Saturday, November 18, 2006

Oh no the Beatles

There's been a lot of hype about the Beatles Vegas mash-up "Love." I've always felt every few years we get the Beatles we deserve. In the 70s it was the reverential, but selective red and blue albums. In the 80s it was shallow retread collections, "The Beatles Love Songs", "The Beatles Rock and Roll Music", or Stars-on-45 style Beatles Movie Medley, then it was the re-issue everything in the vaults of the Anthologies, or get the whole collection on CD, for those who don't like any chance or mystery in the collection. Come the millennium we had the "if you only get 1 Beatles disc get this" of the number ones - just like any other band - and now, mashed up soundtrack to a hit show. When they finally remaster everything and put them on to iTunes we'll no doubt get our own personal Beatles albums, synchronised to our personality and mood, and I'll never have to hear "ob-la-di ob-la-da" again. I think its very hard to love everything they did unless you were there at the time - but they were so prolific and varied that you almost create your own Beatles from the debris. So, they were my favourite band when I was 11, but have long since been superceded by others - yet they still hold an interest; I think they'll survive "Love" the same way they survived "Free as a bird", "Beatles Love Songs" and "Magical Mystery Tour."

2 comments:

Ms Baroque said...

I totally agree - including about Od-la-di Ob-la-da, and the part about being 11 - with the proviso that I've lsot interestnow, that I've heard them ALL so many times I never need to again, and that increasingly the only Beatles I feel like ever hearing agaim is the really early stuff. Revolver at the LATEST.

And anyway McCartney is more than enough to put anyone off.

Adrian Slatcher said...

Yes, the No.1's album tail off after "Paperback writer" rather than "getting better" as fans of Sgt. Pepper might expect. Paul McCartney wrote "bang, bang Maxwell's silver hammer" for chrissakes, so we should know what to expect.