The Beatles - Past Masters, Vol. 2
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Free Music Notes for Past Masters, Vol. 2
Free Music Review: Even Better Than Volume One...
Hit: 5 Stars
With Past Masters Volume One, we got some great early singles from The Beatles, when they were just perfecting their writing and playing. However, this album shows them at their absolute best. From the start of Day Tripper onwards, there's not a bad track on here. Even You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) grows on you after a while.
Some of my favorite tracks on here are We Can Work It Out, a great song with a wonderful middle eight courtesy of John, Rain, one of the best B-sides in The Beatles history which was also the first use of backwards lyrics in any of their songs, Hey Jude, of course, which is still one of the most famous singles of all time, if not the most famous of all time. We aslo get its B-side Revolution, which is a wonderful John song that was featured in a slower version on The White Album, but is heard here in a much faster, guitar heavy version. We also get an excellent alternate version of Across The Universe, and a version of Let It Be with different guitar solo than the album version.
Although Past Masters Volume One and Two are intended to fill in the singles and B-sides that weren't on albums, they also function quite well as best-of collections, in my opinion, and I definitely recommend picking them up. Especially this volume, which represents the best of The Beatles.
Free Music Review: Without "Past Masters", you miss some great Beatle moments
Hit: 4 Stars
When the Beatles catalogue was reissued, EMI chose to use the U.K. versions of the CDs instead of the re-arranged American renditions, reasoning that the U.K. versions were the albums as the Beatles themselves had intended the track lineups. Of course, much of their best remembered material appeared on EPs or singles and would have gone "missing" under this approach. These discs collect those strays along with B sides and other material that never appeared on the original British versions of the Beatles albums.
HIGHLIGHTS:
"Day Tripper" has probably the most recognized guitar riff in rock, "We Can Work it Out" is one of the few times (outside of prankster 'Weird Al' Yankovic) that accordion has been heard in a rock hit, "Paperback Writer" is clever writing from Paul and "Lady Madonna" makes ingenious use of the Beatles voices themselves as almost kazoo like 'instruments'. The distorted guitar single version of "Revolution" is far superior to "Revolution 1" from THE BEATLES (aka "The White Album".) "Get Back" is improved with Billy Preston's organ contribution (though I miss John's spoken "hope we passed the audition" from the "Let it Be" version). "Let it Be" is a Beatles hymn.
LOWS:
"The Inner Light" and "Old Brown Shoe" are two lesser numbers from George. "Rain" may have been great in terms of experimentation (it had been the first time backwards tape was used in a recording, as the 'B' side to "Paperback Writer") but it's really only a middling lyric. "You Know my Name (Look Up the Number)" is utter garbage, the type of studio goofing off that Martin would've cut immediately (and correctly) from an album as filler.
BOTTOM LINE:
Some of their best material appeared only on singles or EPs. This is a must have for any Beatles fan, diehard or casual.
4 1/2 stars
Free Music Review: The Second Half of a Career for the Ages ****1/2
Hit: 5 Stars
Rolling Stone magazine said of REM, "Split their career down the middle and you get a musical Roger Clemens. Two hall of famers." That being true (and it is), if you split the Beatle's career down the middle you get the most influential pop band of all time (up to 1964) and the most influential rock band of all-time (1965 - 1970). This focuses on their more superior, mature, album-oriented material from the second half of their career. It does a great job summing some of the greatest singles ever and their excellent b-sides.
Most of the A-Sides "We Can Work It Out," "Hey Jude," "Day Tripper," etc. were never released on albums. And the only reason the last part of the album has songs featured on "Let it Be" is because the Beatles nor their management thought the songs would ever be released in album format. That is until (of course) "Let It Be" was issued after the band broke up. But nothing seems out of place, including the great B-Sides. What kind of a career do you have to have in order to have "Rain" not issued on an album, not issued as a single, but issued as a B-SIDE?! Listen to the song and tell me it doesn't that sums up the greatest band's legacy. And they close the album (and their career) in an unpredictable way; with humor. "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)" is perhaps the funniest song in rock history. It's nice to hear that though the Beatles could no longer work together, they could still have a sense of humor about their work. Astounding...
Overall: 9 out of 10.
Free Music Review: The missing link pt 2 ("Don't you know it's gonna last?")
Hit: 5 Stars
Surely nowadays nobody discusses the productivity of The Beatles as creators of music. They were more prolific than any contemporary artist, and possibly than any artist *ever*. So at the time of their popularity peak they would not include singles on their albums (the UK Parlophone albums, because those are the real ones - don't listen to what Capitol says), even if they were huge hits, like other artists. That left a huge gap in their discography when it was released on CD; even releasing their 13 albums their official output was still not complete.
Fortunately someone thought about the fans at that time and gathered together a 2 CD-set collection of "the missing link" tracks, and, as the booklet sets, "if you have the 13 CDs, plus these two, you have everything that The Beatles [...] officialy released".
