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Venus and Mars by Wings (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Venus and Mars
  • Group name: Wings
  • Year: 1975
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Capitol Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics: hole punched through top right
  • Buy it on Amazon: $27.78

Venus and Mars by Wings

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’ve never heard this record, but it will be the third Wings record that I review. The previous two were:

What I expected

More forgettable Faul McCartney post-Beatles songs.

What it was actually like

Like the last Wings record, this one was pretty boring: mostly bland, forgettable rock.

Mercifully, You Gave Me the Answer was the only song that I’d consider to be “Faul’s granny shit,” but unmercifully, it was a classic of the genre.

Medicine Jar was a pretty good 1970s stadium rock song with strong guitar, and I liked Spirits of Ancient Egypt for the same reason.

Rock Show had the most electric guitar / hard rock energy on the record, so I considered it the best song, though I can’t imagine it on a Beatles record.

I hoped that Crossroads would be that Crossroads, but no such luck.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

MORE get back session by The Beatles (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: MORE get back session
  • Group name: The Beatles
  • Year: 1969?
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: ?
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics:
    • Sticker on back: “William H. Butler III”[1]
  • Buy it on Amazon: $70.00[2]

MORE get back session by The Beatles

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

This appears to be a bootleg recording of some songs from the Beatles’ studio sessions in early 1969. Like most people, I watched the Get Back documentary last year and loved it, so that music is more or less fresh in my memory, though Let It Be is one of my least favorite Beatles records.

Here are the other Beatles records that I’ve reviewed:

What I expected

There’s basically no writing on this album except the title MORE get back session, the track list, and the “William H. Butler III” sticker on the back – even the word “Beatles” never appears – so with no studio or record label information, no copyright and no explanation whatsoever, it feels very bootleggy. The only writing on the LP itself is “1” and “2” to indicate sides A and B respectively.

Some of the tracks are songs on Let It Be, but I’m not sure if these versions are the release versions (or if I’ll even be able to tell), and others are not.

What it was actually like

None of these were the release versions, after all, and many were pretty rough around the edges, relative to the eventual finished products.

The audio quality was also not terrific.

I believe that any Beatles fan with eight hours to spare should just watch the documentary, which spent plenty of time showing them putting songs together from idea to final version; much of that time consisted of a large amount of goofing around, teasing, reminiscing, disappearing for long periods (presumably to get high, or a fix) and, most importantly, pulling music out of thin air.

Some of that is captured in this bootleg, but it’s hard to do on a 13 track LP.

I thought the song Get Back was fairly complete and decently close to the release version, and I liked it. Dig a Pony was also pretty complete, but unfortunately it’s not a good song at all.

I might have been mistaken, but I thought I heard someone calling Ringo “Rich” at the beginning of Whole Lotta Shakin’, which was a surprise to me from the documentary, as I always assumed that he had used his stage name socially as well.

Suzie Parker sounded like it had some Ono level shrieking. She is awful.

The second Dig a Pony sounded remarkably like I’ve Got A Feeling (I think it was just mislabeled on the album).

Paul Raps was also pretty indecipherable; I could not make sense of what the hell was he was supposed to have been “rapping.”

Anyway, I may have mentioned them before, but Lake Street Dive did one of the coolest Beatles covers ever, an ode to the Beatles’ legendary rooftop concert that is also portrayed in the documentary. Here is Don’t Let Me Down, and also Two of Us.

And if you think that’s impressive, their best cover ever is Lola (but if you like it, you’d better download it right away, before it gets memory-holed by Google).

And while I’m at it, I still believe that Amir Darzi and Lital Regev (and sometimes Yoni Schlesinger) do an amazing job at their Beatles covers.

Grade

3/5: interesting, but not for me

References

References
↑1 I am not sure who William H. Butler III might have been. Perhaps he was nobody in particular, and it is a common name, but at least one William H. Butler was involved in music in the appropriate time period.
↑2 This is not exactly the same thing that I’m reviewing, but it looks pretty similar, and the track lists are nearly identical.

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band
  • Group name: Plastic Ono Band
  • Artist name: John Lennon
  • Year: 1970
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Apple Records
  • Collection: Brenner / Gessner
  • Distinguishing characteristics: “jill” written on side one of the LP, indicating that my mother owned it
  • Buy it on Amazon: $16.95

John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I’m familiar with the fact that all the ex-Beatles did… stuff… after Yoko broke up the band (and here are my reviews of Blast From Your Past by Ringo Starr, Band on the Run by Paul McCartney and Wings and The Concert For Bangla Desh), and that it was mostly low quality and uninteresting, and that this record was unfortunately brought into existence by Lennon and Ono, but I can’t say that I’ve ever listened to it.

