Love (2006)


1. Because
2. Get Back
3. Glass Onion
4. Eleanor Rigby/Julia
5. I Am the Walrus
6. I Want To Hold Your Hand
7. Drive My Car/What You're Doing
8. Gnik Nus
9. Something/Blue Jay Way
10.Being For the Benefit of Mr.Kite/
I Want You (She's So Heavy)/Helter Skelter
11.Help!
12.Blackbird/Yesterday
13.Strawberry Fields Forever
14.Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows
15.Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
16.Octopus's Garden
17.Lady Madonna
18.Here Comes the Sun/The Inner Light
19.Come Together/Dear Prudence/Cry Baby Cry
20.Revolution
21.Back in the U.S.S.R.
22.While My Guitar Gently Weeps
23.A Day in the Life
24.Hey Jude
25.Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band (Reprise)
26.All You Need is Love
Spotify and I-Tunes Bonus Tracks
27.The Fool on the Hill
28.Girl

 

With The Beatles being arguably the best band of the 20th century, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that, even though they only recorded together for eight years, there have been countless books, biographies, tribute albums, tribute groups, movies, and even a Las Vegas production paying homage to the fab four. With a grand spectacle such as a Vegas show, it’s obvious that music be required. Now, I never saw the production and, as much as I love The Beatles, I really have no desire to, so I can’t comment on what the actual music is, and whether or not the music on this release bears much similarity.

I will say that this recording is a very interesting one and a very well done one. By this time in history, there really wasn’t anything new to give to the public. The Anthology series that came out about a decade prior pretty much bled the vaults dry. So rather than simply release another collection of tunes by the band that everybody already knows, and probably already owns, producer Sir George Martin and son Giles come up with a very original and unique idea. They take several of the band’s songs and combine snippets of these songs into single tracks. It actually all works tremendously well, and it’s quite the joy to listen to a four minute “song” that is actually a well-crafted melody of three or four songs weaved into one original tune. There’s even a few instances of where the original recording isn’t used, yet they go back to the Anthology vaults to pull out alternate versions since they may fit the overall flow of the particular experience (witness the beautiful alternate version here of While My Guitar Gently Weeps).

I think the biggest drawback for me, however, is the inconsistencies of such experiences. The tracks here that work the best fit the above mentioned pattern, yet this release is also littered with the “straight forward” songs that seem to have very little, if any difference from the original version. Now, as I said, I never saw the show, so maybe there’s a reason, for example, that the track Get Back has very little modifications done to it other than being shaved of about a minute of playing time. There are many times when you forget that you’re supposed to listening to a mish-mash of the band’s recordings since such tracks are in abundance. When the particular track does suddenly change gears, or blend into another song, it almost feels a bit too jarring.

I also have to honestly say that I’m not sure I would recommend this record to a novice. For such a newbie, I would recommend beginning your experience, instead, with one of the band’s “hits” compilations. So if not a neophyte, then who is this record for? Well, as an experienced fan, this record is definitely interesting and inspiring. It’s probably a lot of fun to give this release a listen in a room filled with other Beatlemaniacs and see who the first person is that can “spot” a portion of a song being played within another song (despite the exhaustive track list, there are actually many more Beatle songs scattered throughout the record). That same serious fan, however, I would think would rather listen to the original records. After all, enjoying music that you love really isn’t necessarily supposed to be tampered with as it is here. So I give this one credit for being original and well done, but I just can’t imagine that many fans listening to this many times. I would think the novelty would wear off rather quickly.

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