Solo Beatles Albums, Definitively Ranked

On the 10th of April 1970, Paul McCartney announced what had, by then, been falsely reported so many times as to seem almost impossible—The Beatles, the biggest band to ever do it, were finished.

Within a week, McCartney had released his first solo record. Before the year was out, all three of his former bandmates had done the same. And as of today, the solo Beatles have collectively produced around 85 albums, depending how you count.

That’s a lot to wade through for anyone keen on venturing beyond the band’s tight 12-studio-album discography. But wade we must, and there is so much to learn in our wading. These records are charged with parting barbs and so variously excellent and awful and bewildering. They contain not just a huge quantity of interesting and enjoyable music, but a path toward an understanding of what it was that made the band work as it did. Who was good at what? Who needed what from whom, whose instincts were balanced by whose, and what kinds of adventures might result from the removal of the structures of the band?

If you would like to know the answers to those questions and don’t want to listen through 82 albums to get them, you’re in luck. We’ve done it for you, and then we’ve distilled the discog down to a delightfully diverse dodecahedron of records. And then we’ve ranked them. Sometimes you really are this lucky.

10. Ringo Starr, Ringo (1973)

Ringo’s best solo work by far is the one on which he managed to get all three of his former bandmates (and Randy Newman, and Harry Nilsson, and Marc Bolan, etc) to help him out. Which doesn’t do much to help him beat the “least-talented Beatle” charges—but never mind that. This is a fun album, and also a rare chance to hear the band back together again post-breakup, albeit not all at the same time. The Harrison-penned “Photograph”—in which George gives his former drummer something that never would’ve worked in his own style but is actually quite perfectly suited to Starr’s bouncier disposition—is the highlight. But look out, too, for Lennon’s jaunty “I’m the Greatest” and Ringo’s own “Oh My My”, which communicates the vibe of the project pretty well: It’s a load of very talented musicians having a bit of a laugh. Yes, it’s the only Ringo album on the list.