There’s no way to make up for great chemistry in a band.
The best part of any great album is hearing many musicians communicating with each other using no words, to the point where the music almost carries them through some of their tunes. But when some think they can work independently, there comes a point where people like Ringo Starr start to go too far in a couple of places.
Sentimental Journey – Ringo Starr
By the time The Beatles announced their breakup, it was only a matter of time before solo album talk started happening. There were already strange experiments made by John Lennon and George Harrison, but now that they were free to work on whatever they wanted, everyone was curious about what the Fab Four could sound like when left to their own devices. One band member had to rip the bandage off first, and while Paul McCartney officially announced it, Ringo Starr was the first one to release an outright dog.
Because out of all the directions that Starr could have taken, easy listening was not the way to go. This might have been made as a way to work around Starr’s lack of songwriting chops, but for a genre that’s focused on bringing in fantastic singers like Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, Starr isn’t anywhere near that level of proficiency, to the point where the music seems to be drowning him out most of the time.
He would fare much better when he got some help from his friends and when making country albums like Beaucoup of Blues, but it’s no surprise that Lennon was embarrassed on his bandmates’ behalf. The sky was the limit when the band were together, but Starr’s vain attempt to channel his inner crooner wasn’t going to work any better than when he decided to go disco in the 1970s.