the beatles - love

seriously, i thought this was going to suck major balls, but it's actually fantastically amazingly good. it's like a 2manydjs effort, but exclusively with beatles tracks direct from the master tapes, and with george martin at the helm. omg within you without you with the drums from tomorrow never knows... sun king played backwards... just really really good.

  Quote

After being asked by the remaining Beatles, Ringo and Paul, along with Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison, to make experimental mixes from their master tapes for a collaboration with Cirque du Soleil, Sir George Martin, The Beatles legendary producer, and his son Giles Martin have been working with the entire archive of Beatles recordings to create LOVE. The result is an unprecedented approach to the music. Using the master tapes at Abbey Road Studios, Sir George and Giles have created a unique soundscape. The release of this album, which is also featured in the Cirque du Soleil/Beatles collaborative production of the same name at The Mirage in Las Vegas, has been much anticipated.

 

“This album puts the Beatles back together again, because suddenly there’s John and George with me and Ringo,” said Paul McCartney. “It’s kind of magical.”

 

“George and Giles did such a great job combining these tracks. It’s really powerful for me and I even heard things I’d forgotten we’d recorded.” commented Ringo Starr.

 

“The album has the feeling of love and that’s why the title is Beatles LOVE,“ added Yoko Ono Lennon, "They have let everything that is beautiful and daring come out.”

  Quote

“The music is stunning. I think the most amazing thing about it is that you can pull it apart and all the elements carry with it the essence of the entire song,” said Olivia Harrison.

 

Tony Wadsworth, Chairman and CEO of EMI Music UK and Ireland said, “George and Giles’ highly original work in creating the LOVE album gives us a genuinely new Beatles album. It makes us respect even more, if that were possible, the creativity and brilliance of the band behind the greatest catalogue in the history of recorded music.”

  "the observer" said:

Of all the possible posthumous incarnations for the Beatles, here's one of the most unlikely - as soundtrack to a Las Vegas circus. It isn't any old circus, admittedly, but Canada's arty, super-acrobatic Cirque du Soleil, whose current Las Vegas show, Love, is modelled on the story of the Beatles and characters from their songs: Eleanor Rigby, Sergeant Pepper et al.

 

More importantly, Love the show - the result of George Harrison's friendship with Cirque founder Guy Laliberte - involved producer George Martin disinterring the group's master tapes from the Abbey Road vault for he and his son Giles to remix and remodel. The results blast Love audiences from a state-of-the-art surround-sound system that includes speakers in individual seats.

 

Article continues

And the first thing Love the album does, at least in its DVD surround-sound format, is to blow you away with sheer sonic wizardry. Set to a noisy dawn chorus, complete with fluttering wings, the three-part vocal harmonies of 'Because' arrive with the clarity of an ice blue sky. The chugging introduction to 'Get Back' hurtles out of the mix like a train. The pumping fairground organs of 'Mr Kite' reek of steam and sawdust. Hearing many of the familiar tracks is like viewing an old masterpiece after cleaning: the light is brighter, the shadows deeper. Here, the trebles tingle while the bass end booms.

 

Some of this is painstaking technical restoration. After the Beatles swapped touring for the studio, they and Martin became experts at squeezing a quart of sound into a pint pot, extending the limits of four- and eight-track recordings by 'bouncing down' tracks. Today's technology has let the Martins reverse the process, giving instruments and voices more autonomy. Ever notice the pizzicato violins on the middle 8 of 'Something'? You will now.

 

The ambitions of Love go beyond renovation, however. Its 26 tracks are set in an ambient flow of sound collages distilled from hours of Beatles tapes and containing fragments and echoes of 130 songs in all. Frequently the effect is ghostly, as the stalking strings of 'Glass Onion' and a snatch of 'Nowhere Man' drift like ectoplasm down a corridor. 'I Want to Hold Your Hand' - one of the few numbers from the moptop days - surfaces from a scratchy haze of screaming.

 

The most ambitious songs emerge most improved. There is not, after all, much to be done with the rock'n'roll retro of 'Lady Madonna', whereas 'Strawberry Fields' and 'I am the Walrus' sound more than ever like avant-garde masterpieces. Harrison's 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' (the slower version from Anthology 3) is given a sumptuous string setting by Sir George. Throughout, the McCartney/Starr rhythm section has never sounded so heavy, or the group's vocal harmonies so sharp and affecting.

 

Love vindicates the Beatles' status as master musicians and conceptualists. Not only for the spirit of optimism they embodied but artistically, they remain the act to beat. On this evidence, no one else comes close.

Where can I hear this, short of attending the show?

Btw, I'm really excited to see how this turned out.

i'm in ur pms

hookin u up

i was pretty damn convinced this would be complete shit.

feel free to prove me wrong... ahem... hookup... cough...

y'know what's quite a good cd you could draw analogies with? that watch and repeat play mix that came with the warpvision dvd. the concept is pretty similar.

