Tuesday, 14 August 2018

VA - The Beatles Dans Leurs 14 Plus Grands Succes


Rating: 2/5

Review:
A curiosity

This is a genuine curiosity. It’s a 1965 collection of Beatles covers and it’s a mixed bag, to say the least. Many of the acts here are largely forgotten, and frankly, it’s not hard to see why.

To be fair, there are some genuinely interesting takes on some songs, like The Score’s strange but compelling version of Please Please Me and an enjoyable jangly psych take on She’s A Woman by The Northwest Corporation. There’s also some unobjectionable but rather dull stuff from Del Shannon, The Beach Boys and others, but there are also some real turkeys here. Just as examples, there’s a cringingly bland version of She Loves You and the embarrassing absurdity of The Moving Sidewalks trying to give a serious heavy rock treatment to an honest-to-God light pop song like I Want To Hold Your Hand. (I would also have been interested in Chuck Berry’s views on Roll Over Beethoven and Rock And Roll Music being included as Beatles covers.)

These are early Beatles songs which relied for much of their greatness and individuality on the Beatles’ performance, and it shows here. For example, The Blue Things’ version of Twist And Shout simply highlights how great Lennon’s vocals were and how ordinary the song sounds without them. As an album, it has some historical interest but not all that much musical interest. One for real collectors and Beatles fanatics only, I’d say.

No comments:

Post a Comment