So this CD, spanning through 1966 to 1970 (and its sister volume, covering the later years from 1962 to 1975) isn't really a 'conceptual' album, it's really a collection of non-LP songs, both non album huge hits and more 'obscure' tracks:
"Day Tripper", a "song about drugs", as John Lennon says, is an exquisit exercise in rock'n'roll riffs and vocal harmonies, and a perfect contrast to Paul McCartney's "We Can Work It Out", its original flip side (both songs were promoted as 'A-sides' so that one was a 'double A-sided single'), which is a lovely ode to the chance of finding out a solution for love troubles, a truly great sampler of The Beatles 'unplugged' (acoustic guitar, bass, harmonium, drums, tambourine), and the perfect companion to the Rubber Soul album (1965).
"Paperback Writer" and "Rain" experiment with harder sound on the guitars. The first track, McCartney-penned, features a great story "of a dirty man", and it's one of the finest rockers in their catalogue; whilst "Rain" (my personal favorite Beatles song), is one of those few songs that make you stand up and applaud. Everything works out perfectly here: the sound of the drums is perfectly in synchronizity with the bass guitar, the guitars are intrincated but raspy and 'rainy', the vocal is distorted and the lyrics are a fantastically disguised social comment by John Lennon. This could be considered as a powerful reason to buy this CD.
"Lady Madonna" is another Paul McCartney track in which he delivers a third-part story, this time experimenting with jazzy sounds, with piano, saxophones and great harmony vocals. Its B-side, George Harrison's "The Inner Light" doesn't even seem to appear to be performed by the same band, though. It's a preciously arranged indian track (George's third and final totally indian contribution to the band, after "Love You To" and "Within You Without You") with wise lyrics and a heartbreakingly emotional melody that even Paul McCartney praised many times. Priceless, again.
"Hey Jude" is often regarded as Paul McCartney's best song ever, and very deservingly so, with its empathic lyrics and compelled lead vocal work; backed with this version of "Revolution" (far better than the one appearing in the White Album), they sound dramatically different, but complement eachother perfectly. John Lennon's political anthem works out perfectly in this atmosphere, just like the two tracks lifted from the never-released Get Back album, "Get Back" and "Don't Let Me Down". The latter, John Lennon composition, is a superior heartfelt, moving and emotional ballad, with a sparkling lead vocal and great guitar work; whislt "Get Back" is a great attempt at rocking by Paul McCartney. The version here is different from the ones included in the Let It Be and Let It Be... Naked album, finishing with the extra spoken verse ("get back, Loretta, your mommy's waiting for you"), which was omitted from those albums even though they were originally meant to be in the song.
The other non-album single from 1969 is also included, and it's another surprise because of its quality: "The Ballad Of John And Yoko" (a tricky and smart way of telling his own story to the world, written by John Lennon and recorded only by himself and Paul McCartney, who played drums on this tune) is backed up by the unfairly forgotten bluesy George Harrison tune "Old Brown Shoe", possibly his most underrated Beatle composition, a brilliant exercise in lyrics about opposites, twisted love relationships and music including a very thoughtful and carefully arranged guitar solo plus a terrific jumping bass guitar played by Harrison himself, as he declared in many interviews.
To complete matters, there's the "Let It Be" single version, a little bit shorter (and notoriously inferior because of the different guitar solo) than the album one; its flip side, the funny "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)", which really has no more lyrics than its title; and another different (and far inferior) version of "Across The Universe" than the one found in the Let It Be CD, this time without the orchestra, in a faster speed, and with two female fans singing backing vocals.
These three songs, included for historical reasons, are here to make a great counterpart to the other smashing performances and unforgettable songs. Again, many people complain about the mono/stereo differences between these mixes and the original ones, found in the singles and albums, and it's true: the whole Beatle catalogue, this CD included, cries desperately for remastering or remixing. But in the meantime, this CD is one of the few cases in music where there's not a single bad track. An essential to any Beatles fan, to complete their collection, and a good addition to anyone's collection, just because for the enormous quality of the often forgotten B-sides. Get it.
Free Music Review: "Hey Jude" the beauty of the beatles
Hit: 5 Stars
"Hey Jude" a timeless song from a timeless group, The Beatles. Although I had come across the song in times past its only recently that i have come to realize its greatness. The pain that one has after loves lost is unbearable. The beauty is in the pain that you could have loved so deeply to hurt so deeply. The liberation that comes from letting the pain pass through you, to enter your heart and become a part of yourself so you can finally be free from the pain. Love is a beautiful thing anyway you look at it. To listen to this song is to feel hope. a weight seemingly lifted allowing you to soar as high as you can. In a time when free love reigned supreme The Beatles created a song that is a reminder to the beauty of human nature and the freeness of one's spirit once upon a time.