The Top 20 Solo Beatles '80s Songs
The '80s were marked by dizzying highs and catastrophic lows for ex-members of the Beatles.
The horrifying first year of the decade saw John Lennon score his first U.K. No. 1 album in almost 10 years before being murdered by a deranged fan. Paul McCartney released his worst album ever but rallied late in the '80s amid a new songwriting partnership with Elvis Costello.
George Harrison experienced his own ups and downs. He took a long break after 1982's Gone Troppo failed to even chart in the U.K. then rallied with platinum-selling albums under his own name and with his Traveling Wilburys supergroup. Ringo Starr was actually dropped by his label before getting sober and founding his long-running All-Starr Band late in the '80s.
Lennon died before he could release a planned companion album to 1980's Double Fantasy, leaving his widow Yoko Ono to complete 1984's Milk and Honey. (She also oversaw a pair of archival projects, Live in New York City and Menlove Ave., both from 1986.) There were a few partial reunions in his absence, including "Take It Away" (featuring McCartney, Starr and former Beatles producer George Martin), "When We Was Fab" (Harrison and Starr) and, most memorably, "All Those Years Ago" (Harrison, McCartney and Starr).
Yet the group most associated with the era will always be Harrison's new star-studded amalgam. His rebound had also been spurred by a new collaborator, as Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra fame co-produced his comeback, 1987's Cloud Nine. He then rounded out an incredible Traveling Wilburys lineup that also included Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty.
Source: ultimateclassicrock.com/Nick DeRiso
