All Things Must Pass - Reception

Reception

All Things Must Pass received, and continues to receive, almost universal critical acclaim − as much for the music and lyrical content as for the fact that, of all the former Beatles, it was the work of supposed junior partner George Harrison. Most reviewers tended to discount the third disc of studio jams, this being a "free" addition to justify the set's high retail price.

On release, Ben Gerson of Rolling Stone magazine deemed All Things Must Pass "both an intensely personal statement and a grandiose gesture, a triumph over artistic modesty" and referenced the three-record set as an "extravaganza of piety and sacrifice and joy, whose sheer magnitude and ambition may dub it the War and Peace of rock and roll". Gerson also lauded the album's production as being "of classic Spectorian proportions, Wagnerian, Brucknerian, the music of mountain tops and vast horizons".

Melody Maker's Richard Williams summed up the surprise many felt at the so-called "quiet" Beatle's transformation: All Things Must Pass, he said, provided "the rock equivalent of the shock felt by pre-war moviegoers when Garbo first opened her mouth in a talkie: Garbo talks! − Harrison sings!" In another review, for The Times, Williams opined that, of all Beatles' solo releases thus far, Harrison's album "makes far and away the best listening, perhaps because it is the one which most nearly continues the tradition they began eight years ago".

Robert Christgau was less enthusiastic, however; he considered the album to be "featureless" and bemoaned the "anonymity" of Harrison's vocals. The NME's Roy Carr and Tony Tyler were likewise lukewarm in their assessment a few years later, highlighting "the homogeneity of the production and the lugubrious nature of Harrison's composing".

More recently, Allmusic views All Things Must Pass as "his best ... a very moving work", while MusicHound describes the set as "epic and audacious". Film-maker Martin Scorsese has written of the "powerful sense of the ritualistic on the album ... I remember feeling that it had the grandeur of liturgical music, of the bells used in Tibetan Buddhist ceremonies." Rolling Stone's Greg Kot describes this same grandeur as an "echo-laden cathedral of rock in excelsis" where the "real stars" are Harrison's songs; in the same publication, Mikal Gilmore calls the album "the finest solo work any ex-Beatle ever produced". John Bergstrom of PopMatters describes All Things Must Pass as "the sound of Harrison exhaling", noting: "He was quite possibly the only Beatle who was completely satisfied with the Beatles being gone." Bergstrom also credits the album for heavily influencing the likes of ELO, My Morning Jacket, Fleet Foxes and Grizzly Bear, as well as helping bring about the dream pop phenomenon.

In 1999, All Things Must Pass appeared at number 9 on The Guardian's "Alternative Top 100 Albums" list, where the editor stated that the album was the "best, mellowest and most sophisticated" of The Beatles' solo efforts. In 2012, All Things Must Pass was voted 433rd on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "500 Greatest Albums of All Time".