What I expected

“Lennon/McCartney” was, if not the greatest musical duo in modern history, certainly the most talented, creative, groundbreaking and important songwriting and performing pair that I can name. It’s not a surprise, then, that I’ve never had much interest in, or appreciation for, what those two did when they were not doing it together.

I don’t expect this record to be good, and that’s not even getting into my opinion of Yoko Ono, which is not a positive one.

What it was actually like

I didn’t enjoy John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, but one of my concerns was that Ono’s involvement would result in a lot of anti-melodic cacophonous screeching (like this or this or this), and that concern proved unfounded for the most part, with Well Well Well unfortunately the exemplary case of Lennon forcing his cringe 1970s primal scream therapy on an unsuspecting public.

Not surprisingly, a lot of this record sounded half complete, or not fully worked out, as if Lennon had some ideas – some of which may even have been great ideas – but desperately needed to sit down in a studio with his actual musical partner, not Yoko Ono, and a couple of guitars, or a guitar and a piano, and worked those ideas into actual complete songs that people would love.

So while it sounded very much like a 1970 post-Beatles John Lennon project (and mostly not like some avant garde Ono crap), some of whose tracks might have formed the basis of songs on a hypothetical Beatles record, my prevailing attitude is that it’s a travesty that they ended up on this record instead of whatever the Beatles might have been doing around this time.

Working Class Hero was a very decent Bob Dylan impression.

Grade

2/5: bad, but I was able to listen to the whole thing

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
  • Group name: the Beatles
  • Year: 1967
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Capitol Records
  • Collection: Selman
  • Buy it on Amazon: $33.80

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by the Beatles

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I think Sgt. Pepper is probably the music I’ve heard most in my entire life, because it was a favorite of my parents and then my own favorite. I’ve described it as a desert island album, as the Beatles’ greatest achievement, and sometimes as my top record of all time.

Other Beatles records I’ve reviewed:

What I expected

Sgt. Pepper.

What it was actually like

It’s incredibly difficult to write reviews of these songs, because I feel like I’ve known every note and every lyric of all of them since before I was even born, like they’re almost a part of me, and because of the way that they’ve always seemed to run together to me as one rather than as distinct tracks, reinforced by the “concept album” structure of Sgt. Pepper.

Long ago, I read about the idea that in the distant future, Beatles songs will be the nursery rhymes of their day, and every time I’ve come back to that idea over the years, it’s always been Sgt. Pepper‘s songs that I imagine five year olds singing as they jump rope.

Listening to it this time, my favorites are With a Little Help from My Friends and Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!. I’m not sure that I’ve ever identified the latter as a favorite before, but I’ve always enjoyed it because of its weirdness and because I think it’s representative of the record overall. I wrote about the former a little bit when I reviewed the Woodstock soundtrack, but I’d add to that how easy it is to listen to this as being totally innocent and quite entirely about friendship of the sort that kids have (before they know what “getting high” means).

If one thing that both of those songs share is their sense of joy, wonder and happiness, She’s Leaving Home has always struck me as the archetypal sad song, sadder than any love song ever could be, because people may fall out of (romantic) love but find it again, while that’s not possible for the love a parent has for a child.

Within You Without You is one that I didn’t even remotely get when I was a child or a teenager, but it’s really endeared itself to me as an adult. It was not only my first exposure to classical Hindustani music, but the first time I was introduced to any Indian culture of any kind, and as a longtime admirer of Indian civilization (and fan of Ravi Shankar), I hear it all the time, even when it’s not playing.

I think it’s only fair to mention the elephant in the room on Sgt. Pepper, which is When I’m Sixty-Four, one of the worst examples of “Faul’s granny shit” that was even lame enough for my third grade teacher to get my class to sing it for her.

Everyone should listen to Sgt. Pepper. Listen to it when you’re five years old and keep listening to it when you’re 50 years old, listen to it when you’re happy and when you’re sad, when you’re stone cold sober and with the assistance of a certain medicinal herb. Listen to covers of it, like this one by Easy Star that I first heard on the beach by Frischman Street, shortly after moving to Tel Aviv, on a Friday afternoon in summer 2006, as the sun was setting and Shabbat was about to begin.

Grade

5/5: love it

Revolver by The Beatles (Vinyl record album review)

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Record basics

  • Album name: Revolver
  • Group name: The Beatles
  • Year: 1966
  • Number of discs: one
  • Label: Capitol Records[1]
  • Collection: Selman
  • Distinguishing characteristics: hole punched through top right of album
  • Buy it on Amazon: $69.00

Revolver by The Beatles

My review

Level of familiarity before listening

I prefer the “middle” Beatles era, and Revolver is one of my favorite Beatles records. I’ve listened to it more times than I can count.

What I expected

Revolver.

