Album Reviews
The loveliness comes at a predictable cost in breakaway energy. Only six titles, including a fan-enhanced live snatch of "I Want to Hold Your Hand," are from before 1966, with Rubber Soul reduced to thirty seconds of "The Word." Even in the late catalog, Martin highlights the sweet, cute and orchestral -- no "Yer Blues," "You Never Give Me Your Money" or "Why Don't We Do It in the Road." Trivialities like "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" and "Octopus' Garden" are on full display, while "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" briefly signifies a chaos that inspires cries of "Help" and is quickly righted by "Blackbird/Yesterday."
Nevertheless, most of Martin's trickery is great fun, from the choral, tweet-tweaked "Because" to a "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" variant more forthright than the original. The "Revolution"/"Back in the U.S.S.R." segue makes a slightly tendentious political point; "Within You Without You"/"Tomorrow Never Knows" contrasts George Harrison's style of spirituality with John Lennon's. And always another great melody waits in the wings, ready to take you higher. These melodies weren't all or even most of what the Beatles gave the world. But only rockist sentimentalists dismiss the Apollonian detachment of the world's greatest rock & roll band's late period. Played too often in one twenty-four-hour period (twice, say), George Martin's vision of the world's greatest rock & roll band could give a person a tummy ache. But as desserts go, it's got some spice.
(Posted: Nov 30, 2006)
Your Turn
Review 1 of 2
TTB writes:
This is the best album of 2006. The greatest songs in the world are all combined to make an 80 minute spectacle the is 10x as good as the second side to Abbery Road. A must buy for anyone who loves the Beatles.
Apr 6, 2007 16:47:25
Review 2 of 2
Deleanu writes:
A long time before Cirque du Soleil’s show “Love” opened in Las Vegas in June 2006, a singular collaboration had been formed between the Beatles and the Montreal-based circus. This absolutely unique relationship, which was also enhanced by the friendship between George Harrison and Guy Laliberte, founder of Cirque du Soleil, materialized into this extraordinary album. However, LOVE is not a compilation made to support a show. First of all, LOVE is the soul of this magnificent spectacle; secondly, the present collection of some of the most expressive of all Beatles songs is an experimental mix of the original master tapes. What Sir George Martin, the original producer of the “Fab Four,” and his son, Giles Martin, have been successful in accomplishing is the rendition of a new, and at the same time old, sound without being retrospective in their inimitable approach. Once you play the CD or the DVD-Audio complementing the set, what you hear bursting out of the speakers is the not the thud of the usual digital processing, but the refreshed energy of a perpetually reinvigorating young band.
The intriguing remix of these musical jewels, which somehow seems to be rather a reissue than a new melodious exploration, is not simply a straight coupling of two former songs that received good press when they were first released. Sir George Martin excels in this sort of repertoire that allows plenty of space for colour and central exquisiteness, especially in the more harmonious places. The Beatles’ precious songs on this album, are especially infectious, in the Martin & Martin version, with such works as BECAUSE, ELEANOR RIGBY, I AM THE WALRUS, LADY MADONNA, and HEY JUDE among the most impressively re/de-constructed songs of all.
The remixes have come out marvellously and the accompanying DVD-Audio is surely a turn on for collectors who are addicted to the divinely intoxicating music of the four Liverpool boys.
DANIEL DELEANU
Feb 14, 2007 07:14:51
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