Okay, for the next six days we’ll be focusing on one artist–the Beatles. They’re so well known I’m not even going to bother giving you the Wikipedia link. Before we move on to consider how their music has been adopted and messed with by other people, let’s keep it in the family and look at a song that’s written, performed, and produced by the Beatles. Well, kinda. In 2006 the surviving members of the Beatles released Love, an album of Beatles songs remastered and remixed for Cirque du Soleil‘s Las Vegas show of the same name. It was approved by the living Beatles and the dead ones’ heirs, put together using nothing but Beatles recordings, and was produced by George Martin (their original producer) and his son, so it’s as close to an authentic Beatles production as time and human frailty allowed. And, at least as importantly, it’s really good!
The remastering is excellent, so the sound quality is great, and the production choices the Martins made were actually quite adventurous. You might not blame them for being conservative, considering the fact that the Beatles’ discography has been treated with kid gloves for decades*. But instead, Love is a very interesting composition–an unbroken album-length medley of great songs, put together to sound like something new, not just another “best of” album.
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