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Re: The Beatles

Posted: January 21st, 2012, 7:01 pm
by MichiganJ
movieman1957 wrote:While you're at it give us your "Red" and "Blue" albums.
This is carried over from the MUSICAL INFLUENCES thread.

I've been thinking about this, and at least right now,if I were programing the RED Album, I would drop Love Me Do (as historic as it is), We Can Work It Out, Michele and Girl (Rubber Soul is represented very well already) and finally, Yellow Submarine.

I would definitely open the collection with I Saw Her Standing There (you can't miss with McCartney's count in. Unless you are Capitol, which opened Meet the Beatles with I Want To Hold Your Hand putting Standing There second.)
I'd also include Twist and Shout , although Klein and George purposely stayed away from covers, John's shredding vocal is too great not to include.
I'd keep HELP! opening side 3, but drop the Bond intro.
I'd also add two Harrisongs, If I Needed Someone and Taxman.
I'd probably conclude the collection with Got To Get You Into My Life.

The Blue album was both easier and harder. (For some reason, the Red album has 26-tracks, while the much longer Blue has 28.)

Out would be: The Fool on the Hill, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, Old Brown Shoe and The Long and Winding Road

In would be: Birthday, Either Dear Prudence or Julia, All Together Now, and either Hey Bulldog or Two of Us.

Re: The Beatles

Posted: January 22nd, 2012, 2:15 pm
by movieman1957
No argument on what you'd lose. As far as what you'd add on the Blue album, I've never cared that much for "Birthday" and I'd be more inclined to substitute "It's All Too Much" for "All Together Now" but wholeheartedly would take either "Hey Bulldog" or "Two of Us."

Thanks.

Re: The Beatles

Posted: January 23rd, 2012, 9:01 pm
by movieman1957
I just picked up a copy of "Please Please Me" and so far two things stand out in addition to how crisp it all sounds for one day of recording. One is "Boys." I never much cared for the song but I think Ringo gives a really good performance. It's confident and powerful in a way that many of his other Beatles' recordings are not. Also in "Please Please Me" it is hard enough singing harmony but when you're carrying it on one note for a couple of measures while the melody runs all around you that is pretty good singing.

I heard them a million times before but they just stand out more than before.

Re: The Beatles

Posted: January 23rd, 2012, 9:09 pm
by Rita Hayworth
movieman1957 wrote:One is "Boys." I never much cared for the song but I think Ringo gives a really good performance. It's confident and powerful in a way that many of his other Beatles' recordings are not.
Boys is one of my sentimental favorites because of Ringo gave it one of his better performances.

Re: The Beatles

Posted: January 30th, 2012, 12:05 pm
by MichiganJ
Link to a free download of McCartney's new song, Only Our Hearts, one of two songs written by McCartney on his forthcoming album, Kisses on the Bottom.

http://www.whatmakeslovetrue.com/romant ... &utm_term=

Re: The Beatles

Posted: February 14th, 2012, 11:31 am
by movieman1957
I only caught a few minutes of the Grammys the other night. I saw "The Beach Boys." All of them were there but how unfortunate that so few people in the crowd seemed to have ever heard of "Good Vibrations."

I also saw Paul do the tune from his new album. Then CNN, I think, linked to a twitter page where many people wanted to know who he was. That made me feel old.

All in all, I'm sure it's similar in that I couldn't tell you anything about nearly anybody else who appeared on the show. I don't listen to most current music as I don't enjoy it. (There I am being old again.) So, I'm sure I'd get the same quizzical looks from younger folks. So be it.

Radio is a different world so as much as it troubles me that music history may have escaped some younger people I can see why. Radio is either all one thing or another and they almost never cross. I can imagine that in the middle of the current hits station someone threw in "Hey Jude" they would get a good talking to from the program director.

You all can come visit me in the home.

Re: The Beatles

Posted: February 14th, 2012, 12:12 pm
by RedRiver
Amen. I never heard of the big winner. Adelle? I'm not kidding! God bless radio. It used to be such a part of our day to day lives. We all knew the latest hits, the local jingles, the names of the announcers. Now it's just one more electronic distraction. When I was young, our local station played rock, country, easy listening. To this day, I appreciate all those styles.

Were I a program director today, I'd love to do just that. But then I'd an UNEMPLOYED program director. Not much money in that!

Re: The Beatles

Posted: February 17th, 2012, 11:52 pm
by movieman1957
Any thoughts on "Love"?

Image

Re: The Beatles

Posted: February 18th, 2012, 7:27 am
by CineMaven
I know a lot of the music from my parents' time (Benny Goodman, the Dorseys, Duke, Glenn Miller etc). I knew the music from my own time (Elvis, Supremes, Beach Boys, Lesley Gore, Spinners, Ohio Players etc). And I want to stay current and be familiar with what's going on today. That's why I watch the Grammy Awards. The song that Paul McCartney sung was beautiful and romantic. The ol' bloke's still got it.

Re: The Beatles

Posted: February 18th, 2012, 12:54 pm
by RedRiver
Paul was The Beatles' sweetest voice. Lennon may have been the creative motivator. But McCartney was their best front. MovieMan, I don't remember the LOVE album. Did it come out in "real time"? Or in retrospect? Like the books Mark Twain keeps writing. Amazing how he does that!

Re: The Beatles

Posted: February 18th, 2012, 9:01 pm
by movieman1957
"Love" was a compilation for a show by Cirque de Soleil on The Beatles. It is about 5 years old now. It is a collection of songs that is a marvelous production that involves many songs being interwoven for a rather seamless sound.

The show was given the blessing of Paul and Ringo and also Yoko and Olivia Harrison.

