THE BEATLES

Rightfully considered the weakest album in the Beatles' discography, it is also the least serious one. More than half of the songs are no fun listening to if you aren't watching the above-average cartoon movie.

I'll start with the weakest songs - "Yellow submarine" and "All together now". The first is recycled from "Revolver" and the latter one may be sufficiently good for kids but not adults. Then comes "Only a northern song" with a relatively solid unconventional melody but half-baked psychedelia arrangements and particularly weak drumming.

"All you need is love" was heard before but suits the cartoon well, just like the title track. "It's all too much" gives another credit to Harrison and better arrangements this time - organ, psychedelic drums with special sound, even some brass instrument and suitable guitar. "Hey bulldog" is the clear winner on the album with the entire band at peak power. Starr providing a solid rhythm, Lennon great, affected but fitting vocal, Harrison one of his best solos and McCartney tops this with his busy bass playing alongside Lennon's piano. This song's fair is far away from the psychedelia pack of the rest.

The symphonic section by George Martin is decent when you're watching the cartoon but non-essential for sole listening purposes.

Usually, a theatrical performance that has a story strung together by songs from an artist or composer(s), but not performed by them, is called a jukebox musical.

Instead of other live performers, what if the original tracks are newly remixed for the story? You certainly would have a deconstruction of the "jukebox" part! This is the case with Love, the Cirque de Soleil presentation of the music of the Beatles.

Even the concept of a remix album has been reinterpreted here too. Mashups and digs through alternate mixes from the band's Anthology abound. This itself is significant, as remix albums can be a crapshoot. For every notable Lee "Scratch" Perry dub collection, there are at least several that can be each characterized, as was in a review in the former Island Ear of Billy Idol's Vital Idol, "a textbook case in studio self-indulgence." Rather, Love is a showcase for sound combinations that are pleasant and intriguing.

Some tracks are mashups with samples of songs interpolated into others. Sound effects of horse whinnies are borrowed from "Good Morning, Good Morning" to voice, so to speak, to Henry the Horse in "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite." (Hey, this is a circus soundtrack, you know!) This is besides the Sgt. Pepper track melding into "I Want You (She's so Heavy)," making it also one of several medleys here.

A precedent for this approach was "Beyond the Valley of a Day in the Life," a drop-the-needle sound collage by the Residents released in 1977 as one side of The Beatles Play the Residents and the Residents Play the Beatles. Another was, curiously enough, "A Medley of Beatle Tunes," an "a cappella" comedy routine by Father Guido Sarducci.

A second type of mashup for Love - vocals dubbed over a completely different track - also results in some intriguing listening. Check out "Because" featuring ambient sounds. Meanwhile, "Gnik Nus," which is a backwards "Sun King" laid over a tanpura drone, taking the band's penchant for backwards tapes to its logical conclusion!

If you are into that kind of mix, try if you can to locate a video for "Baby You're a Rich Man (Ecstasy Mix)," with the vocals laid over The Go! Team instrumental "Friendship Update."

Another kind of remix consists of highlighting certain parts that bring a different twist into the listening, such as a higher volume for John Lennon's voice in "Glass Onion" and the bridge of plucked strings emphasized in "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds."

"Strawberry Fields Forever" takes this further exponentially, with John Lennon's unaltered voice and solo guitar from a demo version to lay it on top of the familiar instrumental. This may be the ultimate internal (same artist) mashup, featuring also horns from "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Not to mention, on top of it all, "Penny Lane" and even the harpsichord from "Piggies" and the end of "Hello Goodbye."

The crowning medley moment is probably just of two tracks - "Tomorrow Never Knows / Within You Without You" - that weave tautly the energy and depth of both songs.

Recommended for: anyone open to Beatles remixes/mashups that strongly challenge those production notions.

Review #104!

Ha! Two polar opposites on the same 45. This single was released in 1968, after the release of "The White Album". On side one is 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da', one of the best story songs ever. One of the most fun and boogie-inducing track to exist in the modern era. This is followed by 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps', possibly the most beautifully composed Beatles song in their discography. And it was written by George Harrison! Thank God, because I don't think I could live without that guitar solo. A great single from a great (only?!) - sorry - absolutely freaking amazing band.

Review #64!

