KidOmega said:

What is weak about it? Can you explain your opinion a bit more?
There are only a few minor things that I don't like that much, but overall I'm really really really happy with the result
I think it's a must have in everyone's collection!

upon repeated listenings, it reminds me of what a great vocalist george harrison was...and what a cohesive band the Beatles were musically.

TommyRoss said:

People should buy this based on the sound quality compared to the regular Beatles studio-albums alone. Absolute highlight for me is Strawberry Fields Forever, beginning as the raw demo, changing into the regular song, the superbe drums of Ringo and then all these instrumentals from other songs!
And I never heard the Rock version of Revolution, I thinks it's even better than the slow version.
I know George Martin said this was his last project, but I kinda hope there will be more of this.

This is a great release for several reasons:

1. This is exactly what surround and dvd audio needs.... Big name big attention

2. sound quality is unbelievable.... 2 channel or 5 channel. you can clearly hear this is much improved.

3. the 5.1 mix is stunning.. I find the slow songs are treated conservatively and really shine. the more avant garde stuff..... like Benefit is merged perfectly with She's so heavy and take more chances in terms of placement in speakers

4. Compared to other 5.1 high rez audio this is very good. It's not Sea Change but the songs and material obviously are on a higher plane. George Martin was only one who could do this or Geoff Emerick since there needed to be someone who was there during the original recording to authenticate the project.

5. I suggest even non high rez fans pop in the DTS 5.1 tracks and play over their movie surround and see how good the discrete sound placement is.


6. Hopefully the whole catalog will treated in high rez stereo with a 5.1 mix.


For $20 bucks this is a real treat! Happy turkey day

For Questions on quality from cd to dvd....

Cd version is 44.1 khz sampling rate

Dvd normally is 48khz sampling rate (not much diff, but its 5.1 so discrete sounds come from all speakers worth price of admission)

DVD audio on this release is 96khz/5 channels.(In my opinion this is night and day from 48khz in terms of clarity, noise floor, and lack off compression artifacts

so resolution is more than double when played on a dvd-audio player via analog outs to your home theater.....

I have written about this before.... its a whole new world.

even pure 2 channel can be heard at up to 192khz....(on most dvd-aduio releasese not this particular one..
[Edited 11/22/06 9:43am]
[Edited 11/22/06 9:44am]

JohnnyB said:

from the first several tracks, it's just 2 minute snippets with some orchestral swells between them. i did get to one of the mash-up tracks and it was pretty good, but looking at the tracklist for the rest of it, there seem to be too few of those.

BT11 said:

huh? what? that's the version that was a hit.

KidOmega said:

Yes, well obviously I wasn't there in the 60s and I never heard it in a tv special or on the radio or something like that, and I only own the White Album version.

KidOmega said:

No it wasn't, it was only the B-side of Hey Jude

JohnnyB said:

Numerous Beatles b-sides charted and became Top 40 hits, including "Revolution."

This release is phenomenal. It's an entirely new way of looking at these songs. The project was obviously done with alot of care and reverence towards the material. Most of the experiments work (although there are one or two clunkers.)

It's like going to sleep and having a wild dream and the soundtrack to your dream is all Beatles music. Not a bad way to spend the night!

One of the best parts is Mr. Kite, and the ending featuring elements of She's So Heavy and Helter Skelter - truly nightmarish effect.

I adore the album, but there were a couple segments I found jarring:

The combo of Drive My Car / The Word / What Your Doing seems clunky and awkward

The new string arrangement for the acoustic demo of While My Guitar Gently Weeps is garish and overdone.

and the seque between the intro to Blackbird and Yesterday seems sloppy and it doesn't really work.

But for the most part, I was enthralled the entire time listening to it, and the ending was fantastic.

It's a MUST HAVE for any Beatles fan.

KidOmega said:

Have you listen to the whole album yet? There's so much to discover.
But you have to be a real Beatle-freak to recognise all of it I guess.
Not all of the goodies you can find on the tracklist, there's more!

NorthernLad said:

I agree on the Blackbird/Yesterday and strings used on While my guitar, but I like the 'medley' of Drive my car / the word / what you're doing

NorthernLad said:

Still I don't think it's a hit
It should be!

JohnnyB said:

Yep I don't have the chart in front of me, but my recollection is that "Revolution" hit #11 or #12 on the Billboard singles charts, while it's A-side - "Hey Jude" - hit #1. The Beatles were so popular, oftentimes both sides of the single charted. For example, "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields" was a double A-side - both tracks charted, at #1 and #8 respectively.

