New Beatles album

 

THE "KING" IS IN THE "ALL-TOGETHER NOW"!!

 

i just don't geddit.

 

 

Whole-heartedly agree - but might be tempted to progamme out the more syrupy tunes! And I will admit the most of the album grows on me the more I play it, since I'm intrigued to work out where the samples have been lifted from, so holding my attention. But then I must admit too, the compilation of Drive My Car,  Say The Word etc. as a single tune, instantly reminded me of those Stars On 45 medley covers of 20/25 years ago.

 

Strawberry Fields is scheduled this Thursday. Noticed what I call a 'Holdsworthian effect' being introduced: by sampling a guitar solo from a different tune, and pasting it into the middle 8 of another, there results a very post-Beatles tangential-to-main-theme-solo. That sort of thing makes me want to go back and listen again to the new musical effect produced. Now on a 4th thorough relisten, and believe there has been some attempt to rebalance the levels of various instruments on some tunes, perhaps to emphasise the vocal. Some of the Love mash may be more subtle than a first listen would suggest, but there again may be over-subtle and lost as a result (on both those familiar and unfamiliar with the originals).

a) what a good mash/remixer can do

b) that a good masher can do something extra-special because they have access to the master tapes and the go ahead from the band in question.

 

Do a websearch, and you can't fail to find examples of what remix/mash djs can do, and when often limited to the use of commercial CD recordings (not the masters, where a singer or an instrument can be cleanly isolated from the rest).

 

I'm sure there is a dilemma with this recording, caught with being reverential to the originals and not sure how far to take the mashing, so as to make something very different from the originals. One track here seems just plain daft - a Harrison tune played backwards. The acoustic opening of Blackbird is glued onto the front of Yesterday, and the change over is  noticeable and for me, jarring. Some mashing works, Within You & Without You with Ringo's drums from TNK, works particularly well. Strawberry Fields Forever, is a cheat in some respects, with an alterantive take being used initially, with at least a verse heard before the familiar drums come in, and then closes with lots of brief samples from many other Beatles tunes while hanging on to all the pocket trumpet solo from Penny Lane. Elsewhere the early tunes seem to suffer little from some 21st century tampering, apart from sounding to be  very well remastered. 

 

I predict the really interesting stuff will come after the copyright disappears, and mashers of 2050's will feel free to mash together allsorts of bands from the masters without copyright issues impeding them.