'Abbey Road' has a place in my heart that if I lost would be forever empty. When I was first finding my musical tastes (not my family's), I reached for The Beatles. I bought almost all of their LSD-era albums on CD, and I still have them all. I fell in love with all of them apart from maybe their self-titled one (don't murder me, please). But since the first listen, 'Abbey Road' had become my God. I deemed it my favorite album for three years. Now it's 'The Dark Side of the Moon', but that's beside the point. What an album! Every song, even if most of them are just glorified filler tracks, is musically and lyrically amazing, from one-minute ditties like 'Mean Mr. Mustard' to the proto-hard-rock 'I Want You(She's So Heavy)'. The album starts with 'Come Together', which needs no introduction. Funky, rocky, groovy, psychedelic. A great track. Next is 'Something', a soft, lush love song that is, naturally, Frank Sinatra's favorite Beatles song. This track (I can't call it that, that name is diminishing) is beautiful and is easily one of the best love songs ever written. It also holds one of the best George Harrison guitar solos ever. 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' used to be my favorite Beatles song. I love this song! It is so fun and childish, besides the subject matter. Every little nuance benefits the music in the best ways possible, from the steel clanking to the 'woah-oh-woah-oh!' close to the end of the song. Next is 'Oh Darling', a bluesy little track that showcases Paul's vocals perfectly. From the soft main melody to his gritty shouting in the chorus, he shows all types of his singing, and it adds so much spice to the song. 'Octopus's Garden' was written and sung by Ringo Starr (makes sense), and has a goofy childish feel that I compare to 'Yellow Submarine'. This song fails to be fun and serotonin-producing. 'I Want You(She's So Heavy)' is so funky and bluesy. It is my favorite song on this album. It is also the second-longest Beatles song behind 'Revolution 9'. I love the use of a Fender Rhodes. 'Here Comes The Sun' I find to be overplayed and overstated in its beauty, but is still a great track. 'Because' is a kind of dark, beautiful love (what I think is love) song with a sad mood to it. I have always liked this song and is one of my favorites from this album. I love the Fender Rhodes in this track. 'You Never Give Me Your Money' is a nice song about conflicted love (?). Four minutes of pure bliss. The opening 'Sun King is a kind of foreshadowing to 'Get Back'. Then it turns into this pretty harmony that is like a reprise of 'Here Comes The Sun'. This melts into 'Mean Mr. Mustard', which begins the string of one-minute tracks to come. This song is kind of goofy, and I love the lyrics. 'Polythene Pam' is the next one-minuter, and is doubly fun compared to its predecessor. 'She Came In Through The Bathroom Window' is funky and bluesy, like a lot of the other songs on this album. I love this song so much! It is very springy and catchy. It melts into 'Golden SLumbers', easily one of the most beautiful ever written, despite the length. The strings meld beautifully with the bass and drums and vocals and guitar and everything. 'Carry That Weight' is the perfect follow-up. It is so powerful and fun. It holds a reprise of 'You Never Give Me Your Money'. 'The End' is the ending track to this album (not!). It is an okay song, but nothing special. It is pretty fun. After some silence, the hidden 'Her Majesty' plays. This is the shortest studio Beatles song. I have memorized all the lyrics (quite an easy feat). I love this song for a reason I do not know. Short songs just have such a fun atmosphere to them. All together now (pun intended), I love this album. I recommend it to anyone. Anyone! 'Abbey Road' is a wonderful album, for anyone.

Anyone!

The big one, Abbey Road. The tenular rock album (I don't know if I'm using that word correctly). I like it a lot, it's a good album. But it ain't experimental enough, not nearly as much as The Beatles [White Album]. Which is kind of a bummer considering what they did with that one, oh well. Here I feel like McCartney got his grubby hands too much on the production. It sounds too much like him, it's too milky and not as grounded and Earth as The Beatles [White Album]. And I like the later The Beatles [White Album] sound a lot better. And sorry if I [%*!#] up some of the wording. As you can tell by the title, this is my second time writing this review, and I am soooooooooooo [%*!#]ing tired.

Come Together is iconic, really one of the most recognizable songs ever. The bassline is funky, the solo is solid. Its mellowness and lyric content work well together. Although I don't think it's the best choice for the opening track. I think Because would've been a better choice.

Something is a sweet loving song, it should be right up my alley, but it just doesn't hit the nerve with me the same way it has with so many other people. Musically it rides the coattails of Come Together with its mellowness. But then the bridge comes along and all of these different ideas come together (pun intended), and it just doesn't work. The dynamics are all weird.

