George Harrison
Extra Texture (Read All About It)

THE REVIEW

One more, one more LP and then George Harrison would be free from EMI's golden cage. The contract with the major label required six solo albums from the guitarist, and in '75 the ex-Beatle was determined to part ways with the record company to found his own, Dark Horse. In reality, EMI wanted to retain him, but George was burned by the indifference with which the group's white-collar workers received the charitable initiatives he promoted at the beginning of the decade. So after releasing "Dark Horse" in '74 and completing the American tour, Harrison sought to quickly gather some songs to put together new work for release in '75.

Two months in Los Angeles were enough to complete "Extra Texture". After the extremely weak previous album, it was difficult to do worse, but George managed to accomplish the task of producing work that fully completes the shortcomings of "Dark Horse". Inside the album's jacket is a photo of George with a look that seems to say "come on, I did it again, I ripped you off.. you really buy everything!" with the caption "OHNOTHIMAGEN" (pronounced "Oh no, not him again!"), a great irony at least. Coming to the music, George retrieves a song written in '71 for the Ronettes, "You". It's a refrain garnished with brass instruments featuring a banal lyric, with even a reprise on the album, "A Bit More Of You" (just the instrumental base of "You"). The only interesting piece is "This Guitar (Can't Keep From Crying", a continuation of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" with the significant lyric "I've learned to get up when I fall, I can even climb the walls of Rolling Stone", the magazine had criticized George's tour the previous year. The rest is absolutely anonymous, featuring uninspired and lackluster tracks that flow without surges, with something of vitality in "Grey Cloudy Lies" but very little.

"Extra Texture" was released in a fabric package (the title), it sold well but Harrison had effectively mocked the audience who indeed would not reward the following much more inspired albums. Reissued in '92, it is unfindable on CD; it lies in limbo along with "Dark Horse", a limbo between the EMI period and the Dark Horse period, but Harrison labeled it as "rotten" and a future release is unlikely.