While the Beatles’ individual recording contracts expired in 1976, EMI retained the rights to the band’s recordings, and so began the next wave of sporadic catalog raidings. But now they had the added marketing challenge of getting fans to buy songs they had already. So each of the original singles—which had never been deleted—got a shiny new picture sleeve, and the Rock ‘N’ Roll Music collection came out with “Got To Get You Into My Life” backed with “Helter Skelter” as a single, just in time to cash in on a TV movie about the Manson trials. In a year where Paul was defending his tendency toward silly love songs all the way to #1, here was a two-record set designed to prove that the boys could rock. Funnily enough, the bulk of the songs come from 1963 and 1964, when they were considered a “pop combo”, with a handful of much “heavier” songs on side four coming from the later years. Moreover, many of the songs were covers. For collectors, only a few songs were repeated from the Red and Blue albums, plus this was the very first LP appearance of “I’m Down”; British fans might have appreciated the inclusion of the entire Long Tall Sally EP. Purists cried foul at the contemporary mix by George Martin, but the real crime was the artwork, which leaned too close to ‘50s Happy Days nostalgia. John had supposedly offered to do a cover, yet Capitol declined, which is a shame. (The album was later split up into two budget LPs with new but nearly identical covers, and sold pretty well in the wake of John’s murder.)
Another two-record rehash appeared in 1977, and just in time for Christmas too. Love Songs was to serve as the other side to the rock ‘n roll, but the novelty was starting to wane. Eight out of 25 tracks were on the Red or Blue albums; for the Brits, “Yes It Is” and “This Boy” were making their LP debuts. The selection was incredibly random-seeming, and come to think of it, picking out specific Beatle tunes as examples of love songs is about as logical as picking rock ‘n roll songs. The packaging had a faux-leather motif, and a thick book with all the lyrics in calligraphy added to the candy bar/photo album idea that had been beaten into the ground already by Chicago. The famous Richard Avedon photo on the emblem, gatefold and poster was retouched so Paul’s head is bigger than the others (he being the only Beatle still signed to EMI in 1977).
Both albums garner a satisfactory rating solely on the basis of the music within. Neither of these collections has been retooled for CD, though each could fit onto a single disc, and probably never will be. Nor should they be.
The Beatles Rock ‘N’ Roll Music (1976)—3
Current CD equivalent: none
The Beatles Love Songs (1977)—3
Current CD equivalent: none
Are you sure the photo was retouched? By 1977, hadn't Paul's head grown bigger than the others' all on its own?
ReplyDelete-Vance
Ooh, snarky! But hilarious.
DeleteThese releases prove that there were some very clueless people working for Capitol at the time. Yes, that was one ugly-ass cover they came up with for “Rock 'n' Roll Music”, wasn’t it? One of the many evils “American Graffiti” brought forth. This was the worst of all because the Beatles killed that American 1950’s aesthetic rather than being a part of it. No wonder that the Beatles were upset about it.
ReplyDeleteCover aside, the track listing they came up with is quite good. They were smart enough to concentrate on deeper cuts younger fans wouldn’t know, mostly avoiding the hits on the “Red” and “Blue” albums. There are only two duds. “I Call Your Name” is an odd choice. With those tempo changes, the song doesn’t really rock out much. Choosing the album edit of “Get Back” meant that the album ended with an abrupt thud. The single version would have been the way to go.
On the other hand, they did include “I’m Down”. I would have added “And Your Bird Can Sing” and "Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey" to liven things up on Sides 3 and 4. I suppose that those lyrics were too weird for the “Happy Days” crowd. "Got to Get You into My Life” wasn’t the rockingest song on the album, but it was the poppiest. Which resulted in yet another Top 10 hit for a group that hadn’t existed for six years.
As for “Love Songs”, the artwork isn’t as tacky. It’s still quite eyerolling for a non-romantic cynic such as myself. However, the track listing is more perplexing this time. When I think of love songs, I think of big smoochers like “Something”, “And I Love Her”, “Michelle” and “Here, There and Everywhere”. That makes sense.
Other choices prove the Capitol wasn’t paying attention to lyrics when they assembled the album. A lot of them aren’t about happy romantic love. For instance, “I’ll Follow the Sun” has the protagonist abandoning his love. On the other hand, John and Paul are the ones being abandoned in "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away" and ” Yesterday”.
John sounds desperate and frustrated by an archetypal bitch-goddess in “Girl”. In “Norwegian Wood”, another one of those women dumps him mid-affair and makes him sleep in the bathroom (if John did burn her house down, that’s a satisfying, if unromantic, conclusion.). The bouncy "You're Going to Lose That Girl" is utterly out of place here, both lyrically and musically. And who the hell would ever construe "She's Leaving Home" as a love song? It’s about a kid running away from home!
A more honest title would have been “Ballads”, which is what the UK version was called. Since most fans didn’t overthink things the way I do, these records sold like droves. I remember seeing them around at the time, but I think only one or two that I knew bought them. I was not impressed. The artwork would have been even more cheesy when reduced from LP dimensions to CD dimensions, so it is indeed good that never happened. Nowadays, people can program playlists in these sequences if they really want that. That’s not the best way to get the Beatles experience, of course.