Maxwell's Silver Hammer is awesome. It is very overproduced though. What should be a very fitting album track tried to stretch and over-reach its boundaries. It tried way too hard to become a single when it just never could considering what it's about. None of this stops it from being an amazing track though. It's a very bouncy track. It's all made to be very playful. Because of this no matter how many times I listened to this album this one always makes me a bit uneasy. Just the concept and how lightly it's being treated rubs me the way. The anvil and Moog are so eerie and hang over the track so well. It all feels like a well-done creepypasta in song form.

Oh! Darling is the only track on this album that feels like a throwaway. It's boring, it does nothing interesting. If John sang the vocals he would've been able to make something (pun intended) out of it. But I guess Paul was hellbent on having ripe filler in this album.

Octopus's Garden is an incredible song. Everything is so fine-tuned, it feels perfect without feeling overproduced. The bassline moves everything along nicely, the guitar is frosty, and the piano is playful. The guitar solo is perfect for setting up the song's environment. This is the perfect song for a voice like Ringo has, it's so warm and sing- alongable (?). The lyrics are the best, from the music I've heard, about finding warmth and comfort from the world with sounding existential and chilling.

I Want You is for now my favorite Beatles song. The lyrics themselves don't say much. You have to get most of the context and meaning of what this is by the composition. My interpretation of it is that our protagonist loves this girl very deeply. In the first half of the song the instrumentation between the lyrics are telling us that rather than longing for this girl because of the features she has, or her nice personality, he's longing for her because he needs her as a piece to fix himself. It's an incredibly heavy song the lyrics are meant as they are verbatim, but they're definitely not meant lightly. The line "she's so heavy" means basically that she's important. Which again, doesn't sound like much, but everything around it highlights and bolds it, tries to make you understand. The last line of the song cuts it off at "She's so-" before the outro. The booming proto-metal outro in place of the word "heavy" jams the theme of the song SO far down our throats that it creates this existential whirlpool. The song doesn't even give you the satisfaction of knowing it ends, it just cuts off. This gave us no context of how the story ended, any change or end to what was going on would've implied something.

Here Comes the sun is a nice warm landing from the cold atmosphere of I Want You. It's their most popular song, which I can see why it's optimistic and comforting. My only problem with it is that it's dreadfully boring. Nothing is engaging about it. It's too white. The sound is weirdly isolated despite trying to sound comforting. And if I wanted a comforting and warm song, Octopus's Garden is already here.

Because is a nice separation between everything else in this album and The Long One. It's soft and thoughtful. It's very ghostly. I love the loving nature of the lyrics, they feel very honest and appreciative.

The Long One is the big centerpiece of the album. A bunch of odds and sods fit together to be somewhat coherent. It works for the most part. But I could honestly live without Sun King through Golden Slumbers. Aside from good spirits, those tracks don't offer much. I'd prefer they made a proto-prog epic out of You Never Give Me Your Money, Carry That Weight, and The End.

You Never Give Me Your Money starts The Long One with a nice track about mistrust and their managers (I think). I prefer to think of it as a bunch of off-lines scotch taped together creating some sediment about love or whatever. And it works. Probably not the way most people listen to this track, but I like it more this way, so that's that I guess.

Sun King has affected me in the following ways: it's booooooorrrring. I don't care if you can speak Spanish, get on with it. They even got crickets in this track, they know what they're doing, PUTTING ME TO SLEEP!!!

Mean Mr. Mustard is a bit of a bop I guess, I thank it for introducing me to Mr. Mustard himself. It's a bit too McCartney.

Polythene Pam is much the same case. Pam sounds hot, thanks for telling me about her. The music here is more interesting, it's more power poppy, it's cool. I like that it doesn't overstay its welcome.

She Came In Through The Bathroom Window is much like You Never Give Me Your Money. A collection of pretty cool lines. It doesn't hit me the same way that song did though. The music's dynamics are pretty cool, but nothing to write home about.

Golden Slumbers is a very emotionally driven song. It doesn't mean anything to me in particular. But the lines are powerful, and its sort runtime doesn't force me to think about it that much.

Carry That Weight is amazing. The opening line talks to you directly, telling you to think about whatever awful thing it is that you've done in your life, and to think about them enough to where you never do them again. The horns are triumphant and bring everything home.

The End is just that, the end of the Beatles. It has amazing energy and musicianship that makes you appreciate the Beatles. The final lines "And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love you make" isn't masterful wordplay or writing, but it's the Beatles and what they stood for, you really couldn't have any better ending to a career than that.

