Post by Amadeus on Nov 19, 2014 20:58:32 GMT
MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR - Everything You Could Do In A 1967 Studio
So, how do you follow up an audio and cultural masterpiece like Sgt Pepper? You make a movie. A home made movie where nothing interesting happens of course. Since that is the recipe for success, The Beatles obviously had to be the first superstar group to do it. No script, no problem! No direction, no problem. No one to rein them in and give them direction (Epstein),,,whatever! If the bus passes a tree, it'll be awesome! If a midget walks on, it'll be awesome. If the vibrantly coloured psychedelic home movie where nothing happens gets shown in black and white on 20 inch TV's on boxing day, we're guaranteed a success. What could possibly go wrong?
BUT,,, what about the music for this masterpiece?
In North America we got an album. A nice big yellow one with crazy costumes and a story book of sorts with big 12 inch pictures. And the B-side contained the 1967 singles from earlier in the year. Apparently the UK only got a 7 inch double EP with a 7 inch book of little pictures. Oh well.
Now here's where I got confused when I was young and comparing the 'Blue' album chronological track listing with the fact that MMT came out months after Sgt Pepper. You see, at first I didn't know that Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane were non album tracks released as a single early in the year. I wondered why the heck they could make a crazy chronological blunder like that, putting two MMT songs on BEFORE Sgt Pepper's songs. Same with the 'Red' album. Everybody knew that 'Yesterday...and Today' came out a full year after HELP and RUBBER SOUL, so why was Yesterday on record one and Drive My Car was early on record two at the beginning of the Rubber Soul songs? Daft!
NOW! Magical Mystery Tour the LP. Along with the fact that we got an LP out of it and the singles, Al You Need Is Love AND baby You're A Rich Man came in beautiful sounding FAKE stereo, you know, that lovely duo-phonic thing that Dave Dexter Jr. was so fond of applying to mono tracks that he didn't have a stereo mix for. All high's on one side and all low's on the other,,,,
BUT,,, what about the music?
Was side one almost like a 'Sgt Pepper revisited'? Magical Mystery Tour itself? Setting up the show to follow? Except there was no concept on the record. It was for the film. Most of the songs were made for the film. It's a film soundtrack, so we get deep gems like 'Flying' and 'Your Mother Should Know'.
Over all, it sounded much more modern and 'psychedelic' than Sgt Pepper did. As George Martin said, you could pretty much hear everything that a 1967 studio was capable of producing by listening to 'I Am The Walrus', 'Blue Jay Way' and 'Strawberry Fields Forever'.
But the record as an 'album' was disjointed sounding compared to the flowing coheasiveness that featured on Sgt Pepper. With a couple of weak tunes on the film side and the inclusion of singles that were recorded quite (by their standards) far apart in time.
I mean,,, It is a great album and with the new remaster with everything in proper stereo, a GREAT sounding record, but is does feel like a thrown together album of just tracks. A Poor compilation album almost. BUT the music and performances for the most part were great taken song by song.
BUT,,, what about the music?
As a complete listen, it IS a brilliant experience. It has of course the strange film songs that aren't really part of the national consciousness, like, for instance, 'Flying', 'Blue Jay Way', and even 'Your Mother Should Know', which, lets face it, as a stand alone song, doesn't go anywhere. 'Flying' is a strange little instrumental worldless tune that ends in a dreamscape sound collage created by the mellotron. 'Blue Jay Way' is very much influenced by the Indian one chord drone thing but totally played with western instruments. 'Fool On The Hill' is a pleasant little McCartney diversion that would appeal to a wide variety of people.
The two killer tracks are of course, the title track and 'I Am The Walrus'. 'Walrus' of course bringing to fruition, Lennon's love of Lewis Carrol's Alice books including the Walrus and the Carpenter and the silly words inm Jabberwocky. Not only an audio trip but a lyrical trip to fully complete the experience. All those sounds! The 'treated' Lennon vocal. The 'found' radio sounds. Shakespeare no less!
