Hi all, I just wanted to share a recent project I just put up: johnpaulgeorgeringoplaylists.com Its a site linking to playlists I made that combine solo recordings by the ex-Beatles into a few thematically-cohesive (hopefully) compilations.
While the ex-Beatles made some truly wonderful solo albums, I feel that they each have a “single flavor” that is diminished by the lack of their ex-bandmates sensibilities.
And as a bonus, I designed some album covers for each compilation.
If you’re interested, I’d love to hear your feedback (Though I think you’ll unfortunately need a Spotify membership to hear the full version of each song uninterrupted.)
Thank you! Creating the album art was at least half the joy for me.
While a lot of album art can be nothing more than “cool graphics,” I tried really hard to evoke the thematic tone of the compilation in a visual manner.
For example, John’s “political” album, Some Time in New York City based the album art on the NYT newspaper design.
Likewise, the single sleeve art for George’s Bangla Desh pulled real headlines from actual papers.
So since Bangla Desh and several songs from Some Time were included in my Gimmie Some Truth playlist, I thought it fitting to use the same motif. Except I used The London Times as a model (back in the 70s, The Times masthead didn’t include the current lion & unicorn art).
The photo I used was of Bernadette Devlin, since some of the themes focused in the compilation include Irish independence and feminism.
And then added some worn edges and blood spatter to convey the provocative nature of some of these songs.
And that’s way more than anybody asked about my process .
Just curious, why so many songs on each album? Don’t get me wrong, the more the merrier, but if your goal was to create “what might have been” albums, why not the more standard number?
What is your spotify profile name? I can’t seem to open the playlists from my phone’s browser to the spotify app. Can’t find the playlists in search. I’m probably doing something wrong.
Strictly speaking, the goal wasn’t to create “what might have been” — which is why I tend to refer to these as compilations rather than albums. While I do call them “alt-history” to communicate the concept, they are more deliberately compilations that would fit on CDs (or in the case of Rock Show, a double CD).
I actually did create a set that:
much more strictly adheres to the length of 2 sides of an LP,
on a release schedule that reflects what the Beatles were averaging, limiting myself only to songs that were released by the time the LP (or EP) would have been released, and
was a little more judicious about holding to the artist ratio from the Beatle years — though I even fudged that a little, trying to equalize John and Paul’s output and bumping George up from 2 tracks to 3, while Ringo stayed at 1.
If that’s more your jam, you can try them out here:
This was my best effort to date at simulating “what would have been.”
Ultimately, to my ear, the 6 compilations hold together better, have a better listening experience than the 9 LP/EP releases/ The six compilations do a better job at maintaining a cohesive theme and tone, wheras the 9 releases tend to feel more like collections of songs without much rhyme or reason. And lastly, if the idea is to listen to a simulated Beatles experience in 2023, why chop it up into more pieces than necessary? I think the thematic treatment helps glue together the differences in production values from artist to artist and also provides a kind of meta-textual arc as you listen to each successive compilation.
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