I'm trying to like the new Beatles album

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Wed Nov 22, 2006 9:12 pm

Love is a great idea, and there are some truly great moments in it, but there are also some truly crappy problems with it.

The first half has a distinct lack of dynamic range
They overuse a few atmospheric sound effects (at least on the 5.1 DTS master, I don't know about the other masters, and actually I expect the 2.0 stereo master to be <em>better</em> in light of this)
The transitions between some of the songs are a bit too abrupt and forced
Some truly annoying reverb treatments (like the plate reverbs at the beginning of Strawberry Fields)
Sometimes they change the pitch of one song just to force it to fit with another (like Blackbird shoehorned into Yesterday)

But there's some truly brilliant moments too. Unfortunately, they make the brilliant moments last too long and kind of run them into the ground.

On the whole I think it's pretty good as a mashup, though I don't think it's really worth the $20 or the hype. Hank Handy did a <a href="http://www.boingboing.net/2004/12/29/in ... html">much more impressive job</a>.

On the other hand, now I'm actually interested in getting Let It Be Naked, which is the completely opposite approach to revitalizing Beatles masters, and which I've heard many good things about.

Incidentally and somewhat related, I actually am VERY much digging Sean Lennon's latest album. It's very Elliot Smith meets Death Cab For Cutie with a great helping of what made his dad's band so great (though really I hear more of a McCartney influence in his music).

Adam! · Post by **Adam!** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 9:45 am

The dynamic range restriction is a huge problem for me. This A Day In The Life makes me sad, just because of the butchered crescendos.

As for the album on a whole, I still haven't listened to it enough to make up my mind.

j$ · Post by j$ » Thu Nov 23, 2006 5:41 pm

It's the Beatles - half of them are dead. Let the fuckers sleep, circus freaks.

Märk · Post by **Märk** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 6:20 pm

j$ wrote:It's the Beatles - half of them are dead. Let the fuckers sleep, circus freaks.

I'm pretty sure Paul is at least brain-dead too.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Thu Nov 23, 2006 8:11 pm

None of the original Beatles had anything to do with this project, except that permission was granted by their various estates and George Martin pointed his son in the right direction (though apparently not well enough).

mkilly · Post by **mkilly** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 6:33 pm

George Martin and his son worked on it together, in fact. Here's an EW interview:
http://www.ew.com/ew/report/0,6115,1562172_4_0_,00.html

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 6:52 pm

That's how it's marketed but what I'd heard was it was the son who did most of the work. I guess that interview says otherwise though. Also, George Martin has been going progressively deaf for many years and I guess this wasn't really done as an album but as a soundtrack and those would all come together (heh) to explain the lack of dynamic range.

I should listen to the stereo mix though. It sounds like Giles put more work into it, and really the 5.1 mix seemed very gimmicky, so the stereo mix might turn out to be much better.

WeaselSlayer · Post by **WeaselSlayer** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 7:24 pm

Hahaha, I thought this was a joke and was like "Wow, a lot of people are playing along with this." And now I know what's what. Wow.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 5:08 pm

The stereo mix is MUCH better.

deshead · Post by **deshead** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 7:36 pm

Track notes from George and Giles: http://blog.podbop.org/archives/2006/11 ... _the_know/

Jim of Seattle · Post by **Jim of Seattle** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 8:46 pm

I was very prepared to get mad at this CD, in kind of a "how dare they" way, but I gotta say, it's damn cool. My favorite bits are where they didn't touch the song much at all but just re-mixed the original tracks. It's like hearing the song anew again. The Guitar Gently Weeps strings are cool because they're so George Martin-y sounding, and the backwards Sun King is a minor revelation. Fluffy, I see what you mean about the key changing, but it didn't bother me. Strawberry Fields sounds like it was from a demo recording that was performed in another key anyway, and they just took the final version's tracks and transposed them. I ain't got a problem with that.

Also, they were making their own comments on the music just by virtue of the songs they chose to combine. For example by putting all that stuff at the end of Strawberry Fields they were saying "All these songs kind of did the same thing - here's montage of all the times they did this sort of thing". And I found it fun to make those connections. They did that a few times.

I found the opening "Because" kind of boring, as I did when I heard it in the Anthology ten years ago. I don't know, they sound great and all, but it doesn't feel like a whole song without the keyboard. And I always miss the opening chords to You Never Give Me Your Money right after.

But yeah, super duper.

Post by **Spud** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 9:17 pm

Hey Jim. Your domain is dead.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 9:18 pm

You mean he's NOT trying to help me meet up with Seattle singles and get info on Washington casinos? :(

Jim of Seattle · Post by **Jim of Seattle** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 10:05 pm

Spud wrote:Hey Jim. Your domain is dead.

Thanks. But God how I know it. Trying to get these domain registration people to do a simple thing is like... well, like something that's really hard to do.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Mon Jan 15, 2007 10:12 pm

It looks like it's still registered to you, so why can't you just log in to the registrar and update your nameserver settings? Or did a squatter decide to usurp your contact info too?

Jim of Seattle · Post by **Jim of Seattle** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 7:27 am

They said the transfer was successful, they just needed 2-3 days to get some server or other updated. Is there something I can do? I know very little about this stuff. My ISP told me it should just start working as soon as they get it together.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 8:51 am

And how long has it been? It does take 2-3 days to finish domain transfers between registrars.

Jim of Seattle · Post by **Jim of Seattle** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 8:54 am

Longer. Like a week or so.

fluffy · Post by **fluffy** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 11:00 am

It looks like the nameserver settings have gotten updated sometime since last night, so give it a day to propagate. It's working for me at work now, for example.

Jim of Seattle · Post by **Jim of Seattle** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 1:20 pm

Oh really? Cool. Apparently it was the name server thing that was messed up. I hear it should all be up in a day or so. Just in time for hosting my GoM entry.

HeuristicsInc · Post by **HeuristicsInc** » Tue Jan 16, 2007 2:17 pm

So my aunt got me some stuff from what she thought was my wishlist at amazon, but it turned out to be somebody else's. they did want an interesting collection of stuff, since two of the four i already had, the other i might have bought, and only one was uninteresting. the one i might have bought was this album, and i decided to keep it and return the others to amazon. listened to it today. i think it's pretty interesting. it won't replace the original albums for me, obviously, but it's a nice alternate listen.
-bill

Thornberry · Post by **Thornberry** » Thu Feb 15, 2007 11:45 pm

I know I am pretty darn late to this disscussion, but I dont check these parts of the boards very often.

I thought this album was fantastic personally! I knew the song were great (everyone did for 40 years now), so I was in this not only for that but very interested in the production decisions made.

When you have access to EVERY BEATLE master tape, there are litereally millions of production decisions, so there were times when I was listening for the first time, and I was making my own guesses as what would come next. And I have to say there were times I thought mine woulda been better (ha lil ol me), but I guess that is what happens when there is so much creative processes involved.

But hearing the remastered version alone was worth the price of the CD. I liked how they pitch shifted blackbird from the original G to the F that yesterday is in. I loved the Being for the benefiet of mr kite/Shes so heavy/Helter Skelter.

But I think who shines on this album more than anyone was George. He truly came through in such crystal clear ways that he was so underrated. his voice was awesome on this record.

There were a few song I didnt like so much. I understand a lot of this goes with the fact that is a soundtrack, not just an album. But I thought the including of Help!, Revolution, and back in the USSR, where pointless to the record. They sounded better quality-wise, but nothing different at all.

I dunno, I LOVEd it (hehe)