This is the weakest Beatles album after Yellow Submarine. Don't get me wrong, it's still better than many other 60's bands best album. The execution is solid, in particular vocals. Musically, songwriting is not at the usual top level and there isn't any progress comparing to the previous album. We actually have to wait till the second half of the album to hear an outstanding song, if we ignore the great melody of the simple "I'll follow the sun". The covers are well executed but songs are inferior to the original material. "Kansas city" is a particularly weak song but balanced by great powerful McCartney vocal. Better time are started with the classic "Eight days a week" followed later by the strong triumvirat of "Every little thing", "I don't want to spoil the party" and "What you're doing" that stand on its own. Harrison contributes with a monotone cover of "Everybody's trying to be my baby" and Starr does not anything new to the already good "Honey don't".

"Beatles for sale" feels a bit like a wasted opportunity but the next album would raise the bar again.

The only "canonical" American Beatles album, this can be seen as something of a predecessor to "Past Masters". Like many, when I first heard it I thought I was listening to the follow up to "Sgt. Pepper". Despite being a weaker "album" than its predecessor, most of the songs here hold up well. Side 1 is the soundtrack side. The title track has great drumming. "Fool on the Hill" has nice flute, reminiscent of "I Talk to the Wind". "Flying", one of their few instrumentals, is mostly mellotron and makes good use of it. "Blue Jay Way" is a creepy Harrison song, and in this way prefigures "White Album". "I am the Walrus" is THE John song, and very progressive and symphonic with it's use of Mellotron and sampling. Side 2 is made up of non-album singles. "Penny Lane" is a good symphonic Paul song. But it is "Strawberry Fields Forever" that really makes the album. It's nostalgic and melancholically beautiful. Perhaps no other song has been as influential on the sound of prog. I would be surprised if it didn't influence "Days of Future Passed" and "In the Court of the Crimson King". Overall, this is essential proto-prog.

After making a step step with "Beatles for Sale", the band stepped 2 steps forward on "Help!". The last traditional early Beatles album and the last one without drugs/alcohol I suppose. The band is not willing to rest on their laurels and open themselves up to folk/country. There's actually only one rock'n'roll number (well played and sung) for which you have to wait till the end. McCartney, Harrison and Starkey make a leap forward with their contribution to the album. McCartney offers fantastic vocals on "The night before" and writes an unforgettable revolutionary "Yesterday" + provides great harmonies to Lennon's vocals. Harrison finally writes his first outstanding compositions "I need you". He contributes with diverse guitar playing (country, folk). Starr will be mainly remembered for his "Ticket to ride" beat. Lennon is traditionally strong on vocals and delivers several strong compositions. The weakest songs here are the two covers but the band did a good job on executing them, though.

On their third album, Beatles shifted a bit away from their raw rock'n'roll & mersey-beat style to put excellent pop songwriting into focus. This album features the best melodies and vocal harmonies so far. All songs are affectionate, well performed. Harrison remains more in the background than before as he only sings solo vocals on one song and his guitar playing is more restrained, however he shows tasty jazzy guitar licks on "I'm happy just to dance with you". Lennon and McCartney are in the top shape, McCartney delivered unforgettable and one of the most frequently covered Beatles song - "And I love her" plus the swinging "Can't buy me love". Lennon starts showing more depressive side of mood with a handful of heartbroken songs. While Beatles become more diversified to show multiple styles on their albums, it won't be until 1965 when they venture into studio experimentation and join the proto-prog league. This is a sweet romantic and infectious pop album.

What have Beatles improved in comparison with their first album? 1. Lennon's voice has grown in power and energy. He sweeps other vocals away with his high-octane delivery. 2. Harrison improved his guitar playing and compositional skills. "Don't bother me" is his first decent song. 3. Overall instrumental playing improved.

Has overall songwriting improved? Arguably not as the songs are somewhat less catchy, in fact, only "All my loving" was a hit of the first "calibre". After repeated listening, you'll find another beauty in other original songs such as "It won't be long" or "Little child". Starr sung "I wanna be your man" is so infectious thanks to the joined vocals, it's easy to imagine all four fabs being at stage. Covers are hits and misses and their strongest common denominator is fantastic Lennon's voice. "Please Mr. postman" is a bit static (already by its nature) and "Roll over Beethoven" doesn't stand out among dozens of other covers of this song. Beatles here were still miles away from lasting a long-standing impact albeit they executed their job nicely.