With Liverpool 8, the long relationship between Ringo Starr and producer Mark Hudson fell apart. The partnership had yielded the albums Vertical Man, I Wanna Be Santa Claus, VH1 Storytellers, Ringorama, and Choose Love, but sometime near the finish of 2008’s Liverpool 8, producer Dave Stewart was brought in to “re-produce” the album with Ringo. While all but one song had been written with Hudson and his band The Roundheads, Stewart wrote the title track with Ringo and threw his ideas into “Gone Are the Days.” The album was Ringo’s return to Capitol Records, where he'd recorded all his best solo albums in the ‘70s; their promotional muscle was able to get more notice for Liverpool 8. The title track proves a highlight, while songs like “Think About You,” “Now That She’s Gone Away,” and the orchestrated ballad “Love Is” capture the kind of modern psychedelic pop that Ringo had settled into since returning to recording in the early ‘90s. Here, those sounds are bulked up and overcompressed for maximum effect.