"Oh, you can do it if your heart is pure... or purée."
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Artist:
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Album:
Okay.
Right off the bat, I'm a huge fan of The Beatles. Hell, I even named my kittens Sgt Pepper and Billy Shears. As far as I'm concerned, they are the absolute best Rock/Pop band to have ever existed and ever will exist. Don't even bother with any "what about so-and-so"s. You won't do or say anything to convince me that I should retract that sentiment.
Let me also say that I am not a fan of mash-ups. You won't convince me otherwise of that, either. There is one notable exception, but I don't consider it to be a mash-up: it's a remixed album with a theme. I'm speaking, of course, about Danger Mouse's The Grey Album—in particular, the track "99 Problems". Delicious.
And with that, let's begin.
Enter: Cirque du Soleil's collaboration of sorts with The Beatles, Love.
Enter: A fucking bullet to my brain.
Surprising, even to myself, I've never kept a list of people that need to die. I've started that list today:
· The fine folk at Cirque du Soleil
· Sir George Martin—but only after the crown renounces his knighthood—and his seed, Giles Martin
· Michael Jackson
· The fine folk at Sony Music
· Sir Paul McCartney—under the same prerequisite as Sir George Martin
· Ringo Starr
· Yoko Ono Lennon
· Olivia Harrison
You maniacs, you blew it up. Damn you. Damn you all to hell.
You can just hear the pretension the moment the album starts off. I can see their smug faces—Blue Steel in abundance—taunting me in that street-like "what the fuck now, bitch?!" manner.
I mean, just read this tripe from Wikipedia, emphasis by me: "The loose story of the production traces The Beatles' biography in broad strokes from the The Blitz, through the band's founding and climb into superstardom, their psychedelic and spiritual works, and their break-up in 1970. The finale is a joyous celebration of The Beatles' "reunion" that the show itself represents.
Love traces this path without relying on literal or historical representations of individual people. Its landscape is inhabited by fictional characters plucked from The Beatles' lyrics. Sgt. Pepper, a central figure, encounters many familiar faces, including Lucy in the Sky, Eleanor Rigby, Lady Madonna, and Mr. Kite. In an exception to this stylistic choice, the "Here Comes the Sun" scene features a character resembling Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Similarly, several scenes include mop-topped, dark-haired figures in grey suits resembling The Beatles themselves. In all the international cast numbers 60 performers."
Believe you me, I'm amazed I can even keep my hands steady enough to type.
Apparantly the show consists of three acts:
· a Rollerblading act
· a Breakdancing act
· a Trampoline act
Go ahead, keep laughing. I'll wait.
Enough with that nonsense, though. You can rest assured—rather, I can rest assured—that I will never witness the stage "performance". I've managed to never lay eyes on a single Matrix film, I'm sure I can keep my eyes away from Love.
Still, I needed to give the soundtrack a whirl. I was optimistic after learning that Sir George Martin had a hand in its production. Any other douchebag and I probably would have shpummed to death, but that detail brought me hope.
Hope does not equate reality.
Technically one would have to consider this soundtrack a remix project—which it is—but you can hear the blaringly obvious mash-up approach to it. "Oh, son, we're so clever! Pitch-shifting and time-stretching never sounded so fantastic!" Just go to hell, okay? Do me a fucking favor and go to hell.
Beyond these mashed-esque transitions and introductions, there isn't too much that's different. There's nothing all that new.
There's nothing impressive. What Danger Mouse did with the studio releases was impressive. I can only imagine what he would have done if he had access to the tracking tapes.
In short, they really blew a great opportunity to do something worthwhile.
I've never liked Paul very much, but this quote of his just really makes me want to kick him that much harder in the nuts: "This album puts The Beatles back together again, because suddenly there's John and George with me and Ringo," said Paul McCartney. "It's kind of magical."
At least Ringo wasn't so over-the-top with his quote. His death will be short and painless: "George and Giles did such a great job combining these tracks. It's really powerful for me and I even heard things I'd forgotten we'd recorded," commented Ringo Starr.
Yoko and Olivia can both suck a wet fart out of my ass with a stirrer straw: "The album has the feeling of love and that's why the title is Beatles LOVE," added Yoko Ono Lennon, "They have let everything that is beautiful and daring come out."
"The music is stunning. I think the most amazing thing about it is that you can pull it apart and all the elements carry with it the essence of the entire song," said Olivia Harrison.
I'm currently on track 18. The only reason I haven't offed myself is because I need to get food and litter for my kittens. Well, there's that and also there's a new episode of Heroes on tonight.
Fuck, that show is amazing.
I will say this: Sir George Martin did a fantastic job adding the string section on Harrison's demo of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". Keep this in mind, however: If that's the only good thing I have to say about this album, that's not saying very much.
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