Dear Janet Wamboldt, of Seymour IN:
We
chose not to run a review of the set out of respect for Paul McCartney and
Ringo Starr, the two remaining Beatles. You refer to it as a "masterpiece," making it very likely that we do not dig this album as much as you do.
The
nifty thing about the set is Giles Martin's remix truly is worth listening to.
Even the most cynical members of the Ranting Russell staff appreciate how it
almost sounds like you're listening to the band performing the album live. By
itself, this is a perfectly lovely addition to anyone's Beatles collection.
What
is certainly not nifty about the set is that Sgt.
Pepper's is the fourth most overrated album of all time (#1: Exile on
Main Street; #2: Tommy; #3: London Calling), and going through the trouble of
remixing it, putting out myriad different versions with various extras, the
biggest of which - the 4 CD Deluxe Edition - costs $124 on amazon as we write
this, a shameful fleecing of fans who have already made Paul McCartney and
Ringo Starr rich beyond anything the normal human mind can begin to conceptualize,
is a colossal waste of time. Our staff has never understood why Sgt.
Pepper's more often than not winds up as the #1 album of all time on
all those silly Greatest Albums of All Time lists.
It
has A Day in the Life, of course, which is right up there, but there are three
songs that don't even rate as decent filler (She's Leaving Home, When I'm 64,
Lovely Rita), which automatically disqualifies it from any "top"
lists. The pedantic blowhards at Rolling Stone magazine once wrote that Sgt.
Pepper's is "an unsurpassed adventure in
concept, sound, songwriting, cover art and studio technology." But you
see, just because your album is a concept album , and just because you do a lot
of overdubs and record things backwards doesn't mean that your album is a work
of genius. The album's cover is indeed iconic, and we're not so ignorant that
we don't understand the impact the album had in 1967 and why, versus how it
looks to us here in the 21st century, looking backwards across a far more
visceral landscape.
There is certainly no denying great songs like Fixing a Hole, Getting Better, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, and Within You Without You. And we admit, we all enjoyed listening to the different takes on discs two and three. It's not that we hate this record, it's just that they gave the deluxe, Cadillac treatment to an album that isn't The Beatles' best work. Consider: Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane were recorded in the lead-up to Sgt. Pepper's. Make a playlist where you substitute Strawberry Fields for She's Leaving Home, and Penny Lane for When I'm 64. You could make the case that this is arguably The Beatles' best album.
But not with the album as it was released. This staff still grapples with where to put Sgt. Pepper's in a list ranking The Beatles' albums from best to worst. No one has it in their top five, and one Ranting Russell staffer puts it dead last ("gratuitous and overwrought," says she).
There is certainly no denying great songs like Fixing a Hole, Getting Better, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, and Within You Without You. And we admit, we all enjoyed listening to the different takes on discs two and three. It's not that we hate this record, it's just that they gave the deluxe, Cadillac treatment to an album that isn't The Beatles' best work. Consider: Strawberry Fields Forever and Penny Lane were recorded in the lead-up to Sgt. Pepper's. Make a playlist where you substitute Strawberry Fields for She's Leaving Home, and Penny Lane for When I'm 64. You could make the case that this is arguably The Beatles' best album.
But not with the album as it was released. This staff still grapples with where to put Sgt. Pepper's in a list ranking The Beatles' albums from best to worst. No one has it in their top five, and one Ranting Russell staffer puts it dead last ("gratuitous and overwrought," says she).
What
would have had us salivating uncontrollably and shelling out $124 without a
second thought is a Revolver Deluxe Box Set. Far and away the
best Beatles album, Revolver features no less than five A-list
songs, and the rest is first-rate filler. Even McCartney's syrupy Here, There
and Everywhere is redeemed by gorgeous backing vocals, and Harrison's tuneful
guitar playing in the middle eight. Famous for recording multiple takes of
every song, The Beatles doubtlessly left behind hours of outtakes from
the Revolver sessions, and we'd love to hear every second of
it. (Ranting Russell founder Russell Bladh once groused that the great failing
of The Beatles' Anthology CDs was that there were only six
discs, and not twenty.)
Instead,
we're left with a White Album Deluxe Box Set, to be released
on November 9 (amazon is currently asking $138.74 for "pre-orders").
It's unfortunate that The Beatles braintrust didn't decide to start releasing
massive fanboy box sets of Beatles records until the anniversary of Sgt.
Pepper's, and not, say, Help! or Rubber Soul.
But as our favorite renaissance man once said, these are the conditions that prevail.
Thank
you for your letter, Janet. Keep reading Ranting Russell.
No comments:
Post a Comment