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George Harrison - Brainwashed (Capitol)

In 1981, John Lennon’s final album, “Double Fantasy,” won a Grammy award for best album of 1980, and was lavished with critical praise and commercial success. It was an interesting study in how we react to the sudden death of a beloved musical figure when they have a new album out, because just before Lennon died, the album was being received with mixed reviews. The cynical mind might be tempted to say that the praise for the album, pleasant though the music may have been, was actually misplaced praise for the more substantial body of work Lennon left behind, and for Lennon himself.

Is the situation any different with the final, posthumous release of George Harrison’s “Brainwashed?” From reading review after glowing review, one would have to conclude that it is not. True, “Brainwashed” does contain some very good music--the near-majestic beauty of “Marwa Blues” and the happy-go-lucky cover of “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea” are the two most obvious examples--and had Harrison lived to see its release, he no doubt would have won a degree of praise merely for releasing his first solo album album in 15 years. However, with the likes of Rolling Stone comparing “Brainwashed” to Harrison’s masterpiece, “All Things Must Pass,” it is clear that the rush to overpraise the recently departed is a practice that most music critics find difficult to avoid.

Judging the album solely on its merits, there is indeed much to like about “Brainwashed.” Harrison’s signature slide guitar, which has always been nothing short of classy, is featured prominently throughout the album (the aforementioned instrumental “Marwa Blues” seems almost a love-letter to his abilities with the slide), and the lyrics, for the most part, read like poignant musings on the nature of life, death, and the inevitability of moving between the two. “Never Get Over You,” a dreamy, Lennon-esque ballad, is a straight love song to Harrison’s wife, while “Any Road” seems to sum up Harrison’s Eastern philosophies with the chorus “And if you don’t know where you’re going/ Any road will take you there.”

Considering that Harrison knew he was facing down cancer when much of this material was written, it is overly tempting to interpret lyrics to mean that the singer knew he was dying. That may, in fact, be the case, such as on “”Run So Far,” which features lines like “”Lonely days, blue guitar/ There’s no escape can only run so far.” Other lyrics seem to not deal with death so much as they deal with Harrison’s views about the interesting state of the world. The final song on the album, “Brainwashed,” rallies against all the different ways that those at the top perpetuate their power over the rest of society, in a way that recalls Lennon’s “Working Class Hero.” Lennon, however, beat Harrison to the punch 30 years ago, and he did a better job of it.

As strong as the lyrics and the production can be, it should be pointed out that there are no particularly powerful tracks. As a whole, the album makes its point as a final musical statement from a musician to his audience, but as a collection of mostly breezy songs, there are no melodies that can stand alongside Harrison’s earlier triumphs. While fans will always remember “Here Comes The Sun,” “Beware of Darkness,” “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” and even the cover of “Got My Mind Set On You,” the 12 songs on “Brainwashed” are too similar to each other to really take hold. While many critics are arguably justified in stating that this is the strongest album by an ex-Beatle since Paul McCartney’s “Flowers in the Dirt” in 1989, one must also keep in mind that only Ringo Starr and McCartney have been releasing mixed-bag albums since that time, anyway.

Ultimately, had Harrison lived to release “Brainwashed,” we’d be left with an album that would have been judged as pleasant, but not as excellent. Since he has died, we might go overboard in saying that it is a masterpiece. It is not. But, as a musical goodbye to those of us that love his earlier work, it’s a nice reminder of what--and who--we’re missing.