The Beatles were over. McCartney had made a press release announcing it, followed a week later by his first solo record, which was derided as a disappointing, half-baked affair. The magic was over. The good days were all behind us. And while the Fab Four may all still be releasing music, nothing they made could have topped what they did together.

But for George Harrison, the dam had burst.

After ten years of being hidden by the colossus of Lennon/McCartney, he releases a triple album consisting of eighteen new songs (two written or cowritten by his new best friend Bob Dylan) and a full disc of jammy, in-studio noodling, totaling one hour and forty five minutes in length (fifteen minutes longer than the White Album, which was the work of four people). Most of the songs had been rejected by the Two Headed Beast in Harrison’s previous life as the Quiet Beatle, including the peerless, monstrous Let It Down, which, according to legend, was rejected by Lennon because he couldn’t figure out how to play the chords. As a side note, Let It Down is my favorite solo-Beatles song of all time. But accumulated across the years and set side by side, it’s overwhelming just how great these songs are. Isn’t it a Pity (version one) strums hypnotically, foreseeing The Flaming Lips’ Yoshimi days. I’d Have You Anytime is as tender a love song as George ever wrote. My Sweet Lord is simply wonderful, lawsuit aside. Apple Scruff is a bouncy folk number that is a British accent away from sounding like an outtake from In The Aeroplane Over The Sea. The album is so huge that there are songs on here I don’t remember ever hearing before, and each one is magnificent.

And as if the songs weren’t enough, take a look at the credits page. Eric Clapton on guitar. Ringo on drums. Billy Preston on keyboards. Klaus Voorman on bass (those last two would later join John for Plastic Ono Band that December). Ginger Baker on drums when Ringo wasn’t. Gary Wright on pianos. PHIL COLLINS providing extra percussion. And the ever-controversial Phil Spectre behind the board, adding his go-to Wall of Sound technique. Hate him for Let It Be, but his treatments here spot on, aiding George’s trances and furies alike, despite Harrison’s dismissive “too much echo” years later.

And so, in the face of the dissolution of the Greatest Band on Earth, George smashes the Quiet Beatle mask and reveals his true self in all of its exuberant, experimental, exceptional glory. And into the dust of the Beatles’ breakup, he offers up this monolith, this huge, peaceful reminder that All Things Must Pass.