Gone Troppo - Harrison, George (CD 1991)

There's just no pleasing some people.

For years, critics and (some) fans had been complaining that George Harrison had grown too dour, too consumed by Eastern mysticism. Nevertheless, he continued to have Top 40 hits throughout the 1970s.

His 1981 release, Somewhere in England, was necessarily somber in parts, due to the fact that it was completed and released in the wake of John Lennon's murder. It, too, was a big hit commercially, but it also seemed to reaffirm the perception that George had lost the cheeky sense of humor that had characterized his years in the Beatles.

But for his 1982 album, "Hari" decided it was time to have fun...and lots of it!

Gone Troppo revels in humor and enthusiasm. It's also as good a piece of pop music, start to finish, as you were likely to find in the early 80s.

And, naturally, it was a total flop.

The critics ripped it apart, suddenly longing for the days of the "serious" George. And the fans stayed away in droves as well...Gone Troppo failed to crack the US Top 100, one of the worst showings for any solo album by the Fab Four.

In fact, the reception which this LP received soured Harrison on recording for years, until his triumphant return with Cloud 9 in 1987.

The real shame is not simply that George created no new music for half a decade, but that the music he crafted for Gone Troppo was so easily dismissed and forgotten. Because this is a darn good pop album!

He pulls together his usual crew of expert sidemen (including Billy Preston) for a string of gems, many of which would have been right at home (and widely lauded by the critics) on any Beatles album.

The title tune is a bouncy calypso romp that borders on Monty Pythonesque silliness; if any song in his catalog dispels the image of George Harrison as a religious stiff, it's this one! (The title is British slang for "crazy from the heat.")

The album's joyous single, "Wake Up My Love," should have been a hit. But reaching the airwaves in the midst of the Era of Reo Speedwagon, Styx, and Loverboy, it was simply too out of step with the times to gain a foothold. Had it been released a few years later...after straight-ahead pop had become cool again on Top 40 radio...it would have found a more receptive audience.

I'm not going to go on and catalog all of the songs on this album. Suffice to say, there really isn't a clinker in the bunch...you'll find something charming about each and every tune!

Gone Troppo, more than any other of his solo records, best captures the sound and energy of the best albums of the Beatles. Perhaps that is what doomed it to near-oblivion; by 1982, society seemed to have forgotten the simple truths which the Beatles had preached, and we were stumbling after more "complex" offerings, most of which left us feeling more lost and empty than before.

Except for those of us who had Gone Troppo on our turntables, that is.