Other b-sides like "Baby You're a Rich Man", "Rain", "I Don't Wanna Spoil The Party", "Day Tripper" (another double A-side with "We Can Work it Out"), and numerous others all made the Top 40.

It would have been cool if some of Prince's b-sides charted in a similar fashion... the only ones that i'm aware of are "Hot Thing" and "Irresistible Bitch" but both failed to make the Top 40.

JohnnyB said:

Yeah that's one of the cool things about it - there are alot of surprises that aren't mentioned in the track listing

JohnnyB said:

it was a double a-side and it was a huge hit and still gets a lot of airplay.

JohnnyB said:

i haven't listened to the rest of it yet, no. i'm waiting for a chance to sit down and listen to the whole thing. hopefully it has all that you says it does, but from the first several tracks, it's not really that interesting. from what i've heard so far, it's mostly just a medley with some joiner pieces.

NorthernLad said:

well said

even If I didnt love the beatles as much as I did.. if this was my starter cd.. i would be literally in "love"


its nothing short of brilliant

In about 5 minutes, I'm going to make a drink, set the mood, and listen to this in 5.1 surround. I've held back in reading too much about this so it can really be an experience. I've been waiting for a Beatles product that was tailored to 5.1 and I'm pretty sure this is it. Until the original albums get the treatment this will do.
Report later...

Bfunkthe1 said:

Soundscape of genius...

KidOmega said:

I guess we are both right at some point

"Hey Jude" had originally been made for The Beatles' self-titled White Album, which was released in the same year as the single. However, the idea of releasing the song on the album was abandoned, and "Hey Jude" was never released on an original album by The Beatles. Instead, it was decided to pair "Hey Jude" on the A-side with "Revolution" on the B-side of a 7" single. [1] "Revolution" had originally been written by John Lennon as the A-side of a single he had planned to release as a statement about the Vietnam War (manager Brian Epstein had insisted that they avoid mentioning it), but, by the time he had polished the song sufficiently, McCartney had finished "Hey Jude", which the other Beatles felt was more deserving of the single's top billing. Lennon said: "We were getting real tense with each other. I did the slow version and I wanted it out as a single: as a statement of The Beatles' position on Vietnam and The Beatles' position on revolution." [5]

The single came out in the U.S. on August 26 1968 on the Apple Records label, entering the charts on September 14, where the song would stay for the next nineteen weeks. Two weeks later, "Hey Jude" was propelled to number one in the charts, and held on to that position for the following nine weeks, in the process setting the U.S. record for the longest time spent by a Beatles single at number one, as well as being the longest-playing single to reach number one. As mentioned earlier, however, American radio stations were averse to playing anything longer than the regulation three to three-and-a-half minutes, and Capitol Records pressed a shortened version specially for airplay. [1] [6] [4]

Due to the US practice of counting sales and airplay for the A- and B-sides of a single separately, at one point, Record World listed "Hey Jude" at number one, followed by its B-side partner, "Revolution", at number two.

JohnnyB said:

we're not both right. i'm right. it was, for all intents and purposes a double a-side single, as Revolution (the hard version) got and continues to get a large deal of airplay. it's one of their most well-known songs.

just got the dvd-audio, I've been a bit out of the loop. I am so happy that Day in The Life is relatively the original composition, because it is my favorite (or should I write favourite) song of all time. The dimension and tone are devastatingly strong, I love it.

I can't believe how much more punch the chorus of Lucy in the sky with Diamonds has now...

If only all the albums we love (prince's as well) were released in DVD audio.

Interestingly, at least for me, is the fact that I never considered "take me back" the little McCartney snippet to ever have been part of Cry Baby Cry. I always thought of it as an intro to Revolution 9.

I can only dream to hear Cry baby Cry the entire song remastered and remixed for DVD-audio. Or Sgt Peppers. Or You Never Give Me Your Money...

Lady Madonna is transformed as well!

Pitchforkmedia.com 8.5 out of 10

John Lennon's "Glass Onion", a daffy throwaway from the Beatles' self-titled album, isn't among the band's best songs. But a snippet fits very nicely in the third position on Love, the Beatles catalog remix album and Cirque de Soleil soundtrack created by George Martin and his son Giles. After an angelic "Because"-- a capella, but here fluffed up with bird songs-- there's the "A Hard Days Night" chord into Ringo's drum solo on "The End", which then fades into "Get Back".

