Cheese & Onions
Picked up the new Beatles CD the other day. Love, it's called. And it's the best new CD I've heard by the lads in ages. Too bad they had so little to do with its production and release. What with two of them being dead and all. And one of the others being Ringo.
This is a new approach for the boys in reaching new fans. Longtime producer George ('The 5th Beatle") Martin and his son Giles, use the mash-up method which is so popular with the young people these days, particularly hip-hoppers and those scratcher guys who can't come up with an original catchy riff or lyric on their own so they steal one from someone with more talent and throw it into the mix-blender.
But here, it actually works. Possibly because the whole Beatles catalogue of songs is so huge and Martin is so familiar with all of it - having had a hand in all of its creation. So he throws in little bits and pieces from various Beatle songs and make them into a whole new song.
Get Back, for the most part is the song we all know. But it starts off with a bit from A Day in the Life, then the opening chord to Hard Days Night, followed by the drum solo from The End and then over those drumbeats launches into the opening chords of the actual song Get Back. And it all works beautifully. At times the album morphs into a 'George Martin Presents the Fab Four as Stars on 45' mode but that's just part of the fun.
Other songs are just played straight without the blenderizer approach. Either way it's great to hear the boys again whether it's a "re-imagining" or "re-inventing" of the Beatles or not. As one reviewer - or maybe it was Sir George himself, put it - it's a chance to be reminded that in their short career together they were four young musicians in their 20s and all at the top of their game. And this CD shows just how good they were at breaking new ground and coming up with songs totally different from anyone else - and even from themselves.
However, it's really pretty psychedelic stuff and the best way to appreciate such trippy fare is to down copious amounts of LSD and slip into an addled stream-of-consciousness mode.
..... Much later. Back now. Sitting on a cornflake. Quite stoned now. Cuckoo-ka-choo. I begin to air-guitar.
This is a new approach for the boys in reaching new fans. Longtime producer George ('The 5th Beatle") Martin and his son Giles, use the mash-up method which is so popular with the young people these days, particularly hip-hoppers and those scratcher guys who can't come up with an original catchy riff or lyric on their own so they steal one from someone with more talent and throw it into the mix-blender.
But here, it actually works. Possibly because the whole Beatles catalogue of songs is so huge and Martin is so familiar with all of it - having had a hand in all of its creation. So he throws in little bits and pieces from various Beatle songs and make them into a whole new song.
Get Back, for the most part is the song we all know. But it starts off with a bit from A Day in the Life, then the opening chord to Hard Days Night, followed by the drum solo from The End and then over those drumbeats launches into the opening chords of the actual song Get Back. And it all works beautifully. At times the album morphs into a 'George Martin Presents the Fab Four as Stars on 45' mode but that's just part of the fun.
Other songs are just played straight without the blenderizer approach. Either way it's great to hear the boys again whether it's a "re-imagining" or "re-inventing" of the Beatles or not. As one reviewer - or maybe it was Sir George himself, put it - it's a chance to be reminded that in their short career together they were four young musicians in their 20s and all at the top of their game. And this CD shows just how good they were at breaking new ground and coming up with songs totally different from anyone else - and even from themselves.
However, it's really pretty psychedelic stuff and the best way to appreciate such trippy fare is to down copious amounts of LSD and slip into an addled stream-of-consciousness mode.
..... Much later. Back now. Sitting on a cornflake. Quite stoned now. Cuckoo-ka-choo. I begin to air-guitar.
posted by Sonny Drysdale at 1:41 AM
4 Comments:
Ok, it's settled. This one goes on my Christmas list. I assumed this was just an effort to pick over a rotting corpse, but you are the third person I've heard from lately that thought this one's worth a look.
CL - its barely left my turntable since getting it. And it even gets played on a daily basis. Definitely worth a try.
Even tho the last CD of 'new' material I bought was the Killers' 'Hot Fuss,' a few weeks ago - I'm putting 'Love' right up there at the top on my most-exciting of the year list.
Best of the year before? Bill Shatner's 'Has Been.' Listened to it all thru the Christmas holidays instead of Christmas music. No one even complained.
Well, duh! Burl Ives is Christmas!
True enough. But a little Burl goes a long way. A couple of screenings of 'Rudolph' is enough for me.
At this time of year, unless it's family and they're used to you inflicting musical torture on them - I think the best you can do for your guests when 'company' comes over is play anything BUT Christmas music.
Unless it's Christmas songs they haven't heard all day in the mall or on the radio.
I can highly recommend the Christmas CD by the surf-guitar band Los Straitjackets. And Stompin' Tom has a couple of rollicking Christmas songs.
And speaking of rockers, Bobby Goldsboro, true to form, has probably the most depressing Christmas song ever madein 'It's Christmas Time.' Sample lyrics "Fathers celebrating Christmas/With a bottle full of rum/While their children wait for presents/That they know won't ever come/We will deck the halls with holly/If we make it off the floor."
Geez, even John Lennon at his multi-millionaire rock star best couldn't lay such a downer egg on the rest of the world.
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