It’s at this point that we’ve really each the end of the road in being able to draw one-to-one comparisons between the ex-Beatles albums. John and Paul who were so divergent in the last round are no longer even in the same arena anymore. For one thing John drops out of the limelight completely, releasing no music for five years, and not even making much (although there are a handful of demos from this period). Paul on the other hand, makes Wings a ubiquitous commercial presence, churning out popular and catchy tunes that do sometimes threaten the milquetoast realms of Barry Mannilow and John Denver. George no longer feels much of a compulsion to try and prove himself to his former band-mates and relaxes into putting out a slickly produced, if halfhearted album whenever he feels like it. And he doesn’t feel like it very often any more. Ringo keeps trying to keep himself busy and recapture the glory years of Ringo, but nobody pays him much mind these days.
Ironically enough, this final parting of ways between the ex-Beatles coincides with the ending of their record contract with Apple/EMI/Capitol. Whether this is a coincidence or not is hard to say, but it does make a good demarcation point. While there would be a few good albums after this point, for the most part their glory years are behind them. All four of their best albums (Plastic Ono Band, Ram, All Things Must Pass, and Ringo) come from their first few years following their departure from the Beatles.
In fact the closest you have to any sort of comparable albums are the four greatest-hits compilations that Capitol issued to squeeze one last buck out of each ex-Beatles expiring contracts. While Paul had more than enough hit material to fill a double-album, Wings’ Greatest was streamlined into a single disc, even if it meant leaving a few big singles off of there. John didn’t have nearly as many big “hits” but he did have to edit almost every song in order to fit all of his single A-sides up to this point (except for Stand By Me) onto the single-disc of Shaved Fish. There’s interesting and unique mixes on that compilation in order to get everything to fit. Ringo’s Blast From Your Past, on the other hand had plenty of room barely clocking in at over half-an-hour. While that might seem a trifle insulting, it’s not as bad as The Best Of George Harrison, who didn’t even get a whole album of solo hits as Side One is a collection of his biggest songs he wrote and recorded with the Beatles. Everything about this album, from the uncreative title to the shoddy artwork, shows how little faith Capitol had in George’s catalog. Of course, the title of Paul’s compilation wasn’t much better – but the inclusion of such non-Wings songs as Another Day and Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey on something titled Wings’ Greatest shows how much of a farce the idea of Wings being an actual band was by the late seventies. For some reason, despite having the most quantifiable commercial success, Paul was the last of the four to be featured in a compilation of this sort.
The second half of the seventies creates something of a dilemma for continuing this though experiment. Without anything usable from Lennon at the time, how do you really round out, even out, or fill up these playlists? There’s some good material from this time period, but for the most part it doesn’t really relate to each other. It’s easiest just to skip these years, and go to what will sadly be the finale in 1980, but let’s take a few moments to appreciate what Paul, George, and even Ringo were doing while John was busy playing househusband.
Paul followed up Venus & Mars by thanking the rest of Wings by making his most concerted effort yet to give the appearance that this was an egalitarian band. At The Speed Of Sound features two songs sung by Denny Laine, as well as songs by guitarist Jimmy McCulloch, drummer Joe English, and wife, Linda. Wings thanked Paul for this spotlight by once again abandoning him on the eve of recording a new album. For London Town, not only were Wings reduced to the same power trio that made Band On The Run, but they also decided to record the album at least partially in an exotic locale, choosing a yacht in the virgin islands rather than a studio in Lagos, Nigeria. Unfortunately, the same Band On The Run lightning did not strike twice, so even though the album sold okay, it was not quite the hit (commercially or critically) that Paul was hoping for.
After the somewhat soft rock of London Town, Paul decided to once again try to reconstitute Wings and this time try to show those young whippersnappers who was really punk. While Back To The Egg is one of my all-time favorite McCartney albums, it went over about as well as one expect an attempt at punk rock by Paul McCartney would. Of course, it didn’t help that at the same time he was doing this, Paul also recorded and released Goodnight Tonight, a single that attempts to cash in on the whole disco craze, even after Ringo the 4th had definitively proved that Beatles and disco don’t mix.
While the title Ringo the 4th seems to imply that this was another attempt to recreate the winning formula of Ringo, the album is actually a bit different from those three. First off, there’s the obvious disco sound from producer Arif Mardin. Plus there are no contributions from John, Paul, or George here. In fact six of the ten songs (plus the B-side Just A Dream) were all written by Ringo and Vini Poncia, the rest of the album being covers. Unfortunately the album looked like a blatant cash grab, and when it failed to meet its objective, it was derided rather harshly. Vini then stepped up to produce Ringo’s next record, Bad Boy. It featured only two new Starkey/Poncia originals with a bunch of covers and a yacht rock sound that did Ringo’s limited vocals no favors. These two albums are frequently seen as the low ebb of Ringo’s career, proving that Ringo was a fluke and every attempt to copy thereafter was simply diminishing returns.
George also returned to the more slickly produced arena, with the far more polished and upbeat Thirty-Three & 1/3. While it is not nearly as rough-hewn as either Dark Horse or Extra Texture, it is not nearly as memorable either. It is a pleasant album, with a couple of minor hits like Crackerbox Palace and This Song, George’s response to the whole My Sweet Lord plagiarism trial. Much like Try Some, Buy Some on Living In The Material World or You from Extra Texture some of the best songs on here originated during the All Things Must Pass sessions. At least this time George actually re-recorded Woman Don’t You Cry For Me and Beautiful Girl instead of merely replacing Ronnie Spector’s vocals.
Harrison then realized that he neither wanted nor needed to put out an album every year, so he took his time creating his self-titled follow-up. Much like the last album, George Harrison is slick and polished and somewhat unremarkable. He did score another minor hit with the breezy Blow Away, while resurrecting the White Album outtake Not Guilty and penning another sequel to a Beatles hit, Here Comes The Moon. While George doesn’t seem as tortured during these years as he did on the Dark Horse tour, you also get the impression that he doesn’t really care much about making albums anymore and is mostly doing it out of habit.
In fact in general, these years for the ex-Beatles is a lot of MOR soft rock, with the best stuff being failed experiments to ride on the coattails of whatever fad was popular at the time. Without the somewhat withering and bitter judgments of John Lennon, the rest of the Beatles have slid into complacency. This would get worse in the eighties and beyond, but the second half of the seventies were not a great time for fans of the ex-Beatles. No wonder John was being seen as a reclusive savior during this period, whose comeback would surely set everything right again.