Now that I've had time to recover from "the white album", which really messed me up and made me feel depressed, I can move on and... well, review some more Beatles material from around the same period. This is a very small sample that probably doesn't all fit together. Then again most of the stuff The Beatles were putting out at this time wasn't part of a cohesive whole so there's no real problem reviewing it as one chunk.
Yellow Submarine is the odd duck of The Beatles catalogue. For one it's not really an album. It was released to coincide with the recent Yellow Submarine animated movie and act as the film's soundtrack. Side one of the LP was six Beatles songs, only four of which were new, and side two was George Martin's orchestral score for the film. Essentially the album was more of a Beatles EP ginned up with filler to justify tagging it with an album price. What really makes it the odd duck is no one really sings its praises as one of the best albums of all time, unlike every other album in their catalogue.
I don't really understand why it was decided to turn a 2-year-old song into a movie, but then again I didn't understand at all what "Yellow Submarine" was doing on Revolver. It didn't fit the rest of that album and makes much more sense here. If only they could have known eventually the film would be made and a soundtrack released. "Only A Northern Song" has a neat dischordance but tries too hard to be psychadelic. I'm not sure if I've ever actually heard the entirety of "All Together Now" or if I've only ever heard the chorus. As it turns out the song has some of the most annoying lyrics I've ever heard, but at least it's over quickly.
"Hey Bulldog" is a raunchy dischordant blues number. If "Only A Northern Song" was more like this, without all it's unfortunate overdubs, it would be pretty good. "It's All Too Much" is crushed by heavily distorted instrumentation, and is a curious two-chord Beatles song. I don't think I've ever criticized a Beatles song as having only two chords. Side one closes with "All You Need Is Love" which we've already heard. Since side two doesn't actually contain any real Beatles music I'll be ignoring it for the purpose of this review. As The Beatles themselves considered releasing side 1 as an EP after this "album" got poor reviews I feel OK doing that.
"Get Back" first appeared as a single in anticipation of an album by the same name. The Beatles (or at least Paul McCartney) at the time were hoping to restart their touring career after spending two years in the studio. The hope was going on tour would help sooth the acrimonious atmosphere surrounding their studio sessions when the four Beatles would barely spend any time collaborating as they used to. As it turned out the sessions for the Get Back album were disastorous and The Beatles shelved both the album and plans to tour.
"Get Back" the song was released as a single nontheless and is an excellent laid-back blues number, happily dispensing with the tired orchestral overdubs of Sgt. Pepper and The Beatles. Same goes for it's B-side "Don't Let Me Down". It's not quite the classic Beatles rock that they made before Revolver, but it's a shade of cool their recent albums have been missing.
"The Ballad of John and Yoko" has a pretty pretentious title and some pretty pretentious lyrics: "The way things are going, they're gonna crucify me!" But in the mold of "Get Back" and "Don't Let Me Down", along with the spontaneity of the recording, it's a reserved and hoppy blues number that I appreciate. "Old Bown Shoe" is of a similar mold, but like a few George Harrison tunes that come to mind it's a bit overlaiden with distortion, this time mostly on the vocals. What gives? Did George want this done to his music or was it forced on him? It doesn't make the tracks sound better.
I wound up liking more of this music than I thought I would, but the slip-shod method of releasing Yellow Submarine as a propper album when it never should have been is a serious mark against it. I have to go with 2 stars even though that's not fair to the singles which turned out to be pretty good.
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