iFab: The Beatles' "Love" Soundtrack

The Beatles, Love
(Apple)

Steve’s Stocking Stuffer Suggestions, Vol. II

Way back in 1989, the Beastie Boys made an album called Paul’s Boutique that made innovative use of the then-new practice of sampling. With no copyright laws to hold them back, the Beasties and their producers the Dust Brothers had literally free reign over the entire history of recorded music. And they molded it to their every cheeba-induced whim. One of these tracks brilliantly mixed the Paul/George/John guitar jam from the end of Abbey Road over the epochal drum beat from the reprise of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.” The Beasties, students of music that they are, realized that in addition to being genius songwriters, the Beatles were equally adept in creating many of the tastiest musical morsels known to mankind.

Seventeen years later, Beatles producer Sir George Martin and his son Giles have taken this concept and expanded it to an entire album. The fruit of their labours is LOVE, the soundtrack to the Beatles-inspired Cirque de Soleil extravaganza of the same name, now in residence at the Mirage hotel in Las Vegas.

But more than a soundtrack, LOVE is Beatles for the iPod age and a must for the Beatles fan who thinks they have everything. Listening to LOVE in the privacy of your own head is like having all of their music on shuffle – arranged not only by songs, but by licks, drum fills, sitar drones, background la-las, and outtakes.

Perhaps most dazzling of these hybrids features “Within You Without You” over the drum beat of “Tomorrow Never Knows.” It’s a great holistic club track that would fit perfectly on Beck’s latest album.

Elsewhere, “Drive My Car” chugs along as always with its Motown inspired rhythms – then lays in the guitar solo from “Taxman,” and with the cowbell still a-clangin,’ breaks into “What You’re Doing.” Just when your brain has caught up, you realize it has turned into “The Word,” making for a stunning summary through the Rubber Soul/Revolver era.

A few of the tracks — “A Day in the Life,” “Come Together” — are wisely left alone. But occasionally, the Martins gild the LOVE-lily. “Glass Onion” (which would have made a nice title for the CD) is way overdone. And the end of the original “Strawberry Fields Forever” is already mind-blowing. It doesn’t need the harpsichord from “Piggies” to put it over the top. (Though the hey-hey-lo-la’s from “Hello Goodbye” are a nice touch.)

Those who view The Beatles’ official studio albums as sacred texts might call LOVE sacrilege, but wild experimentation and sound collage were part of their repertoire, from “Rain” to “I Am the Walrus” to “Revolution 9” to “Carnival of Light,” their legendary, unreleased soundtrack to a 1967 London be-in. (Those were the days.)

The sound quality of LOVE is fantastic – a quantum leap from their dated-sounding 80s CDs. The original CDs many earlier tracks had vocals on one side and the music on the other, and while that may be more “ authentic,” it makes for a frustrating listening experience, especially on headphones. Let’s hope this is a beginning of the whole catalog being reissued along the lines of the recent Dylan and Stones sixties remasters.

With something like 150 Beatles tracks touched upon over the course of the soundtrack, LOVE is begging for Beatles fans to get together over several “cups of tea” and play a nice little game of “Name That Bit.” Welcome to the 21st century, boys.