The Solo Beatles: 1969 - 1980

As a band, The Beatles released over 200 songs in the eight years between 1962 and 1970. After they split, each commenced a solo career to varying degrees of commercial and critical success, and all four achieved number one solo singles in the US between 1970 and 1974. Their albums included great, half-forgotten songs such as ‘Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)’, ‘My Love’, ‘Photograph’ and ‘Whatever Gets You Thru the Night’. Three of the four also had UK number one solo singles between 1970 and 1980 in the UK, with only Ringo missing out.


Between them, Lennon (and Ono), McCartney (and Wings), Harrison and Starr had twenty-two top ten albums in the US and twenty-five in the UK between 1969 and 1980. They were nothing if not productive. But only the most committed fans listens today to Ringo’s Rotogravure (Starr), Thirty-three and a Third (Harrison), Some Time in New York City (Lennon) or Wild Life (McCartney). It is surely time to re-evaluate all the Beatles early solo work. This book examines every solo Beatles album from 1969 to 1980, track by track. It includes the classics, the lost gems, the turkeys, the collaborations, the back-biting, the hits and the misses.

Andrew Wild is a Beatles collector and experienced writer with eight books to his name. His comprehensive study of every song recorded and performed by the Beatles between 1957 and 1970 was published by Sonicbond in 2019. He lives in Rainow, Cheshire.