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:: Track list & details
Back in the day, George Harrison took plenty of lumps for his spiritual musings. He also got lambasted when he complained about Lennon and McCartney hogging all the Beatles album tracks with their songs—perhaps rightfully so. Harrison turned out a handful of great tunes in his Beatle years including "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" and "Something" and later on, his solo albums offered gems like "Isn't It A Pity" and "My Sweet Lord." But his melodies generally lacked the sweet hookiness of McCartney's, while his lyrics were nowhere as sharp or biting as Lennon's. He was a good, not great singer, and his solo career ultimately never lived up to the promise of All Things Must Pass.
Harrison's genius was in his less-is-more approach to rock guitar, and it's his playing that still makes Living In The Material World worth a listen. "Give Me Love" is a laid back plea for peace of mind, a bouncy blues tune accented by Harrison's distinctive slide guitar, which combines hints of country swing and Hawaiian sway in its lilting, breathless execution. Harrison called "Sue Me, Sue You Blues" a squaredance tune, and it does have a bit of a country lilt to it, sounding a bit like The Band. But a rock millionaire singing about his legal troubles always seems disingenuous.
With 20/20 hindsight, we know that Harrison's quest for enlightenment was real (though probably complicated by his wealth), but most of the spiritual tunes on Material World lack the joy and fervor of most sacred music, from India's ghazals to the sanctified Gospel singing of the African American church. "The Light That Has Lighted The World," "Who Can See It" and "The Lord Loves The One (That Loves The Lord)" sound preachy, ponderous and a bit smug. The title tune is stronger melodically and has a bit of humor, but again it sounds more like a collection of pious slogans than a song. It's lightened up by Jim Horn's sax noodling and Zakir Hussein's tabla, which is unfortunately mostly buried in the mix, except during the tune's bridge. "Don't Let Me Wait Too Long" has more great slide guitar work, but the tune is slight and the lyric even slighter.
There are two good pop tunes on the album that seldom get mentioned when people talk about Harrison's canon: "Try Some Buy Some' and "That Is All." "Try Some" has a sumptuous Beatle-like melody, a multi-layered Spector-esque arrangement and a lyric that could be talking about loving God or a good woman. In his liner notes, Harrison says "That Is All" is a simple melody with tossed off lyrics, and that simplicity and lack of a higher purpose makes it a winner. Harrison's slide guitar isn't bad either.
This boxed edition includes two bonus tracks: "Deep Blue" a slight, tossed off blues tune and "Miss O'Dell," a goofy country tune that would have brought some much needed humor to the original set. Halfway through the take Harrison starts cracking up when he forgets the lyrics, and his laughter gives the song a light, human touch. The rest of the album could have used some of the levity.
The DVD that's included has four lame videos, the kind of stuff that makes you wonder what the marketing department could have been thinking about. There's a live, poorly shot and pointless rendition of "Give Me Love," as well as versions of "Sue Me Sue You," "Living In The Material World" and "Miss O'Dell" with still images of Harrison's guitar, a pressing plant pumping out the original Living In The Material World set and outtakes of the photo session that produced the banquet photos on the original LP. Any UCLA film school graduate could have done better work. With all of the Harrison video that's probably floating around, there's no excuse for this kind of shoddy production, especially for an artist of Harrison's stature.
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