July 12, 1998

Vertical Man

John and Paul trotted out some passable tunes, but, let's face it, Ringo was the real visionary talent in The Beatles....

2 / 10 JOHN AND PAUL TROTTED out some passable tunes, but, let's face it, Ringo was the real visionary talent in The Beatles. As early as 1965 he was making a drumkit sound like slapping a brick with a wet haddock, singing like he'd swallowed a blender, creating the concept of the Personality Drummer, thereby inventing Pavement 30 years before their time. Yet he was also cruelly mocked, allowed to sing only on novelty songs about submarines and octopuses and how he might just about get through the song with the help of his more talented Beatle pals. Cheers.

Time for amends, then. On Ringo's first solo album in six years, the Megastar Mates trot out and pay their dues to this mercurial talent. Paul, George, Brian Wilson, Tom Petty, Ozzy Osbourne and Alanis Morissette all squeak reverentially and KABAM! IT ROCKS LIKE THE '60S RESURRECTED, RIGHT?

Nope, it rocks like a pub emptying. Like all the recent efforts from the surviving Fabs, 'Vertical Man' is an ultra-thin attempt to emulate his '60s glory days using that bollocks Traveling Wilburys sound that Jeff Lynne concocted as a passionless, monochrome facsimile of What The Beatles Might Have Sounded Like, packed with songs about how great Ringo was when he was in The Beatles. Hence, 'La De Da' is a shit 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da', 'I'm Yours' is a shit 'Golden Slumbers' and 'Love Me Do' is a shit... oh bugger it.

"Everybody's movin'/ Everybody's groovin'/Goin' thru the motions 'cos we don't know what we're doin'", Ringy sings on 'I Was Walkin'', a shit 'Oh Darling' about being in The Beatles. Ey oop.