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| From | "Jaimie Vernon" <bullseyecanada@hotmail.com> |
| Subject | Re: All You Need Is "Love" |
| Date | Sat, 06 Jan 2007 11:59:11 -0500 |
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AT Date: Sat, 06 Jan 2007 13:09:27 synth wrote:
>*Maybe I've heard more remix albums than some here, but I still don't hear
>any correlation >between a cheesy novelty song like Stars on 45 and a remix
>album on the level of Love.
The "Stars On 45" comparison was someone else's analogy but I think it
applies mainly because this ISN'T really straight-up remix album. My full
feeling about the "Love" album is explained below. It's cut from my blog but
I think appropo to discussions here as a lot of people picked 'Love' for
their year end. I don't want to initiate a cat-fight but welcome discussion
based on my points:
Initially I was apprehensive about the Martins deconstructing the master
works of such sacred cows even though I don't hold The Beatles up to such
standards. Yes, I'm a huge fan and as such realized years ago that these are
just good songs recorded by four pretty fallible human beings...but I
digress.
What gets under my craw with this disc isn't the fact that the songs have
become faddish and trendy mash-ups in a style made popular in recent years
by wanna-be engineering hacks, but that the mash-up trend itself is a
one-trick novelty that does not hold up under repeated scrutiny and so the
Beatles tracks suffer because of it.
Imagine if you will trying to watch two different television shows at the
same time side-by-side...or even worse, watching them superimposed over top
of each other. Now imagine this Andy Warholian experiment featuring five or
SIX television shows super-imposed on top of each other.
This is the cumulative effect of the Beatles' "Love".
The Martins have given "Within You And Without You" a drum loop....not
mechanical, but organic by placing the drums from "Tomorrow Never Knows"
into the mix. Similarly, "Here Comes The Sun" now comes with the tabla
groove of "The Inner Light". Despite the sounds being original to the Holy
Beatles Canon, they are, at the end of the day...still drum loops. And are
completely out of context. And maybe that's my beef with the mash-up
phenomenon. Context. The trend itself relies heavily on the clever irony of
making disparate works seem "related". I get that. It just sounds like so
much bad static because what no one really wants to admit is that despite
rock and roll being its own blueprint for self-parody, the subtle turns it
takes to get where it's going makes it more different rather than similar.
And it's friggin' distracting. And I come from a generation that *ISN'T*
A.D.D.
Make no mistake...the mix on this disc brings to light the fact that The
Beatles material is still, above all else, some of the greatest songs ever
recorded. I mean just hearing the bass lines in "Hey Jude" isolated in the
mix for the first time -- finally vindicating Harrison as the musician
McCartney refused to acknowledge! -- is worth the price of admission alone.
Or the demo-to-finished master composite of "Strawberry Fields" which failed
to impress on the Anthology discs now seems relevent and fresh. Or the NEW
string arrangement on the early take of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".
In fact, had this been a straight remix record there would be no doubt in
ANYONE's mind (including fans of the rival Rolling Stones) that this was The
Beatles best album...EVER. The sheer clarity and presence of tracks like
"Eleanor Rigby", "Yesterday" and "Something" confirms their majesty as grand
accomplishments of production genius to which George Martin rightly deserves
the applause. And it also points out the band's weak links (hearing the
out-of-tune backing vocals on "Help!" in 5.1 is a little jarring).
But again, the novelty of meticulously placing puked up snippets of sound
all over these audio Mona Lisa's makes me wish I had a bottle of ProTools
Windex so I could go back and take the offending neon road signs off the
pristine highway these songs nearly traveled on.
Oh, and I completely grasp the concept that all of this is the soundtrack to
a stage performance to which I told my wife: "We'll go back to Vegas the
minute the Cirque leaves Nevada".
Here's hoping The Beatles pass the torch to Giles Martin to actually remix
the Beatles records appropriately and leave all the trendiness on the
cutting room floor. After all, The Beatles MADE things trendy...they didn't
follow them.
Jaimie Vernon,
Bullseye
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