This album is probably the most sonically experimental album of the lot. Just on the film songs alone, there are lots of brass fanfares, delayed chugging strings, organs, phased vocals,,,, in fact, lots of phased drums especially on 'Blue Jay Way'. I've always loved that song. Just the dreaminess drone of the thing. The whole side is just a sonically rewarding trip that has it's highs and lows like any good movie would have. You do need the boring bits in a movie to make all the exciting bits that much more monumental. It is a fact that for most of the songs on side one, the attraction is the instrumentation which is arguably more important than the songs themselves. Just playing them around a campfire might not be that interesting. We listen to it for those sounds. THOSE SOUNDS.
The SINGLES side; Again, FULL of sonic experimentation. And lyrically, all pretty good too. Even though the skies are blue, it's raining in Penny Lane. Lots of silly contradiction and back and forth in 'Hello Goodbye', 'Baby You're A Rich Man' and 'All You Need Is Love'. A meloncholy, trippy look back at a childhood memory in 'Strawberry Fields...'. Musically a very strong collection except for 'Baby You're a Rich Man'. I don't think enough thought went into the song structure or arrangements for that tune. Of course it was only meant to be cosumed as a b-side on a single but as we've come to expect all their b-side to be classics,,,,
I guess I lean towards the first three songs on that side, partially because the last single, two songs were in very unpleasant sounding fake stereo. That could be part of the reason I have a lingering desire to avoid 'Baby You're A Rich Man', but as I say, dave Dexter Jr ruined my life.
'Hello Goodbye' is such a GREAT pop song and very sonically interesting but here's another case of, the arrangement is better than the song. I can't do this song with an acoustic around the camp fire.
The 2009 remaster,,,even the '87 remaster sounded WAYYYYY better than the vinyl, having included true stereo versions of the last single. But it proves the album is just a sonic treat to listen to even though as an album, it doesn't hang together at all. And this is the one instance when a CAPITOL album became a permanent part of the 'canon'. Hurrah Dave!
Both MMT and Sgt Pepper represent two COMPLETELY different versions of what 1967 sound like. The one, while experimental, over all lends itself to music hall, traditional instrumental sounds (although severely treated) whereas MMT is totally (for the most part) shiny modern sounds that don't relate to the past at all. I like to play them both back to back along with side one of YELLOW SUBMARINE, because they all sum up two very different sides of 1967 which are both essential.
After this and the 'Yellow Submarine' tracks, the rot starts to set in. The end comes into view.
So, how do you follow up an audio and cultural masterpiece like Sgt Pepper? You make a movie. A home made movie where nothing interesting happens of course. Since that is the recipe for success, The Beatles obviously had to be the first superstar group to do it. No script, no problem! No direction, no problem. No one to rein them in and give them direction (Epstein),,,whatever! If the bus passes a tree, it'll be awesome! If a midget walks on, it'll be awesome. If the vibrantly coloured psychedelic home movie where nothing happens gets shown in black and white on 20 inch TV's on boxing day, we're guaranteed a success. What could possibly go wrong?
BUT,,, what about the music for this masterpiece?
In North America we got an album. A nice big yellow one with crazy costumes and a story book of sorts with big 12 inch pictures. And the B-side contained the 1967 singles from earlier in the year. Apparently the UK only got a 7 inch double EP with a 7 inch book of little pictures. Oh well.
Now here's where I got confused when I was young and comparing the 'Blue' album chronological track listing with the fact that MMT came out months after Sgt Pepper. You see, at first I didn't know that Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane were non album tracks released as a single early in the year. I wondered why the heck they could make a crazy chronological blunder like that, putting two MMT songs on BEFORE Sgt Pepper's songs. Same with the 'Red' album. Everybody knew that 'Yesterday...and Today' came out a full year after HELP and RUBBER SOUL, so why was Yesterday on record one and Drive My Car was early on record two at the beginning of the Rubber Soul songs? Daft!
NOW! Magical Mystery Tour the LP. Along with the fact that we got an LP out of it and the singles, Al You Need Is Love AND baby You're A Rich Man came in beautiful sounding FAKE stereo, you know, that lovely duo-phonic thing that Dave Dexter Jr. was so fond of applying to mono tracks that he didn't have a stereo mix for. All high's on one side and all low's on the other,,,,
BUT,,, what about the music?
Was side one almost like a 'Sgt Pepper revisited'? Magical Mystery Tour itself? Setting up the show to follow? Except there was no concept on the record. It was for the film. Most of the songs were made for the film. It's a film soundtrack, so we get deep gems like 'Flying' and 'Your Mother Should Know'.
