Ringo Starr: Ringo 2012

Thanks to the freedom of the Internet, I often find myself perusing Wikipedia at any particular time, finding myself entangled in a web of articles of useless information. (Still, this helps me immeasurably when I watch Jeopardy!.) While I was excited to read that Paul McCartney was releasing a new album, my reaction to news that Ringo Starr was also releasing a new album was more muted.

It took me back to the last time I actively pursued a new Ringo Starr album. It was the summer of 1998, and I was a mere 15-year-old kid who had little interest in anything the “new” musicians of the day were putting out. Bands like Fastball, Matchbox 20, and Dave Matthews Band made no impact whatsoever to me, and I preferred the old guard – musicians who had been there and done that and were still putting out quality music. For whatever reason, Ringo Starr was a big deal to me, and when I found out that he was releasing Vertical Man, I was overjoyed. FINALLY! A new Ringo Starr album! His last one had been in 1992, the forgotten Time Takes Time, so this was a big deal to me. I got the album for my birthday and loved it – often listening to it while playing Banjo-Kazooie on Nintendo 64.

Since then, I’ve come to my senses. Not that I’ll begrudge anyone for enjoying a Ringo Starr album – his eponymous 1973 album is his best, and I’ve even got a soft spot for Stop And Smell The Roses – but as my musical tastes have matured, I find that I don’t really need a new Ringo Starr album in my collection.

The question is, does the world really need a new Ringo Starr album? Granted, he’s not taking up valuable real estate in independent record stores, and, for what it’s worth, latter-day Starr albums like Ringorama and Choose Love were strong, if flawed, but Ringo 2012 has a lot of problems with it, the biggest being its running length. Nine songs are presented across 28 minutes, with two being re-recordings (‘Wings’, from his 1977 album Ringo the 4th, and ‘Step Lightly’, from Ringo) and one being a previously released cover (‘Think It Over’, from the Buddy Holly tribute album Listen To Me).

What perplexes me about Ringo 2012 is that it’s so average. Even Starr sounds utterly bored on album opener ‘Anthem’, in which he intones, “This is an anthem / About peace and love”. There’s some scorching guitar work from Joe Walsh, but at its 5 minute running length, it overstays its welcome. ‘Wings’ isn’t much better, though its a lively reworking, with some clattering drum work (Starr admitted to listening to a lot of reggae before and during the recording of the album, and it’s pretty obvious here), but the synthesized horn blasts date it horribly to the late 1980s. The solution to Starr’s lifeless vocals is found with a chorus of backing vocalists, who beef up the sound and make the song sound more fibrous than it actually is.

‘Think It Over’ is perhaps the best tune here, with Starr actually trying to sing – and sounding a lot like he did on ‘Honey Don’t’ – but those damn synthesized steel drums ruin what could have been a cute track. ‘Samba’ also finds some life infused in it, even though it’s not the kind of song anyone would actually try to dance to. There’s some interesting flamenco guitar accents littered throughout, but it’s not enough to make it more than a curio. Starr’s handling of the traditional ‘Rock Island Line’, a song he’s probably played in rehearsals a million times already, is lively and joyous, and, along with ‘Think It Over’, is the highlight of the album. But the quality drops with ‘Step Lightly’, a pointless reworking of an already inconsequential song from the 1973 Ringo. Was anyone really clamoring for a reggae remake of this song? Of course not – but as Ringo’s first sole composition since ‘Early 1970′, the original has a certain affable charm that is completely demolished on this limp remake.

‘Wonderful’ is anything but, and is bathed in guitar and synthesizer atmospherics, with Starr striking a poignant chord in what is obviously an ode to his wife, Barbara Bach. This uninspired tune drags on for nearly four minutes, and it was at this point that I discovered there was an undeniable sameness to the seven songs (thus far). Though there were accents that differentiated one from the other, Starr’s voice and drumming are so painfully similar throughout that even though I was a little over 20 minutes through, it felt like the album had been going on for at least twice that length. ‘In Liverpool’ is at least a little better, a nostalgic ode to Starr’s Beatles-era life, though the lyrics are cringe-inducing: “Me and the boys, me and the gang / Living out fantasies / Breaking the rules, acting like fools / That’s how it was for me – how was it for you?” This touching autobiographical tune nevertheless is a highlight of the original material.

The album ends, mercifully, with ‘Slow Down’ – no, not a cover of the Larry Williams rocker that the Beatles themselves covered in 1964 – a slight rocker that features Starr hollering the inconsequential lyric, backed up by a quivering organ line. It’s a middling conclusion to an inconsequential Starr album, and its titular allusion to Ringo would give the impression that this was a star-studded affair – and with Joe Walsh, Dave Stewart, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Benmont Tench, Edgar Winter, and Van Dyke Parks the biggest names here, whether this constitues a “star-studded affair” is up to the listeners’ interpretations. But while Starr famously lost himself among drugs and drink in the ’70s, and was able to sober up and rejuvenate his career in the ’90s, Ringo 2012 is a huge step backward toward anonymity. It’s bland, inessential, and simpering – at least his output from the ’00s felt like he cared. One can’t help but escape the nagging thought that Ringo 2012 was designed to simply shift product – any product – before another lucrative All-Starr Band tour. It’d be interesting to see if any of the material from this album features in the repertoire.

Essential listening: meh

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