OK, I'm about halfway through. I'm kind of pretty much not feeling it so far.

* Songs not fucked with anywhere near enough for this to be an artistic venture

* Should have have a unified vibe, with lots of unreleased takes and shit

* Would only sound "weird", "experimental" or "bold" if you're a 60-something baby boomer

* Too broad a selection, again kowtowing to the baby boomers

* It sounds like fucking Jive Bunny :cry2:

oooouh

aw that's a shame. see i think if you probably left it in anyone's hands but george martin's, it would be a clusterfuck. i think you can hear the love with george martin; he's obviously devoted a lot of time to this. jive bunny >_<

  kaini said:

see i think if you probably left it in anyone's hands but george martin's, it would be a clusterfuck.

i beg to differ.

anyone who hangs out on wattum has heard FAR tastier track selection and sequencing, done by the artists this board is devoted to.

they've also heard far more interesting, challenging and risk-taking remix work.

compared to what us wattumers are used to, this is totally safe, watered down, commercial pap.

i actually think the second half is WORSE by the way. like he gives up on blending the tracks altogether and just plays "hey jude" by itself. beacuse its the beatles, so you have to play "hey jude". GAG.

and the track selection is just the popular consensus "best of" - you can't hear any one individual's "love" coming through AT ALL.

who the fuck is george martin?

it's interesting that there are 26 tracks on this.

d'you think they've been taking their cues from richie j?

(haven't actually heard it, but am very interested. george martin is a studio genius.

I think this album is pretty amazing. It SOUNDS amazing. The drums pound.

I was very impressed with Eleanor Rigby.

personally I`ve never understood what makes the Beatles so special.

Give me Pink Floyd anyday.

Is there gonna be any Amen or acid tracks on this?

martin rolls amens all over teh joint

  analogue wings said:

* Songs not fucked with anywhere near enough for this to be an artistic venture

* Should have have a unified vibe, with lots of unreleased takes and shit

* Would only sound "weird", "experimental" or "bold" if you're a 60-something baby boomer

* Too broad a selection, again kowtowing to the baby boomers

* It sounds like fucking Jive Bunny :cry2:

it's the beatles, it's the beatles, it's the beatles, it's the beatles, wrong.

not weird or experimental enough? the latest sound on the album is from early 1970 at the latest. too broad a selection? IT'S THE BEATLES. pffffft

  analogue wings said:

  kaini said:

see i think if you probably left it in anyone's hands but george martin's, it would be a clusterfuck.

 

i beg to differ.

 

anyone who hangs out on wattum has heard FAR tastier track selection and sequencing, done by the artists this board is devoted to.

 

they've also heard far more interesting, challenging and risk-taking remix work.

 

compared to what us wattumers are used to, this is totally safe, watered down, commercial pap.

 

i actually think the second half is WORSE by the way. like he gives up on blending the tracks altogether and just plays "hey jude" by itself. beacuse its the beatles, so you have to play "hey jude". GAG.

 

and the track selection is just the popular consensus "best of" - you can't hear any one individual's "love" coming through AT ALL.

Meh, speak for yourself, I thought it was excellent. I like the little snatches of songs, like Julia's guitar line floating around after Eleanor Rigby. Also the songs sounded spectacular. Strawberry Fields was the best I've ever heard it. If there are really plans to remaster the entire back catalogue at this quality then count me in.

it even manages to transform octopuses garden into a thing of extraordinary beauty by mashing it with goodnight.

I like the Blackbird/Yesterday transition, and the remixed Within You Without You is the highlight. I have to admit it was all kind of pointless though; how about instead of this just remaster all the albums completely, atleast Rubber Soul forward. That's what I really want to hear.

not a huge fan of the blackbird/yesterday bit... it seems a bit pointless, like 'omg, they're in the same key! who knew?' the WIWY/TNK mash is great though.

my favourite bit is the segue from being for the benefit of mr. kite into the end of i want you (she's so heavy)... on headphones it's a real BAM! moment.

and i like revolver just fine the way it is tbh. maybe a remaster of abbey road could be nice.

I just liked it because of how seamless it was, although I would have preferred to hear all of Blackbird rather than Yesterday. Also a remixed version of Norwegian Wood might have been nice. Really it is just a best of album, but it's nicely done. I wish they would have done more of the Tomorrow Never Knows/Within You Without You stuff though...

Hmmm, interesting, I think Abbey Road is their album that least needs a remaster.

i'll be more than content if i never hear a single nanosecond of this

does it have carnival of light on it

a pointless exercise, lot's of clashing harmonies caused by ignorant tinkering. John and George must be turning in their graves/ ash-pots

i have now bought it.

i love it.

except the orchestral accompaniment to octopus's garden which rubs my man bag the wrong way.

i particularly love the stripped out version of elanor rigby, and the breakbeat version of within you without you.

top marks george.

what did you expect, an autechre mashup?