Over all, it sounded much more modern and 'psychedelic' than Sgt Pepper did. As George Martin said, you could pretty much hear everything that a 1967 studio was capable of producing by listening to 'I Am The Walrus', 'Blue Jay Way' and 'Strawberry Fields Forever'.
But the record as an 'album' was disjointed sounding compared to the flowing coheasiveness that featured on Sgt Pepper. With a couple of weak tunes on the film side and the inclusion of singles that were recorded quite (by their standards) far apart in time.
I mean,,, It is a great album and with the new remaster with everything in proper stereo, a GREAT sounding record, but is does feel like a thrown together album of just tracks. A Poor compilation album almost. BUT the music and performances for the most part were great taken song by song.
BUT,,, what about the music?
As a complete listen, it IS a brilliant experience. It has of course the strange film songs that aren't really part of the national consciousness, like, for instance, 'Flying', 'Blue Jay Way', and even 'Your Mother Should Know', which, lets face it, as a stand alone song, doesn't go anywhere. 'Flying' is a strange little instrumental worldless tune that ends in a dreamscape sound collage created by the mellotron. 'Blue Jay Way' is very much influenced by the Indian one chord drone thing but totally played with western instruments. 'Fool On The Hill' is a pleasant little McCartney diversion that would appeal to a wide variety of people.
The two killer tracks are of course, the title track and 'I Am The Walrus'. 'Walrus' of course bringing to fruition, Lennon's love of Lewis Carrol's Alice books including the Walrus and the Carpenter and the silly words inm Jabberwocky. Not only an audio trip but a lyrical trip to fully complete the experience. All those sounds! The 'treated' Lennon vocal. The 'found' radio sounds. Shakespeare no less!
This album is probably the most sonically experimental album of the lot. Just on the film songs alone, there are lots of brass fanfares, delayed chugging strings, organs, phased vocals,,,, in fact, lots of phased drums especially on 'Blue Jay Way'. I've always loved that song. Just the dreaminess drone of the thing. The whole side is just a sonically rewarding trip that has it's highs and lows like any good movie would have. You do need the boring bits in a movie to make all the exciting bits that much more monumental. It is a fact that for most of the songs on side one, the attraction is the instrumentation which is arguably more important than the songs themselves. Just playing them around a campfire might not be that interesting. We listen to it for those sounds. THOSE SOUNDS.
The SINGLES side; Again, FULL of sonic experimentation. And lyrically, all pretty good too. Even though the skies are blue, it's raining in Penny Lane. Lots of silly contradiction and back and forth in 'Hello Goodbye', 'Baby You're A Rich Man' and 'All You Need Is Love'. A meloncholy, trippy look back at a childhood memory in 'Strawberry Fields...'. Musically a very strong collection except for 'Baby You're a Rich Man'. I don't think enough thought went into the song structure or arrangements for that tune. Of course it was only meant to be cosumed as a b-side on a single but as we've come to expect all their b-side to be classics,,,,
I guess I lean towards the first three songs on that side, partially because the last single, two songs were in very unpleasant sounding fake stereo. That could be part of the reason I have a lingering desire to avoid 'Baby You're A Rich Man', but as I say, dave Dexter Jr ruined my life.
'Hello Goodbye' is such a GREAT pop song and very sonically interesting but here's another case of, the arrangement is better than the song. I can't do this song with an acoustic around the camp fire.
The 2009 remaster,,,even the '87 remaster sounded WAYYYYY better than the vinyl, having included true stereo versions of the last single. But it proves the album is just a sonic treat to listen to even though as an album, it doesn't hang together at all. And this is the one instance when a CAPITOL album became a permanent part of the 'canon'. Hurrah Dave!
Both MMT and Sgt Pepper represent two COMPLETELY different versions of what 1967 sound like. The one, while experimental, over all lends itself to music hall, traditional instrumental sounds (although severely treated) whereas MMT is totally (for the most part) shiny modern sounds that don't relate to the past at all. I like to play them both back to back along with side one of YELLOW SUBMARINE, because they all sum up two very different sides of 1967 which are both essential.
After this and the 'Yellow Submarine' tracks, the rot starts to set in. The end comes into view.