The Beatles - Anthology 1
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Free Music Notes for Anthology 1
Free Music Review: Only for the hardcore fans
Hit: 2 Stars
Being pretty much forced to surrender my gift certificate to this rather than "Mellon Collie", I was almost put off the Beatles right off the bat. I didn't like this CD. Aside from "Free as a Bird" and some of the later tracks nearing their creative golden age, I just didn't like the songs. Maybe I'm picking bones, but at the time I wasn't a hardcore-enough fan to go ga-ga over 15 second snippets of interviews with John Lennon and some bad-sounding demos. Historic significance didn't really mean much to me back then, and it still doesn't today. Perhaps one day I will give this album a thorough listen to see if I like it, but the last time I listened to it, it still didn't click with me. Stick with the next two Anthologies, especially number 2: two discs of embryonic genius.Free Music Review: Truth Be Told, These Recordings Are Horribly Bad
Hit: 1 Stars
To put it as plainly and as honestly as possible---Beatles Anthology 1 stinks. If this ratings page allowed for it, I would have rated this CD in negative numbers. You know, when I first heard these recordings, I gave the Beatles the benefit of the doubt. I said to myself, "Well, the songs are terrible---out of tune, out of tempo, voices are out of harmony, etc... but, the Beatles were only kids at the time." Then I realized that the Beatles were eighteen and nineteen years old when these records were cut---not that young to justify such horrendous musicianship and and such juvenile, discordant singing. I'm not Andre Segovia, but when I was fourteen I was playing a better, crisper, cleaner guitar than were the Beatles at eighteen and nineteen (in Lennon's and Starr's case, at twenty-one and twenty-two). These guys were just plain horrible. As I got older and listened to great guitarists like Django Reinhardt, Charlie Christian, Eddie Lang, Joe Pass, etc., and such great drummers as Louis Belson, Gene Krupa, Buddy Rich, etc., I realized more and more just how overrated the Beatles were. If not for Brian Epstein's public relations genius and, subsequently, millions of screaming thirteen year old girls, the Beatles would have been just another novelty act warranting an asterisk in popular musical history. Instead, we have an entire 1960s generation (three quarters of whom were stoned out of their minds at the time) hailing these three chord wonders as the collective Jesus Christ of popular music. After listening to these simple-minded, horribly-played and atrociously sung songs, I harbor little doubt that all aesthetic taste in American culture died in the late 1960s. Even worse, the Beatles "democratized" popular music so that from the mid-1960s onward any nitwit who could play a C, F, and G chord on a guitar could become a "musical genius." And to think these guys became multimillionaires! Of course, we'll get those pseudo-intellectuals who'll claim that the Beatles sophisticated themselves and progressed in their musicianship and went on eventually to write such "classics" as "I Am the Walrus," "We All Live In A Yellow Submarine," "Revolution Number 9", and "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey." I rest my case.Free Music Review: Five Live Cuts = Five Stars
Hit: 5 Stars
This album is well-described as a lot of historical recordings of the early gestation of the Beatles, along with a lot of demos or alternate takes of songs from their first few albums and singles. If you're a fan, it's great stuff to hear every once in awhile. I especially enjoyed the tracks that show them building "Eight Days a Week"--you hear the almost off-the-cuff musicality of the four lads as they work out the harmonic structure of the song. But all that's not enough to recommend the album highly. The reason to get this album is the presence of five tracks at the end of Disk One, live tracks recorded in 1963 before an enthusiastic, but not hysterical audience. This is the best, maybe the only, good documentation of the greatness of the Beatles live, before Beatlemania destroyed their ability to perform. True, their early songs were recorded "live" in the studio, and we have the BBC stuff, so you can hear them playing together on other recordings, but this stuff is really special. Fiery, tight, powerful, s--t-hot, it just leaves you wanting more. You get "I Saw Her Standing There," "From Me to You," "Money (That's What I Want)," "You've Really Got a Hold on Me," and "Roll over Beethoven." The audio is rich and clean.
