George Harrison Said That When Artists Copied Each Other’s Sounds It Became ‘Washing-up Liquid’

George Harrison thought that when artists copied each other’s sounds, it came out like “washing-up liquid.” The former Beatle didn’t like all the inhuman sounds that artists used in the recording studio. He wanted his music to sound natural.

George Harrison thought contemporary music lacked a human feel

During an interview with Anthony DeCurtis, George talked about how he wanted his 1987 album, Cloud Nine, to sound. Luckily, he had Jeff Lynne as his co-producer, and they shared a dislike of pop music. George wanted Cloud Nine to sound like older music.

“So the basis of the album is to get it so it sounds like a band, and although it’s recorded now, it still has a feel of how the records used to be before all these MIDI-ed things and drum machines and all that kind of stuff,” George said.

“Because personally, although there’s many records that are really good like that, it’s not my favorite sound. I still prefer all the old stuff… I think it’s gone crazy really, with what people can do these days. They just switch on a machine, an emulator, and they hit a button and they’ve got a huge orchestra.

“But it’s not really … Although it is a real orchestra sample, it’s still not the same as having string players in the studio. It lacks that human feel. Like in the early ’60s, when we got a Mellotron—OK, we used it on ‘Strawberry Fields,’ and basically that was the one.

“But once you used it and everybody else gets them, you can pick them out a mile [away], and they’re already finished. Like in the early ’70s, it was string ensemble synthesizers, and everybody had these strings playing block chords, which are really horrible sounding.

“It may be good, the first person who ever happens to get a hold of it and use it, OK. But once the masses get it, it’s dead and gone. And I think that’s the same with all this MIDI, DX7 stuff.”

George thought the sounds everyone was using became ‘washing-up liquid’

The former Beatle claimed that since everyone was using the same sounds, it all became “washing-up liquid.” He wasn’t wrong. Some of the music at that time sounded the same.

“Everything’s become so dependent on sampled sounds,” George explained. “I don’t mind sampled sounds, but rather than find one that’s already in there [referring to synthesizer pre-sets and the like —Ed.]—and this is a great thing about Jeff.

“Say we wanted to sample a snare drum sound, and this is something Keltner pointed out as well. This is the difference between the ‘now’ kind of consciousness where you get this drum sound, put it in your machine, and then you save it onto your disc. This is what Jim and all these engineers and millions of people will do.

“With Jeff, he just gets a good drum sound, say a specific snare drum sound, and he’ll use that. And then, he doesn’t have Keltner saying to him, ‘You mean you don’t have a disc drive on your drum machine? What happens when you want to use it again?’ He said, ‘I don’t use it again, I’ll make another one.’ And I like that
idea, I like that approach. Everything, then, is …

“Fresh, yeah. Otherwise, you’ve got people who now are just copying sounds off everybody else’s records, and it becomes like … washing-up liquid [indistinct].”

He said fans bought The Beatles’ reissue of ‘Yellow Submarine’ because they were sick of drum machines

George never liked drum machines.

The former Beatle guessed that the younger generations bought The Beatles’ 1999 reissue of Yellow Submarine because they were sick of their generation’s music and drum machines.

George told Billboard, “I think because it’s the same when people were 9 or 16 back in the ’60s. They liked it then, and they like it now for the same basic reasons: The songs are catchy, they’re fun, and they still have whatever it was then.

“It’s in those grooves, and it’s boom. Also they’re a bit of light relief after all this drum machine stuff that we’ve been having for the last 15 or 20 years.”

Ultimately, George wasn’t a fan of any contemporary music, much less than the sounds and the drum machines they used. He preferred an unfettered raw sound like his idols had.