All YOU Need is LOVE (Love - The Beatles)

Member Name: ChDev

Product:	Love - The Beatles
Date:	27/06/09 (13 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's like the Beatles have returned.

Disadvantages: We need another album... badly.

Sit back, and play LOVE. It starts silently, a beautiful a cappella rendition of 'Because'. Forty years on we can still appreciate the 3-part harmonies of George Harrison, Paul McCartney and John Lennon.
By the time we're in the mood for some real rocking Beatles music, there's a sudden explosion - the opening chord from 'A Hard Day's Night' followed by one of rock's most famous drum solos. As soon as this joins itself into the opening bars of 'Get Back', it suddenly hits you.
The Beatles are Back.

Over the next 80 minutes, a whole new soundscape of Beatles music is presented to us. The tracks aren't old, they're brand new - George and Giles Martin haven't simply just remastered and remixed the tracks - they've reworked them using digital technology only made available in the last decade.

Tracks are improved, re-imagined and re-developed. Within You Without You is vastly made more active using Ringo's inovative drums from 'Tomorrow Never Knows,' and the less-well known song 'What You're Doing' is suddenly a part of the exciting 'Drive My Car', giving us a brand new track using the solo from Taxman and vocal harmonies taken from elsewhere. The result? 'Drive My Car/The Word/What You're Doing'

Other highlights in the album include the new 'Strawberry Fields Forever' which progresses through the various different versions recorded in later 1966, beginning with John and an acoustic guitar alone, and ending with a huge orchestra and a remixed 'parade', using elements from 'Sgt Pepper', 'Penny Lane', 'In My Life' and even George's 'Piggies'

The newly orchestrated verison of 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps' is amazing, using the original acoustic demo that is is many people's opinion seen as the best version of the track. This truly highlights the Beatles magic.

By the end of the album, we are re-presented with the Beatles message - 'All You Need is Love' (not a marketing gimmick for the album!), presented mostly in its original form, yet remastered so that John's hope for peace is as clear as ever. At the end, we're taken into 'Good Night', and indeed this is a magical moment as we hear the Boys laughing - 'This is Johnny Rhythm and I'd just like to say Good Night to youse all, and God Bless you.'

God Bless you, Beatles. Even though the Band has passed on, this album proves that the Beatles magic has far from evaporated.

Summary: A great new Beatles album to prove the magic is still there. Perhaps my favorite.