Supposedly, according to the liner notes, there were 7 songs recorded for this session, which was done for a Swedish radio broadcast. Where are the other two? Overall, I'm surprised that this rare documentation of the Beatles doing what made them famous initially, performing as the very best straight-ahead rock and roll band of its day and maybe any day, hasn't been culled into an "Early Live Beatles" CD of its own. And, are we certain that no other live recordings of this quality exist?
Free Music Review: Better for study of Beatles history than introduction
Hit: 4 Stars
Anthology 1 was the first two-disk set released along with the Anthology television special, which is also available on VHS and DVD.This collection is really for die-hard Beatle fans, especially those with a historical bent that want to hear the evolution of the band and get a peek into the development process. We experience their growth from school kids in 1958, playing cheap instruments and recording in low budget studios, to the full Beatlemania period up to 1964.
The disk kicks off with "Free as a Bird," the John Lennon demo track that was turned into a finished song by Paul, George and Ringo. It's not the best song in their catalog, but a nice tribute to John, especially notable for George's slide guitar solo.
"That'll be the Day" is scratchy and of low quality, but this is the germ of Beatles, and amazing that this track and "In Spite of all the Danger" survived. "You'll be Mine" has a hilarious spoken word part by John. "My Bonnie" captures some of that early Hamburg spirit, with the Beatles backing Tony Sheridan. I still get a smile from "Besame Mucho" and Paul's ridiculous "cha-cha-boom."
In addition to the early covers are outtakes that show works in progress, like "One After 909" that didn't make the cut until "Let It Be" and a very different sounding "Love Me Do."
Disc 2 features live performances, including some comedy bits. The sound is often obscured by screaming girls. Other tracks are alternate versions of well-known tunes, such as a much speedier "And I Love Her" and "Can't Buy Me Love" with Paul forgetting some lyrics. Another nugget is George singing the all-time fratboy classic "Shout" and you can just imagine the Cavern Club going wild.
I enjoyed hearing the different versions of "I'll Be Back" with a slower version that falls apart, followed by a more up-tempo version like the final cut. That's the enjoyment of this set, hearing how the Beatles tinkered with the songs, despite all the screwups, until finally producing the classics familiar to us all.
If you're a fledgling fan, you might be disappointed, because this is recording with warts and all. But if you want to get a glimpse inside the process, there is much of interest here.
Free Music Review: History in the Making
Hit: 5 Stars
This first Anthology CD has lots of treasures, including the earliest recordings The Beatles made.The spoken word segments are interesting, I think. It is helpful that they have been assigned a track each, so that you don't have to listen to them every time you play the CD.
A lot of the material was previously released on expensive bootleg recordings. These LPs, tapes and CDs were often marketed at about twice the price of commercial recodings, and were often only 15 minutes long.
The sound quality of the Anthology is vastly superior and much much cheaper than those now superseded pirate recordings. Even if the Anthology series had not been produced, it would still be hard to sell those bootlegs in our peer-to-peer on-line environment.
Some of my favourite tracks:
Free As A Bird It is great to hear The Beatles together, even if one member was not able to appear personally. Real Love is a better song, but FAAB was a great introduction to the Anthology set, I think.
Three Cool Cats and The Sheik of Araby are great fun. I love the "not 'arf!" in Sheik.
How Do You Do It It is interesting to hear how The Beatles, however reluctantly, performed this song, later recorded by Gerry and The Pacemakers[who, some say, are now geriatrics *with* pacemakers].
One After 909 The alternative versions made available in this set are interesting and this one is a real gem.
Leave My Kitten Alone is one of the best songs recorded, but not released by The Beatles.
I'll Be Back is one several songs on the Anthology series which let us listen to The Beatles creating their masterpieces. It is great to hear this version with a different metre and feel, and The Beatles evaluation of their experiments.
Not the best of the 3 sets, but well worth owning and listening to every once in a while.