YELLOW SUBMARINE SONGTRACK

Another Beatles compilation, cobbled together from the original Yellow Submarine album (minus the George Martin orchestral pieces) and other songs featured in the cartoon.

A few of the less well known Beatles tracks are included - Lennon's great "Hey Bulldog", Harrison's awful "Only a Northern Song" (which was rightly chucked off Sgt. Pepper), his trippy masterpiece "It's all too much" (as covered by Steve Hillage) and the McCartney football crowd singalong "All together now".

What makes this album of interest to collectors is the fact that it's remastered and this is particularly noticeable in "Lucy" (bass drum in the second part of the verse), "Nowhere Man" (listen to the backing vocals) and "All you need is love" (listen to the opening vocals). I'm not generally in favour of tampering with the originals too much (let's hope they don't go around removing all the glitches and mistakes) but the improvement in these tracks is something that most of their albums would benefit from.

Musically speaking, the "Yellow Submarine" project is not one of their best, but the remastering and the inclusion of the other film songs makes this a worthwhile purchase.

For those proto-proggers out there who prefer their Beatles psychedelic side up with a generous slice of ham this should smell like breakfast to you. The ground-breaking animation of the phantasmagoric "Yellow Submarine" movie required the use of some of the Fab Four's most eclectic recordings to accompany the trippy story line and this soundtrack, therefore, does a good job of displaying their more experimental and whimsical side. It's also just a nice alternative grouping of their songs to listen to any time.

The boys from Liverpool had a healthy sense of humor about them and the title track is a great example. Producer George Martin's experiences from recording zany British comedians years before gave him the ability to see the bigger picture and he probably encouraged them to throw in quirky voices and sound effects when called for. The claustrophobic daily life they were leading brought on by their immense fame likely inspired the basic idea of all of them existing in a submerged U-boat. Symbolism abounds aplenty for it's not just a song for kids, you know. The bold "Hey Bulldog" not only has a cool heavy piano/guitar riff and an unusual chord progression, Lennon's off-the-wall but vaguely surrealistic lyrics are intriguing in more ways than one. "Some kind of innocence is measured out in years/you don't know what it's like to listen to your fears" he sings. It also proves that at that point in their career they still were having fun in the studio as evidenced by their enthusiastic kennel imitations at the end. The dark but truly poetic "Eleanor Rigby" with its aggressive string quartet backbone, unforgettable melodies and brilliant counterpoint still has the ability to send a shiver up your spine.

There's a fair amount of the Dark Horse included here, starting with Harrison's landmark "Love You To" in which the previously obscure sitar and its accompanying Indian percussion was foisted upon the unsuspecting western world. It's definitely a song that neither John or Paul would have ever written, that's for sure. "All Together Now" is another gleeful romp that contains a sense of levity that seems to be missing and presumed lost in 21st century music. Don't be judgmental about its sing-along corniness. It's a refreshing thing to simply enjoy a light-hearted tune for exactly what it is. Lennon's miraculously inspired "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" needs no dissection as it is a masterpiece in its own right. George's "Think for Yourself," while not the best song he ever contributed to the cause, still stands out for making it clear to musicians the world over that anything, even a bass guitar, could be fed through a fuzz box. The other-worldly aura of the "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band/With a Little Help from my Friends" medley sustains the slightly hallucinogenic feel of the proceedings and the exclamatory exuberance of "Baby You're a Rich Man" has enough incidental noises cropping up here and there to keep you wondering what you just heard.

The somewhat rare "Only a Northern Song" by Mr. Harrison is a welcome addition and his spaced-out but wry, tongue-in-cheek sarcasm is worth a chuckle or two. "If you think the harmony/is a little dark and out of key/you're correct/there's nobody there" he sings as disjointed, backwards horns swim through the track. The bombastic but eternally relevant "All You Need is Love" entrances next, followed by Paul's comical "When I'm Sixty Four" with its dry clarinet and charming, old-world atmosphere. The beautifully tight harmonies of "Nowhere Man" demonstrate what excellent vocalists and arrangers they were and that striking, double-tracked electric 12-string guitar lead creates a sound that will probably never be duplicated. But the most astoundingly psychedelic track comes is saved for last with George's wonderful, carnival-like "It's All Too Much." There are so many wildly progressive ideas flying around during this number that they defy description and I would be more than willing to put it up against anything in the acid rock vein that Pink Floyd ever created. It is, in two words, a trip.

