one of his former bandmates to have done it even once being McCartney, with the recent "My Love" and Red Rose Speedway. Harrison carried out no supporting promotion for Material World; "pre-recorded tapes" were issued to BBC Radio 1 and played repeatedly on the show Radio One Club, but his only public appearance in Britain was to accompany Prabhupada on a religious procession through central London, on 8 July. According to author Bill Harry, the album sold over 3 million copies worldwide. Critical reception Contemporary reviews Leng describes Living the Material World as "one of the most keenly anticipated discs of the decade" and its unveiling "a major event". Among expectant music critics, Stephen Holden began his highly favourable review in Rolling Stone with the words "At last it's here", before hailing the new Harrison album as a "pop classic" and a "profoundly seductive record". "Happily, the album is not just a commercial event," he wrote, "it is the most concise, universally conceived work by a former Beatle since John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band." Billboard magazine noted the twin themes found throughout the album – "the Beatles and their mish-mash" versus a "spiritual undercoat" – and described Harrison's vocals as "first-rate". Two weeks ahead of the UK release date, Melody Maker published a full-page "exclusive preview" of Material World by its New York correspondent, Michael Watts. The latter wrote that "the most strikingly immediate impression left by the album" concerned its lyrics, which, although "solemn and pious" at times, were "more interesting" thematically than those on All Things Must Pass, such that Material World was "as personal, in its own way, as anything that Lennon has done". While describing the pared-down production as "good artistic judgement in view of the nature of the lyrics", Watts concluded: "Harrison has always struck me before as simply a writer of very classy pop songs; now he stands as something more than an entertainer. Now he's being honest." While Holden had opined that, of all the four Beatles, Harrison had inherited "the most precious" legacy – namely, "the spiritual aura that the group accumulated, beginning with the White Album" – other reviewers objected to the overt religiosity of Living in the Material World. This was particularly so in Britain, where by summer 1973, author Bob Woffinden later wrote, "the Beatle bubble had undoubtedly burst" and for each of the former bandmates, his individual "pedestal" was