Gone Troppo is the tenth studio album by English rock musician George Harrison, released on 5 November 1982 by Dark Horse Records. It includes the single "Wake Up My Love" and "Dream Away", which served as the theme song for the 1981 HandMade Films production Time Bandits. Harrison produced the album alongside Ray Cooper and former Beatles engineer Phil McDonald.
With Harrison uninterested in the contemporary music scene and unwilling to promote the release, Gone Troppo failed to chart in the United Kingdom and became his only post-Beatles studio album not to reach the top 20 in the United States. Over the next five years, he largely took an extended hiatus from his music career, with only occasional soundtrack recordings being released.
Background
By the early 1980s, Harrison had been finding the current musical climate alienating. His previous studio album Somewhere in England (1981) had sold fairly well, aided by the John Lennon tribute hit, "All Those Years Ago", but in the United States it was Harrison's first album since the Beatles' break-up that failed to receive gold certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). With one album left on his current recording contract, Harrison recorded Gone Troppo in 1982 but refused to promote it or make music videos for the two singles. The title is an Australian slang expression meaning "gone mad or crazy due to tropical heat" or just "gone mad".
Artwork
The album's artwork was credited to "Legs" Larry Smith, formerly of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band.
Release
Gone Troppo was issued on Dark Horse Records in November 1982. Warner Bros. Records, which distributed Harrison's Dark Horse label, were at a loss as to how to market the album and matched the artist's indifference by failing to promote the release. The album peaked at number 108 in the United States and failed to chart at all in the United Kingdom.
"Wake Up My Love" and "That's the Way It Goes" were included on Harrison's compilation album Best of Dark Horse 1976–1989, and the title track also appeared on the compact disc version of that album. No tracks from Gone Troppo were included on the 2009 career-spanning collection Let It Roll. "That's the Way It Goes" was covered by Joe Brown and other musicians at the Concert for George in November 2002.
In 2004, Gone Troppo was remastered and reissued, both separately from and as part of the deluxe box set The Dark Horse Years 1976–1992. The reissue added a demo version of "Mystical One" as its sole bonus track.
Critical reception
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Among contemporary reviews, Billboard said of Gone Troppo: "Harrison's sunny lyricism shines brightest when least encumbered by self-consciousness, and here that equation yields a breezy, deceptively eclectic charmer."
People magazine's reviewer wrote: "Because of his forays into the mystical, Harrison's penchant for whimsy often gets overlooked. But here the zany side gets no short shrift." The reviewer admired "lovelies" such as "Wake Up My Love" and "Dream Away", and described Gone Troppo as a "vinyl postcard" offering "flashes of brilliance".
Less impressed, Steve Pond of Rolling Stone said that, of late, Harrison had "made a much better movie financier than musician", and he found the album "So offhand and breezy as to be utterly insubstantial", with "Wake Up My Love" the only song of note.
Reviewing more recently for AllMusic, critic William Ruhlmann writes of Gone Troppo: "Clearly, Harrison could no longer treat his musical career as a part-time stepchild to his interests in car racing and movie producing if he wanted to maintain it. As it turned out, he didn't; this was his last album for five years."
John Harris of Mojo likens Gone Troppo to Harrison's final album for EMI/Capitol, Extra Texture (1975), and dismisses it as "Another contract-finisher, this time with Warner Brothers, recorded super-quick, and issued with barely any promotion."
Kit Aiken of Uncut describes Gone Troppo as "a return to form of sorts" after Somewhere in England and a collection of "amiable, light-hearted music made by a bunch of mates with nothing to prove".
Track listing
All songs written and composed by George Harrison, except where noted.
Side one
- "Wake Up My Love" – 3:34
- "That's the Way It Goes" – 3:34
- "I Really Love You" (Leroy Swearingen) – 2:54
- "Greece" – 3:58
- "Gone Troppo" – 4:25
Side two
- "Mystical One" – 3:42
- "Unknown Delight" – 4:16
- "Baby Don't Run Away" – 4:01
- "Dream Away" – 4:29
- "Circles" – 3:46
Bonus track
Gone Troppo was remastered and reissued in 2004 with the bonus track:
- <li value="11"> "Mystical One" (demo version) – 6:02
Personnel
- George Harrison – vocals, electric and acoustic guitar, synthesiser, bass (1,10), mandolin, marimba, jal tarang, backing vocals, production
- Ray Cooper – percussion (1-3, 5-10), marimba, glockenspiel (3), electric piano (3), sound effects, production
- Mike Moran – keyboards, synthesiser, piano, synthesiser bass (1-6, 8-10)
- Henry Spinetti – drums (1–6, 10)
- Dave Mattacks – drums (9)
- Herbie Flowers – bass guitar (2-6)
- Alan Jones – bass guitar (9)
- Billy Preston – organ (10), piano (10), keyboards (4), synthesizer (4), backing vocals (8-9)
- Jim Keltner – percussion (5), drums (7-8)
- Joe Brown – mandolin (6), backing vocals (5)
- Russell Powell - acoustic guitar
- Neil Larsen – piano (7)
- Gary Brooker – synthesizer (7)
- Willie Weeks – bass guitar (7)
- Jon Lord – synthesizer (10)
- Willie Greene – backing vocals (3, 7), bass voice (2)
- Bobby King – backing vocals (3, 7)
- Vicki Brown – backing vocals (5)
- Pico Pena – backing vocals (3, 7)
- Syreeta – backing vocals (9)
- Sarah Ricor – backing vocals (9)
- Rodina Sloan – backing vocals (8)
- Phil McDonald – production
- "Legs" Larry Smith – art direction, design
Chart positions
{| class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" style="text-align:center;"
|-
! scope="col"| Chart
! scope="col"| Peak<br />position
|-
! scope="row"| Canadian RPM Albums Chart
| 98
|-
! scope="row"| Norwegian VG-lista Albums Chart
| 31
|-
! scope="row"| US Billboard 200
| 108
|}