Review: Ringo Starr - Liverpool 8

While the overwhelming majority of people are quick to pass over the musical talent and ever important influence Ringo has had on modern music, I'm one of the people who choose to love him unconditionally and defend him in any "best drummer ever" discussion.

Ringo's a solid musician. His drumming in The Beatles was amazing, despite the fact it may not have been technically extravagant as John Bonham or Ginger Baker. Ringo did one thing better than anyone else did, and that's drum to compliment a song, not to attract attention. Since this post isn't supposed to be just about Ringo, I guess I'll move on to his latest album, Liverpool 8.

I suppose we should start off with the title. While we all know where Liverpool comes from, I think the idea with "8" is that it's a continuous number in the way it is written, thus meaning he wanted to say how Liverpool will always be an important part of his life and never-ending.

His 2005 album, Choose Love, was great. Sadly, I can't say the same about Liverpool 8. It's essentially a watered-down version of Choose Love. There's the same general mood to it, but the tracks just don't match up, and while we all know Ringo is all about "peace and love," that's all he talks about in this album. Four of the tracks on the album have the word "love" in the title, and those that don't are still talking either about peace or love. There's a similar theme to Paul McCartney's Memory Almost Full in which Ringo covers the subject of his mortality and being happy with how his life has gone, but it's just not done with the same genius and grace as Paul did it, though the last track is amazing.

There's some really pleasant tracks in the tracks, and I do enjoy this album, but it just doesn't match up to Choose Love. There's still more to come from Ringo, and I do think he's capable of another epic album, and no, I don't mean Choose Love was epic, so we have an amazing album to look forward to, I think.

If you're a Beatles fan, then I recommend Liverpool 8 just because it's your duty to check it out. However, if you're interested in getting into Ringo's solo career for the first time, I recommend checking out one of his first four albums, or Time Takes Time.

Keep rocking, Ringo.

My rating: 3.5 / 5

No Show This Week, Sports Broadcast...

Sadly, there will be no Audio Fossils show this week due to being preempted by a sports broadcast. I'll be back next week at the regular time.

You can still tune in to the Living End with Lamppost at 10pm for your 80s and 90s underground rock.

Also, you can look forward to this thing being updated more often for more on...provided something noteworthy actually happens.