The Beatles: 10 Perfect Solo Albums

It should come as a shock to no one that some of the Beatles may have been a little bit done with the media circus after their rise to fame. That kind of attention might be good for a little while, but George Harrison seemed to grow out of it fairly quickly, not willing to play the game and put on an artificial face for the camera. After a series of contractually obligated albums though, George got together with Jeff Lynne and created one of the biggest highlights of his career almost by accident.

As star studded as the track list might be here, Cloud Nine was just the next set of songs for George, almost picking up where albums like Living in the Material World left off and making some pretty nice pop gems. Since this was a few years before the Traveling Wilburys came to be, you can hear that sound actually starting here, like the pop sounds of Fish on the Sand or even reminiscing about those old Beatle days on When We Was Fab, with Ringo on hand to tighten the groove up.

The biggest shockers here though are where George goes outside of his wheelhouse, from bringing back Eric Clapton on the title track to having all of the '80s touches on This is Love, with a guitar riff that could have come off of a Cure record. And let's not forget the cover of Got My Mind Set On You, which became one of the only #1s from a solo Beatle that decade. George was a lot further away from his glory days, but Cloud Nine is the kind of jam session that's almost impossible to resist.