In addition, not only is it a fine congregation of Beatle classics and lesser-known cuts, the audio is consistently pristine. If you have a pretty decent collection of their material but don't have "It's All Too Much" or "Hey Bulldog" then this is a must have for the true fan. 3.8 stars.

This is different to the original 1969 release. Half of that album was intrumental film music by George Martin. I have never seen the whole animated film, but I think this version collects all the Beatles songs used in the film. In both versions four songs were exclusive to the soundtrack: Lennon's "Hey Bulldog", McCartney's "All Together Now", and two Harrison songs, "Only A Northern Song" and "It's All Too Much". "Bulldog" is the best of the new songs and features a great thick bass sound from McCatrney during the chorus. "Northern Song" was left off Sgt. Pepper's, while "Too Much" is a better song.

In some ways this almost acts as a kind of 'best of'. Lots of album tracks but not too many singles. It would have been cool if they included "I Am The Walrus". But we do get "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" which is one of the highlights of the film. Nothing here is older than 1965 and nothing newer than 1967. The band's most creative period yet this doesn't have most of the band's best songs during this era.

When this came out, it was the first newly remastered Beatles material since the 1987 reissues. The sound quality is an improvement over the 1987 versions. I think I have even read that some of the songs were remixed. Also I think this was mixed for surround-sound as well. A nice collection but the choice of songs here is kind of odd. 3 stars.

A much better version of the movie soundtrack is found here leaving out the interminable George Martin orchestrated soundtrack music. Nobody cares about that music so it is good to see that we have here some Beatles classics to fill in the gaps which are far more worthy of addition. All the songs from the film are here, Yellow Submarine, Hey Bulldog, It's All Too Much, Only A Northern Song, All You Need Is Love and All Together Now. There are a stack of other songs from other albums that really add to the enjoyment of the album, such as the brilliant Eleanor Rigby, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, With a Little Help from My Friends and Baby, You're a Rich Man; many of which appear on the Magical Mystery Tour film and album. Its always great to hear Harrison's psychedelic opus Love You To, and I always have time for Nowhere Man. Overall this is a pleasant album that buries the original Yellow Submarine fiasco.

This one's a tricky CD to assess on the star-rating scale. Yellow Submarine Songtrack isn't really an expanded rerelease of the original 1969 Yellow Submarine album, as it omits half of the original LP. It's also not simply a hits compilation, as several of the songs are lesser-known; furthermore, since the tracks are remixed, they differ somewhat from the familiar versions. Finally, it's not precisely a soundtrack album. First, it excludes one of the Beatles songs from the 1968 Yellow Submarine movie ('A Day in the Life'), although all of the other fifteen are present. But the missing half of the 1969 album is George Martin's orchestral score for the film, and it's been pointed out that these recordings would've fit quite comfortably in the runtime of the Yellow Submarine Songtrack CD.

The remixes on the Yellow Submarine Songtrack are not reinterpretations à la Love; in fact, they are pretty faithful renderings, using only the original tracks, but realized using late-1990s technology. And they sound great. 'Eleanor Rigby' is starker that the original, and takes a bit of getting used to, but most of the songs just sound clearer and cleaner. 'When I'm Sixty-Four' in particular sounds absolutely fantastic, as do 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,' 'With a Little Help From My Friends,' and 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds' - - the other Sgt. Pepper tunes. It really is a shame that 'A Day in the Life' was omitted.

Those five songs, plus the title track, are the strong cuts here. Now, second-rate Beatles songs are still pretty good songs, but the fact remains that more than half of the Yellow Submarine Songtrack is comprised of second-rate Beatles songs, including all four of the songs which debuted on the original album.

So, how to rank the Yellow Submarine Songtrack? On one hand, it's another compilation, in this case a compilation of songs which every Beatles fan already owns, and yet not a best-of album by any stretch. It's a nice tie-in to the 1999 rerelease of the Yellow Submarine film, but is otherwise nonessential. On the other hand, it has the best-sounding mixes available of several Beatles classics.

The official Prog Archive guidance has two stars indicating an album for 'collectors/fans only,' and that's my best estimate for the Yellow Submarine Songtrack. A casual fan looking for a single-disk compilation would do better with 1 (2000), even if they'd be missing out on the mixes here.