Surprisingly, here is the whole album. The best way to describe is to listen to some of it. At about 2:30 in you get a nice sense of it that in what would be the intro you get the end of "A Day In The Life" and the opening chord of "A Hard Day's Night" and a bit of "The End" before it falls into "Get Back" and on into "Glass Onion" like it was all meant to be together. Some interesting background stuff goes on as well.

[youtube][/youtube]

Re: The Beatles

Posted: February 19th, 2012, 8:11 am
by intothenitrate
If I remember right, the project (LOVE) started with George before he passed away, after he had seen a Cirque de Soleil performance.

Another project that's worthy of mention is the Beatles Rock Band video game. George's son Dhani was behind that. [He's the spitting image of his dad, and a very together guy]. The release of the game [09/09/09] cause quite a stir with my boys, and clinched their fandom. There's an animated promo for the game--a pastiche of imagery set to music clips--that starts with the lads looking like sixties super spies, then some psychedelia, then some Hindi-esque imagery involving elephants. (Sorry, it's been a while since I've seen it but it's stunning.)

Re: The Beatles

Posted: February 19th, 2012, 4:47 pm
by MichiganJ
intothenitrate wrote:If I remember right, the project (LOVE) started with George before he passed away, after he had seen a Cirque de Soleil performance.

Another project that's worthy of mention is the Beatles Rock Band video game. George's son Dhani was behind that. [He's the spitting image of his dad, and a very together guy]. The release of the game [09/09/09] cause quite a stir with my boys, and clinched their fandom. There's an animated promo for the game--a pastiche of imagery set to music clips--that starts with the lads looking like sixties super spies, then some psychedelia, then some Hindi-esque imagery involving elephants. (Sorry, it's been a while since I've seen it but it's stunning.)
Your right, Harrison was friends with the Cirque Du Soleil's founder and he (George) suggested that Cirque could do a show with Beatles songs. At first they were considering doing the show with a live band playing the songs, but it was (thankfully) decided to use the original recordings. Harrison took McCartney to one of the Cirque shows and after seeing it, Paul signed up on to the idea. George Martin was brought on board and he and his son used all of the master tapes, as well as all of the demos and outtakes-- lifting a bass line from here, and a drum lick from there--to create the mashup.

While there was some manipulation of speeds, all of the recordings came from the Beatles' tapes, except for the strings added to a demo recording of While My Guitar Gently Weeps (George Martin did the arrangement, so it's okay).

While I've never seen nor played Rock Band, I have heard it, and it's quite fun hearing the simulation of live performances and/or of studio ambience (lots of studio ambience). The music in Rock Band was also produced by George Martin's son, Giles.

(Your right that Dhani does look just like his father. It's very evident even in the Concert For George. Now, to me Zak Starkey looks more like Keith Moon than Ringo, which may or may not be why he plays with The Who).
RedRiver wrote:Lennon may have been the creative motivator.
I would argue that Paul was more of the creative motivator, particularly from '66 on. Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour and Let it Be were his ideas. By '66, the others had moved out of London, but Paul lived right around the corner from EMI Studios. He also mingled with many of the artists passing through London, and they influenced him quite a bit. Long before Lennon, McCartney experimented with tape loops and avant-garde audio (Revolution #9-like), he just never released them.

In the early years, Lennon was the leader, but he himself admitted that he became lazy later on (he was also using a lot of hard drugs), and after Epstein died, McCartney essentially became the band's leader. Nobody, probably even McCartney himself liked that idea, but nobody else was willing to take the helm.

Re: The Beatles

Posted: February 28th, 2012, 12:05 am
by movieman1957
MichiganJ wrote in response to MikeBSG's comments =

Here's another vote for Backbeat. Chris, you really need to check this one out. MikeBSG and MichiganJ have described the film and its effect well, and I can only echo their praise for Sheryl Lee. Here's an American actress, best known as the murder victim in TV's Twin Peaks--David Lynch kept expanding her role because she was so good--yet she's perfectly believable as a young German woman. Even talented American actresses usually can't play other nationalities convincingly.

Which leads to another question: if you were a director, producer, agent, casting director, writer, and saw this performance, wouldn't you want Sheryl Lee to star in your movie, play, TV series? That's the frustrating thing about Backbeat, knowing that her career did not take off the way it should have.


It's a fine film. They get high marks for atmosphere. Sheryl is fine. From the interviews I've seen of her she seems to capture her pretty well. In fact, they all do a fine job of evoking the group, if that is the right word, rather than impersonate them. That helps. Voorman is the only character I don't quite buy but I only know anything about him from much later so I may be wrong on that one.

The music is kinetic. If anything it is probably better than it was in Germany. I kept thinking the bass playing sounds good enough that Paul doesn't have much to complain about. It seems very likely what it must have been like to watch them perform.

Some poetic license but that is to be expected. There is probably a good movie as well about them in Hamburg and those early years that would be just about them.

One complaint that comes to mind is in the end summary they mention "Pete Best left The Beatles" as if was his decision. As most fans know that is hardly the case and one of their lesser moments in their career. That is not to say he wasn't the best fit but the handling was disappointing. Otherwise a good time and it comes in well with the book and the recent HBO special on Harrison.

Re: The Beatles

Posted: March 20th, 2012, 11:42 am
by MichiganJ
With Disney abandoning the 3-D remake of Yellow Submarine (due to Blue Meanies, no doubt), the out-of-print DVD, along with a new Blu-ray edition of the film will be released in North America on May 29th and on the 28th for the rest of the world (which includes Pepperland, I presume). The reissue has been digitally restored and includes all of the special features included on the original DVD release as well as some new goodies.

A new picture book is also being released on April 24th, with an interactive digital version of the book available now as a free download for Apple products in Apple's iBookstore.

The audio CD is being re-issued as well.

"Full speed ahead Mr. Boatswain, full speed ahead!"