Release and Reception
Ringo the 4th was a dismal failure upon its release, both commercially and critically. Never touching the UK charts, the album limped to a paltry #162 in the US, before expiring. Shortly thereafter, Atlantic Records dropped Starr from their roster. In the UK, Polydor fulfilled its three-album contractual requirement by following up with a children's album, Scouse the Mouse which featured Starr, in the lead role, performing the lion's share of the material.
Journalist Peter Palmiere states in his front cover story on Starr for DISCoveries magazine in January 2003 that "The music critics and the record buying public took the album as a joke for Ringo's voice was not suitable for the disco flavored music on Ringo the 4th". Palmiere went on to claim that Ringo the 4th destroyed Starr's career and that he never commercially recovered from it.
Neither of the two singles pulled from Ringo the 4th, "Drowning in the Sea of Love" and "Wings" charted in the US. However, the non-album track "Just a Dream" which featured on the flip-side of both singles has gone on to become one of Starr's most sought after rarities. And the US stock copy of "Drowning in the Sea of Love" is also ultra rare with copies tending to fetch a hefty sum amongst collectors. In foreign countries, other songs were released as singles: "Sneaking Sally Through the Alley" b/w "Tango All Night" (Australia) and "Tango All Night" b/w "It's No Secret" (Argentina).
Read more about this topic: Ringo The 4th
Famous quotes containing the words release and, release and/or reception:
“We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others.”
—Elizabeth Drew (1887–1965)
“The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“To aim to convert a man by miracles is a profanation of the soul. A true conversion, a true Christ, is now, as always, to be made by the reception of beautiful sentiments.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)