Ringo Starr -‘Ringo 2012’ (Universal)

So, here we have it: Ringo Starr’s seventeenth solo album. First, the good news. It’s way, way better than the utter load of rubbish that was 2010’s Y Not.

However, whilst it’s better than that album, it’s not a particularly great album, it really is just okay. And like any one of the Fab Four, the problem is that the work that The Beatles produced, even forty years after they split up, was so good* that the stuff that the subsequent careers produced was below par. Starr produced some good songs -I will defend ‘Photograph’ to the hilt, for example – but even on The Beatles’ albums his vocals showed that regardless of who was the best drummer in The Beatles, he did have the fourth best voice.

My heart sank at the involvement of Dave Stewart, who does seem to drag many projects not involving the Eurythmics down to an unlistenable level (including last year’s album) but this album has a handful of decent tunes in opener ‘Anthem’ and ‘In Liverpool’ (no, not the Suzanne Vega song).

It’s listenable, far from dreadful…but it’s hard to see it inspiring much new interest in his solo career.

**1/2

Ringo 2012 is out now on Universal

Stream Ringo 2012 via the NME website

*yes, I know, there’s always someone who wants to argue that the Beatles were overrated. There are people who think the earth is flat, that black is white and Margaret Thatcher was what Britain needed. they are entitled to their opinion. But that does not stop them being wrong.