Gone Troppo
Gone Troppo | ||||
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FPSHOT (Oxfordshire) | ||||
Genre | pop rock, new wave, synth-pop | |||
Length | 39:07 | |||
Label | Dark Horse | |||
Producer | ||||
George Harrison chronology | ||||
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Singles from Gone Troppo | ||||
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Gone Troppo is the tenth studio album by the English rock musician
With Harrison uninterested in the contemporary music scene and unwilling to promote the release, Gone Troppo failed to chart in the United Kingdom, and it was his only post-Beatles studio album not to chart inside the top 20 in the United States.[1] For the next five years, he largely took an extended hiatus from his music career, with only the occasional soundtrack recording surfacing.
Background
By the early 1980s, Harrison had been finding the current musical climate alienating. His previous studio album
Artwork
The album's artwork was credited to
Release
Gone Troppo was issued on
"Wake Up My Love" and "
In 2004, Gone Troppo was remastered and reissued, both separately from and as part of the deluxe box set The Dark Horse Years 1976–1992. The reissue added a demo version of "Mystical One" as its sole bonus track.
Critical reception
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [3] |
The Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [4] |
Mojo | [5] |
The Music Box | [6] |
Rolling Stone (1983) | [7] |
Rolling Stone (2004) | [8] |
Uncut | [9] |
Among contemporary reviews, Billboard said of Gone Troppo: "Harrison's sunny lyricism shines brightest when least encumbered by self-consciousness, and here that equation yields a breezy, deceptively eclectic charmer."[10] People magazine's reviewer wrote: "Because of his forays into the mystical, Harrison's penchant for whimsy often gets overlooked. But here the zany side gets no short shrift." The reviewer admired "lovelies" such as "Wake Up My Love" and "Dream Away", and described Gone Troppo as a "vinyl postcard" offering "flashes of brilliance".[11]
Less impressed, Steve Pond of Rolling Stone said that, of late, Harrison had "made a much better movie financier than musician", and he found the album "So offhand and breezy as to be utterly insubstantial", with "Wake Up My Love" the only song of note.[7] Writing for Musician, Roy Trakin considered that, in the wake of Lennon's assassination two years before, Harrison's "tortured honesty … dooms this record's attempt to heal those psychic wounds with calm, offhanded music". Trakin admired some of the guitar playing on the album but concluded: "It's too bad the public won't forget George Harrison was a Beatle. His musical output will undoubtedly suffer by comparison until we do."[12]
Reviewing more recently for AllMusic, critic William Ruhlmann writes of Gone Troppo: "Clearly, Harrison could no longer treat his musical career as a part-time stepchild to his interests in car racing and movie producing if he wanted to maintain it. As it turned out, he didn't; this was his last album for five years."[3] Writing in the 2004 edition of The Rolling Stone Album Guide, Mac Randall opined: "The dynamic, synth-driven 'Wake Up My Love' opens Gone Troppo and the spooky 'Circles' (yet another lost Beatles song) closes it, but there ain't much in between."[13]
More impressed, Dave Thompson wrote in Goldmine magazine of its standing as the release that preceded Harrison's temporary retirement from music: "to accuse the album itself of hastening that demise is grossly unfair." While conceding that it was a far from essential Harrison album, Thompson considered it to be "no worse than much of [Paul] McCartney's period output" and opined that "Dream Away" and "Circles" "stand alongside any number of Harrison's minor classics".[14]
Kit Aiken of Uncut describes Gone Troppo as "a return to form of sorts" after Somewhere in England and a collection of "amiable, light-hearted music made by a bunch of mates with nothing to prove".[9] In another favourable 2004 assessment, for Rolling Stone, Parke Puterbaugh wrote: "Gone Troppo might just be Harrison's most underrated album … [It] captures Harrison at his most relaxed and playful on songs such as the title track."[15]
Track listing
All songs written and composed by George Harrison, except where noted.
