It seems any “new” Beatles material is going to be greeted with the same reaction from die-hard fans: mostly derision, because whatever it is will surely be either leftover material parading as new or rehashes in the form of best-ofs.
And then there was Love, the odd concoction released on Nov. 20, 2006, that straddled the middle ground between the two, both a best-of and something a bit new – if only because it never existed in this particular form before. And this is where the casual fans make out best: They could pick up something like Love and just enjoy it for what it was, rather than picking it apart before it even reached store shelves, or just plain filing it away in the “failure” folder without even hearing it.
That’s what many dedicated Beatles fans tend to do because, as it is widely known, this music is holy and must not be touched! Do not touch! But touch it George Martin and son Giles did, picking through the master tapes and finding the fortuitous moments of the Fab Four’s better-known songs that achieved that beautiful kind of alchemy where two or more songs can morph into one.
Some may have looked at Love as a failure because it lacks radical, modern touches that made Danger Mouse’s Grey Album (which mashed up Jay-Z’s a capella Black Album with instrumental material composed from unauthorized Beatles samples) so controversial, but they missed the point: It doesn’t need to be. That’s not the purpose it served.
Love was, essentially, a greatest-hits package with the spin of being a soundtrack of sorts to the Cirque du Soleil show in Las Vegas. They could have fashioned a new LP that would appeal only to the 18-34 set, as something along the lines of Danger Mouse’s creation generally would. Instead, the Martins allowed the music to breathe in a bit of a new life, without simply rehashing One – all the while appealing to the widest possible audience.
It was not entirely new music, but it also wasn’t entirely old, either. What it was, at least, was a bit fresh and a different perspective from which to view the music of the Beatles. After hearing the Beatles at some point, day-in and day-out, for the past 40 years for most people in the Western world, why weren’t we all welcoming any change up to the sounds?
Great as they are, it’s nice to hear something a little different once in a while. At the same time, for the most part, the songs we all know and love were there in a fairly recognizable form – save for maybe “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” which, for some reason, sadly loses most of its beautiful guitar for strings. But then there are really intriguing moments where things gel just right, like the a capella album opener “Because” or when “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite” suddenly morphs into “She’s So Heavy.” Those moments are particularly goosebump-worthy, and there are more of them than “Guitar,” thankfully.
In the end, Love was simply fun to hear. Let go all the preconceived notions, drop all the pretense associated with the Beatles after decades of deification, forget their status, and Love flows like a bunch of great music – nearly non-stop from beginning to end. It’s hard to imagine any 80-minute stream of music having no stumbles, but Love manages to work: That’s the magic of the Beatles at their best, I suppose, but there’s more at play here than simply the magic of those great tunes they wrote so long ago.
What really sells this set is what some have had such a hard time with: The constant segues between songs, as if the whole album were nearly one long track. But buried in that mix are neat little nuggets for the Beatles die-hards – parts of songs that had been previously buried or parts that had never seen the light of day before, brought out by the George Martin and son especially for this set.
Love remains a treasure trove for fans looking for new details to dig into.
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