"Glass Onion" was Lennon having fun with the Beatles myth, referencing his earlier songs and mocking the tendency to "decode" them that would eventually get way out of hand when Beach Boys pal and "Never Learn Not to Love" composer Charles Manson sent his minions into Beverly Hills to commit mass murder. "Glass Onion" was Lennon's attempt-- on the fly, while the band was at its peak-- at recontextualizing his Beatles work, to remind us all that music is supposed to be fun. The joker was laughing with us, jabbing an elbow in our sides to say, "Hey, we're just a pop band here, folks."

That's a good thing to keep in mind with the Beatles. They were just a pop band, even if they were possibly the greatest entity ever to fit that particular classification. The Beatles were so good that they're not very interesting to talk about-- it's like listening to someone drone on about the Grand Canyon. No other band has generated as much dull commentary, even as the music remains unimpeachable.

They're certainly the best band I almost never listen to. I'm guessing I share this with a lot of music obsessives; the Beatles' music has been so thoroughly absorbed into our consciousness that we can play the songs in our heads any time we like. Which is why the idea of someone doing something new with the catalog-- mixing and matching different songs, blending the whole thing into an epic suite-- is potentially exciting. Any attempt to fiddle with this music is like long-distance brain surgery, toying with our collective memory with the hope of creating something new.

Listening to Love I'm reminded first of a few artists that took from the Beatles without their permission, and how illicit beginnings gave their samples an extra hit of fun. There's the entire Danger Mouse/Jay-Z mashup The Grey Album, of course, but I'm thinking of smaller details. When Ringo Starr's solo from "The End" appears early here I go immediately to Jason Forrest's "Ten Amazing Years", not Abbey Road. The swirl of strings from "Good Night" stitched here to Ringo's "Octopus's Garden" brings to mind Ekkehard Ehlers' drawn-out loop of the same phrase that comprises the entirety of one side of "Ekkehard Ehlers Plays John Cassavetes". Having all the mixes band-sanctioned loses a little something. Paul McCartney is said to have heard Love and remarked that he wished it went a bit further out. And it's hard not to agree, especially for people used to hearing mash-ups and guerilla sonic deconstruction via laptop. How badly do you want Yamatsuka Eye to do a Rebore Vol. 0 on this material?

Really, the mashed-up bits here are just a seasoning, the occasional jarring effect to remind us that we're not just sitting around listening to Beatles records. Who knew that the backing track for "Drive My Car" fit perfectly over verses from "The Word" and "What You're Doing"? The a capella "Sun King" sounds great backward on "Gnik Nus" leading beautifully into "Something" and doesn't contain any hidden messages beyond the one conveyed by the opening "Because"-- that the Beatles were great singers. "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite" seems a natural soundtrack for tumbling acrobats, and the coda to "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" sounds like it was made for this project.

As the album wears on, the songs get "bigger" and are also made to stand on their own, without the mix trickery. But they also suffer from truncation. It's great to hear a round of the "Hey Jude"'s epic chorus with just voice and drums, but the song means so much less at four minutes than it does at seven, with a full verse cut and the final fade happening earlier. I will say that hearing it pulled apart finally confirms that Beta Band's "Dry the Rain" steals from it almost completely, one instrument after another.

It seems impossible to follow the final chord of "A Day in the Life", but the Martins are just closing the door on the darker, artier aspect of the Beatles, letting the uplifting pop band carry the day during the album's final section. The trimmed "Hey Jude", the reprise of "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (let's face it-- not great, but included because of all the showbiz connotations) and then closing with "All You Need Is Love".
What seems to consume people most about this record is the sound of the thing, just how beautifully the original material was recorded and how great it comes over on a purely sonic level. The art of recording a rock band, it seems, reached its zenith in the late 1960s. In terms of capturing guitar, bass, drums, and voice, nothing since-- no matter how many tracks-- sounds as pure and lovely as what the Beatles did at Abbey Road studios. Love is turning everyone into an audiophile, then, which means it's making younger people a little older. And it's also a mashup remix, which means it's making older people a little younger. They were just a pop band, yes, but if anyone can bring all these music fans together under one tent, it's the Beatles. Which is what Love is ultimately all about.

I was listening to this with Someone that mostly thinks audiophile concerns are for men, but she was quite entertained by the quality and dimension of listening to the DVD-audio full quality tracks on here.

Hopefully this will help raise the bar on the demand for remixed remasters....