Side one
- "Wake Up My Love" – 3:34
- "That's the Way It Goes" – 3:34
- "I Really Love You" (Leroy Swearingen) – 2:54
- "Greece" – 3:58
- "Gone Troppo" – 4:25
Side two
- "Mystical One" – 3:42
- "Unknown Delight" – 4:16
- "Baby Don't Run Away" – 4:01
- "Dream Away" – 4:29
- "Circles" – 3:46
Bonus track Gone Troppo was remastered and reissued in 2004 with the bonus track:
- "Mystical One" (demo version) – 6:02
Personnel
- , backing vocals, production
- Ray Cooper – percussion, marimba, glockenspiel, electric piano, sound effects, production
- synthesiser bass
- Henry Spinetti – drums (1–6, 10)
- Herbie Flowers – bass
- Billy Preston – organ, piano, keyboards, synthesizer, backing vocals
- Jim Keltner – percussion, drums
- Joe Brown– mandolin, backing vocals (6)
- Dave Mattacks – drums (9)
- Alan Jones – bass (9)
- Neil Larsen – piano (7)
- Gary Brooker – synthesizer (7)
- Willie Weeks – bass (7)
- Jon Lord – synthesizer (10)
- Willie Greene – backing vocals, bass voice
- Bobby King – backing vocals
- Vicki Brown– backing vocals
- Pico Pena – backing vocals
- Syreeta– backing vocals
- Sarah Ricor – backing vocals
- Rodina Sloan – backing vocals
- Phil McDonald – production
- Legs Larry Smith– art direction, design
Chart positions
Chart | Position |
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Canadian RPM Albums Chart[16] | 98 |
Norwegian VG-lista Albums Chart[17] | 31 |
US Billboard 200[18] | 108 |
References
- ISBN 1-4234-0609-5), p. 321fn.
- ISBN 0-615-11724-4), p. 463.
- ^ a b Ruhlmann, William. "Gone Troppo – George Harrison: Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 13 March 2013. Retrieved 10 March 2013.
- ISBN 0-19-531373-9), p. 158.
- ^ a b John Harris, "Beware of Darkness", Mojo, November 2011, p. 83.
- ^ a b John Metzger, "George Harrison The Dark Horse Years (Part Four: Gone Troppo)" Archived 14 August 2014 at the Wayback Machine, The Music Box, vol. 11 (5), May 2004 (retrieved 14 August 2014).
- ^ a b Pond, Steve (17 February 1983). "Gone Troppo | Album Reviews". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 24 March 2014. Retrieved 10 March 2013.
- ^ "George Harrison – Gone Troppo CD Album" > "Product Description", CD Universe/Muze (retrieved 21 December 2014).
- ^ a b Kit Aiken, "All Those Years Ago: George Harrison The Dark Horse Years 1976–1992", Uncut, April 2004, p. 118.
- ^ "Top Album Picks", Billboard, 20 November 1982, p. 64 (retrieved 15 July 2015).
- ^ "Picks and Pans Review: Gone Troppo". People. 24 January 1983. Archived from the original on 27 December 2013. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
- ^ Roy Trakin, "George Harrison: Gone Troppo", Musician, January 1983; available at Rock's Backpages Archived 20 July 2015 at the Wayback Machine (subscription required).
- ISBN 0-7432-0169-8), p. 368.
- ^ Dave Thompson, "The Music of George Harrison: An album-by-album guide", Goldmine, 25 January 2002, p. 53.
- ^ Parke Puterbaugh, "By George", Rolling Stone, 3 April 2004, p. 68.
- ^ "Top Albums/CDs – Volume 37, No. 17". RPM. 11 December 1982. Archived from the original (PHP) on 26 December 2013. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
- ^ "norwegiancharts.com George Harrison – Gone Troppo" (ASP). Archived from the original on 4 November 2011. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
- ^ "allmusic ((( Gone Troppo > Charts & Awards > Billboard Albums )))". AllMusic. Retrieved 18 December 2013.
External links
- Gone Troppo at Discogs (list of releases)
- Gone Troppo at MusicBrainz (list of releases)