Review: Beatles' Love album

Nov 17 2006 by Alan Weston, Liverpool Daily Post

MY FIRST reaction when I heard that an album of souped-up Beatles songs was about to be released was simply: “Why?”

The Beatles’ music has been endlessly re-packaged and re-issued over the years. This seemed like yet another cynical marketing ploy to get us to part with our cash in the run-up to Christmas.

Also, anyone who loves music will already know these songs backwards. They are perfect as they are, being both of their time, and for all time. Why draw a moustache on the Mona Lisa?

It is only when you hear the completed album, simply called Love, that its point becomes clear. What the Martins have done is give these songs a complete makeover, so that they sound as freshly-minted as if they were recorded yesterday.

The tracks run, merge and blend into each other like a concept album. Ghostly snatches of other Beatles’ songs drift in and out of the mix. Even those which have been left virtually untouched, such as Eleanor Rigby, I Am the Walrus, and Something, have been subjected to the most modern, state-of-the-art production techniques, so that every nuance is now crystal clear.

Strawberry Fields Forever, Lady Madonna and While My Guitar Gently Weeps, meanwhile, have been radically re-worked.

The album is weighted heavily toward the Beatles’ psychedelic era.

When the Beatles’ music is in danger of becoming over-familiar through constant exposure, there can be nothing better than re-discovering the awe and wonder with which it was first heard, and the astonishing creativity of these four Liverpool lads.