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George Harrison - The Best Of George Harrison
Wikipedia:
The Best of George Harrison is a 1976 compilation album by English musician George Harrison, released following the expiration of his EMI-affiliated Apple Records contract. Uniquely among all the four Beatles' solo releases, it mixes a selection of the artist's Beatles-era songs on one side, with later hits recorded under his own name on the other. The song selection caused some controversy, since it underplayed Harrison's solo achievements during the 1970–75 period, for much of which he had been viewed as the most successful ex-Beatle, artistically and commercially. Music critics have also noted the compilation's failure to provide a faithful picture of Harrison's contribution to the Beatles' work, due to the omission of any of his Indian music compositions. In a calculated move by EMI and its American subsidiary, Capitol Records, the compilation was issued during the same month as Harrison's debut on his Warner-distributed Dark Horse label, Thirty Three & 1/3.
The Best of George Harrison peaked at number 31 on the US Billboard 200 chart and was certified gold by the RIAA in February 1977, but the album failed to chart in Britain. It is the first of three Harrison compilation albums, and was followed by 1989's Best of Dark Horse 1976–1989 and the posthumous Let It Roll: Songs by George Harrison, in 2009. The album was issued on CD in 1990 featuring the cover artwork from the original British release, rather than the artwork created in-house by Capitol and used in the majority of territories internationally in 1976. The album has yet to be remastered since 1990. The Best of George Harrison remains the only official CD release to contain Harrison's 1971 charity single "Bangla Desh".
Review:
Released just after George left Apple for his own Dark Horse label (and appearing in stores just in time for the Christmas season of 1976), The Best of George Harrison neatly splits into a side of Harrison solo hits and a side of his Beatles tunes. This is the only solo Beatles hits compilation to rely so heavily upon Fab Four recordings, which is a good indication of how George didn't rack up as many charting singles as John, Paul, or Ringo, but having the Beatles tunes here does paint a fuller portrait of Harrison's work as a singer/songwriter, even if it makes the collection somewhat less useful -- after all, most listeners would want a George Harrison compilation to focus on his solo recordings, not the Beatles' hits they already have. But all this is down to a matter of timing and circumstance: Harrison needed to have a hits collection out in 1976, he didn't have enough big hits to fill out 13 tracks (even if he certainly had enough great album tracks to do so), and so the Fabs were brought in to fill in the cracks. The result might be a little underwhelming in retrospect, but it's undeniably entertaining.
Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
Track List:
Side One / The Beatles
A1 Something (From the album Abbey Road-1969)
A2 If I Needed Someone (From the album Rubber Soul-1966)
A3 Here Comes The Sun (From the album Abbey Road-1969)
A4 Taxman (From the album Revolver-1966)
A5 Think For Yourself (From the album Rubber Soul-1966)
A6 For You Blue (From the album Let It Be-1970)
A7 While My Guitar Gently Weeps (From the album The Beatles-1968)
Side Two / George Harrison
B1 My Sweet Lord (From the album All Things Must Pass-1970)
B2 Give Me Love (From the album Living In Material World-1973)
B3 You (From the album Extra Texture-1975)
B4 Bangla Desh (Single-1971)
B5 Dark Horse (From the album Dark Horse-1974)
B6 What Is Life (From the album All Things Must Pass-1970)
Summary:
Country: UK
Genre: Rock
Media Report:
Source : Vinyl
Format : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec, 24-bit PCM
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 5612 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 32 bits (float)
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