Goodnight Vienna is the fourth solo album by Ringo Starr. It was recorded in the summer of 1974 in Los Angeles, and released later that year. It followed the commercially successful predecessor "Ringo", and Starr used many of the same players, including Billy Preston, Klaus Voormann, Robbie Robertson, Harry Nilsson, and producer Richard Perry.
However, while all three other Beatles had contributed to Ringo, only John Lennon contributed to Goodnight Vienna. Like "Ringo", Goodnight Vienna also became a hit, though a slightly less successful one.
An advance single from the album, Starr's cover version of The Platters' "Only You (And You Alone)", reached #6 on the U.S. charts, before the album was released in November. Goodnight Vienna peaked at #8 in the US, ultimately going gold, and its reviews were generally favorable. A second single, "No No Song" reached #3 in the American charts. However, the album reached only #30 in the UK, and would be Starr's last chart album in his homeland until 1998.
The cover artwork for Goodnight Vienna was based on a still from the classic science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still, with Starr's head replacing that of actor Michael Rennie. Rennie's character was the alien Klaatu, a name later adopted by a Canadian band falsely rumoured to be the Beatles under a pseudonym. In the movie, Klaatu had come to Earth to deliver the message that the entire planet needed to adopt peaceful ways, a message that comports with Ringo's personal mantra "peace and love."
Goodnight Vienna was remastered and reissued on CD in 1992 with three bonus tracks: 1972 hit single "Back Off Boogaloo", its B-Side "Blindman" and an extended version of the McCartney-penned "Six O'Clock", a shorter version of which had earlier appeared on "Ringo".
