The Beatles Conversation, With Love
By KingEd on Jan 25, 2007
By now the godforsaken term mash-up has probably lost its currency, but The Beatles' Love album recently was foisted on me by a well-intentioned friend. I've been trying to "enjoy it for what it is," as my friend encouraged me to do, but it's bumming me out.
The album opens with the unaccompanied backing vocals to "Because", as if George and Giles Martin felt the need to show the world that the lads could harmonize as well as The Beach Boys. Snooze. The most interesting thing about this "mash-up," I soon discovered, is that you can hear birds tweeting in the background. Suddenly I felt like Gene Hackman in The Conversation.
Follow up:
Ringo's big solo from Abbey Road kicks off a remastered, remixed bit of "Get Back", in which I find myself paying more attention to the added space around the vocals than anything else. During the guitar solo, the buildup from "A Day in the Life" gets mixed in, as if The Beatles never did experiments in sound in their own records.
The backing track of "Eleanor Rigby" is, like the a capella backing vocals on "Because", the sort of move lesser artists do on box sets and bonus tracks to earn what little added credibility they may by highlighting one specific thing they do especially well. Snooze. Wasn't the greatness of The Beatles the band's ability to synthesize and balance their diverse influences and impulses? To this day, their real records don't need an Apple Garageband "mash-up" to sound out of this world.
Throughout this "mash-up" album, the gimmickry typically bookends the remastered versions of songs. With all the build up I expected something at least slightly mind-blowing, like The Residents' Third Reich and Roll, but I guess you don't put a wine-sipping old gentleman and his son on a project that's intended to blow minds.
In The Conversation, Hackman's character is a lonely guy in search of himself as much as any answers to his stumbled-upon investigation. The "mash-up" of "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" with crowd noises from the Hollywood Bowl concert, or some such frenzied scene, is especially pathetic. It's the album's solitary man with tumbler of scotch in the plaid comfy chair beside the brass reading lamp moment.
After that it's a medley of "Drive My Car", "Taxman", "What You're Doing", and probably a half dozen other songs that, taken together, make me embarrassed to have grown up such a Beatlemaniac.
11 comments
You don't have kids, right? My two kids love "Love". They are big Beatles fans but don't have the hang ups that us adults do for these "new" songs. The "stars on 45" aspect does bug me but some of the mash-ups work pretty well. The one I think is the best is the drums of "Tomorrow Never Knows" mashed up with the vocals of "Within Without You"
Also, King, I know you are also writing fror Phawker. We better not see any recycled articles on RTH or Fingeroff will be PISSED.
I was looking forward to spinning Love and playing the "oh that came from _____" game with it.
Sadly the senior Martin and his Mini-Me dropped the ball, big time. With perhaps two mildliy sastisfying exceptions (which escape me at the momenet) all the mashing was left to the transitions between songs. I don't even need GarageBand to do that. I could do that on my TRS-80 .
Speaking of Phawker, I've got a piece submitted on the new Sloan album. I'd love to say more about my feelings on it, but I don't want to shoot my wad. I'll let you know if it runs.
-was "love" simply a collaboration with 'cirque' that got more attention than anyone ever intended because it used beatles material?
-or was it yet another result of the beatles camp's traditional "gotta get some new product out for christmas" mindset?
after hearing the music, i figure it's a little bit of both. no question it could probably be best enjoyed in its circus tent context (if you like that sort of thing, which i don't). but since it IS a "new way" to hear beatles tunes, the folks who stand to make the $$$ from this must've known that people would gobble it up.
ed, i'm not sure i "get" your "late night tumbler of scotch" theme, but whatev. i don't like "love" either.
i find the choices they made WAY too chatty and nattering...listening to all these incongruous associations between this white album song, and that pepper song, this drum track from 66 with that guitar part from 69, or whatever, makes me feel as if there's an overly excited, uncritical beatles fan in the room with me saying:
"isn't this combination cool? isn't this great? don't you just LOVE this? the beatles were such geniuses it's as if they KNEW in '67 that this drum part would work with this vocal from '70!!! it's really too bad we don't have any new beatles songs to listen to isn't it? but this is the next best thing! it was made by George Martin you know??? etc. etc. etc."
but it seems that i'm not alone in feeling this way. the fact that even andre gardner has taken to playing "just the middle channel" on sunday mornings, so that we can hear "john's exceptional vocal performance on I am the Walrus, like we've never heard it before", is evidence enough that even the most indiscriminant, totally accepting beatles fans can't really get into the tunes the way they are presented on "love".
and mark my words. "love" is one step closer to their inevitable publication of the raw tracks themselves. That's where all this is leading, isn't it? IT'S GOING TO HAPPEN ONE CHRISTMAS SEASON.
oh, and, sorry to go pince nez on you, ed, but what we hear at the beginning of "love" is not "backing vocals" as you suggest. it's not lead either. it's just...the song's vocals. it's not as if another lead track is recorded over those harmonies, right? it's a 3 part harmony (albeit tracked a couple of times) w/ no distinction between lead, or backing vocal. since all three parts are presented, it's not backing vocals.
once again, a fun read, ed! thanks.
art
Maybe there's some kind of equation -- of all the Beatles repackagings per decade, a few will actually stick: the Red and Blue albums, 1, a few others.
Finally, Let it Be Naked -- underrated, I say!
Finally, Let it Be Naked -- underrated, I say!Expand if you would. I was all lined up to buy this but then read some reviews and got an earfull from Mr. Moderator and ultimately passed. It is definitely something that I want to like.
At the risk of reopening old threads: I love the remastered sound; Many of the songs still are great, but I especially want to highlight the rooftop version of "Don't Let Me Down" and the stripped-down "Across the Universe"; I don't mind the re-sequence; I miss the chatter and goofy throwaways.
Definitely try and sample it first before buying. It may not be a replacement for the original album, but it's an interesting rethink.
It's certainly gained luster compared to Love.
This poses an interesting quandry. I could easily put "viagra" as a no-no word and any posts or comments with the word would be forbidden. But given our subject matter, and the advancing age of some of our members, the term may be one that comes up now and again. Hmmmm....
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