar blaring 70's rock.  

George's voice is limited but he uses it well and this double album is very ambitious, with whole orchestras of musicians that read like a Who's Who in English classic rock. There's a grandly symphonic, but still very much rocking,  feel to much of the album, which is balanced out by stripped back acoustic numbers. Eric Clapton plays guitar, and the entire band of Badfinger plays acoustic guitar, there are often two drummers (Ringo Starr and somebody else), there are choirs and string orchestras  and horns sections and a big echoey expansive sound courtesy of co-producer Phil Spector.

The problem is this double album came with a penalty disc of boring (though good-sounding) instrumental blues jams recorded in Apple Studios. The kind of thing that might be mildly interesting on a super deluxe 50th anniversary reissue, but he made it part of a the original release. Had it been free that might have been OK, but the album was not cheap and was priced as a triple album -- and it still sold bucketloads and was a massive hit, partially because of the quality of the songs, but also because The Beatles were still such an powerful force in 1970, that he probably could have made anything that didn't completely suck a hit. 

The first two discs are definitely a 5/5 and that's pretty much all anybody listens to, so i am quite happy about telling you that if you like The Beatles you'll like All Things Must Pass. But I must not neglect the penalty disc, which brings the overall release down to a 4/5. If you can't listen to a third of a record, you can't really give it a perfect score, can you?

I was born in January 1971, a few months after this album came out. I definitely remember hearing some of these songs in my very, very earliest memories, memories that pre-date my second birthday, even though I don't think my parents had this album (I could be wrong: me and mysiblings destroyed my parents' record collection when I was about 15 by hurling them at each other like frisbees. I still can't believe we did that!!!) 

Spofity link:

https://open.spotify.com/album/4I4xtHaIFOzhZfp1NIHkY6?si=5JzTGxyzSbmp8QZYlqu1VA

I bought a reissued original American master of the CD back in 1994 when I was a cab driver and more recently bought an UK 80s CD. There may be no-noise applied to it, I"m not sure. It sounds all right to me. I've heard the 2010 remaster and the 2020 remix and don't like either of them; apparently the 2010 digital version (lossless) is the best it's ever sounded outside of the original vinyl: however, it's impossible to legally obtain. The 2014 remaster is what's available on Spotify, there's a little digital peak limiting used, but not atrociously so: and I think it's pretty decent.  However, I haven't had a need to really listen to it, just going from reports from others. I'm good with what I've got, I guess.

Note: All This Useless Beauty by Elvis Costelol and the Attractions is supposed to be next up; but I'm skipping it as I haven't yet fully digested the album. Sometime in the future I'll explore it and write about it.

Coming Up:

A.M. Wilco

A.T.O.M. - Carbon Silicon

ABBA - ABBA 

ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits

Abbey Road - The Beatles

Achtung, Baby! U2

Actually - Pet Shop Boys

Adult/Child- The Beach Boys

Aerosmith's Greatest Hits

After The Gold Rush - Neil Young

Afterglow - Crowded House

Aftermath (UK Version) - The Rolling Stones

Against The Odds: 1974-1982 Blondie (three disc version)

Aimee Mann Live at St. Ann's Warehouse

Aiming For Your Head - Betchadupa

The Album -- ABBA

The Album That Never Was - The Kinks

All Four One - The Motels

All Over the Place - The Bangles

All Summer Long -- The Beach Boys

All the Great Hits -- Diana Ross

All Things Must Pass -- George Harrison

All This Useless Beauty -- Elvis Costello & the Attractions

All-Time Greatest Hits - Neil Diamond

Alluvium -- Eddie Rayner

Almost Blue -- Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Almost Summer - Celebration

Alpha Mike Foxtrot -- Wilco*

The Alphabetchadupa - Betchadupa

Altitude - ALT

American Idiot Green Day*

American Prayer -- The Doors

Amnesiac Radiohead*

And I Feel Fine...The Best of the IRS years (1982-1987) - R.E.M.

Animals - Pink Floyd

Anodyne - Uncle Tupelo

Another Life - Another Life

Another Music in Another Kitchen: The Buzzcocks

Another Side of Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan

Anthology: Diana Ross & The Supremes

Anthology: Smokey Robinson & The Beatles

Anthology 1: The Beatles

Anthology 2: The Beatles

Anthology 3 The Beatles

Anthology: North South, East West - Tim Finn

Apple Venus: Volume One -- XTC

Apollo 18 - They Might Be Giants

The ArchAndroid: Janelle Monae

Are the Village Green Preservation Society -- The Kinks

Are Well-Respected Men - The Kinks

Armed Forces -Elvis Costello & The Attractions

Around the World in a Day - Prince

Arthur (or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) - The Kinks

At My Piano - Brian Wilson

Autoamerican - Blondie

Automatic for the People - R.E.M.

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