What it was actually like

Taxman

There was a time when I thought that this was the profoundest Beatles song, and that time was when I was a teenaged libertarian, and when I had no idea who “Mister Wilson” and “Mister Heath” were.

Since that time, my impression of Taxman has declined somewhat. I still love it as a pretty cool experimental-sounding rock song, but being innovative isn’t the same as being profound.

Eleanor Rigby

This is another Beatles song that I once counted among my favorites, until I learned that it was also one of Bill Clinton’s favorites, and I had a difficult time reconciling how someone with such a troubled relationship with the truth could share such over-the-top sentimentality with me.

On the other hand, despite not being a rock song at all or really even a Beatles song, I do think it’s one of Paul McCartney’s last great achievements from the period immediately before his tragic demise.

Love You To

Here’s one that I actually used to despise until my appreciation for both Indian music and George Harrison began to wax in the past couple of decades, and now I consider it a sublimely powerful synthesis of Indian instrumentation with western rock.

Here, There and Everywhere

It’s catchy, but it’s “Paul’s granny shit” and I would never listen to it voluntarily if it weren’t in the middle of a record that I love.

Yellow Submarine

On one hand, Ringo Starr is the greatest Beatle and I want to support everything he did as a Beatle. On the other hand, this song and so many of the others written for Ringo by Lennon-McCartney kind of sounds like they were trolling him.

She Said She Said

I love this song. I love that it’s kind of a peak pre-Yoko Lennon love song, but that it maybe isn’t even a love song at all (or at least there’s major plausible deniability in the lyrics), that it’s psychedelic without overdoing it, and that it has one of the best “story of the song” background stories of any Beatles composition.

Good Day Sunshine

So this is the sort of corny stuff that Paul was writing while he was not taking acid with the rest of the group. Noted.

For No One

See above. I do like For No One quite a bit better than Good Day Sunshine, but the best part of it is the French horn part.

I Want to Tell You

This would be a perfectly serviceable filler song for a typical rock group of 1966, but was hardly worth including on a Beatles record, and it’s not lost on me that George Harrison got three songs on Revolver (probably due to an “acidy” lapse in Lennon’s productivity), one more than his usual two allotted songs. Also, Harrison’s songwriting peak came a few years after this.

Got to Get You into My Life

It’s easy to hate this song, but as another love-song-that’s-not-really-a-love-song, I appreciate it, and I think it’s all right, but that McCartney needed to dial back the brass section by a notch or three.

Tomorrow Never Knows

If I had to pick, I’d say that Tomorrow Never Knows is my favorite Revolver song (on this version of Revolver, at least). The weird backwards-music schtick is obnoxious, but I give them a pass because it was 1966, and the drumming is so powerful at keeping an edgy and almost paranoid mood.

The missing tracks

Huh?

When I first started looking over the copy of Revolver that’s been in my possession for the past few months, something seemed a bit off about it, but I couldn’t figure out what or why. Finally, I noticed the composition of the tracks by Beatle:

  • Paul McCartney: five songs
  • George Harrison: three songs
  • John Lennon: two songs
  • Ringo Starr: one song (written by Lennon-McCartney)

Though it’s widely known that Ringo was given one song per record, and George was allowed two, the balance of the songs were supposed to be split between John’s and Paul’s. In the Revolver sessions, John didn’t have a high volume of material, which is why George got a third, but what’s the deal with John only getting two songs on this record?

The deal is that John didn’t only get two songs on it. In fact, he got five, just like Paul got, and if you happened to buy the LP in the United Kingdom (or probably anywhere in the world outside the United States and Canada), or if you bought the CD when it was eventually released, or if you’ve listened in any digital format over the decades, you would have heard the correct and true version of Revolver, which had all of the above songs plus the following three:

  • I’m Only Sleeping
  • And Your Bird Can Sing
  • Doctor Robert

… and those were all John’s. So what happened to them? Apparently, the Beatles’ record contracts up until Revolver were with different labels in the UK and US, and the US contract gave Capitol Records the right to rearrange and remove tracks. Also, supposedly the US audience was considered to prefer shorter LPs. So Capitol decided to remove those songs and put them on a compilation record that they released around the same time, called Yesterday and Today, with some other songs that they had yanked (heh) from Rubber Soul and Help.

Needless to say, I had never heard of Yesterday and Today until digging into this, as it wasn’t part of my “canonical” Beatles collection from 2009, and I do not approve of this travesty and think whoever made that decision should be fired, if it hadn’t happened more than half a century ago.

At any rate, those three songs are critical to the record’s sound. Without them, it’s deeply lopsided towards Paul’s kind of music, and that’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with Paul, except that he was not the first, second or third best Beatle. And Your Bird Can Sing in particular is one of my very favorite Beatles songs, so not getting to hear it on this copy of Revolver has made me feel deprived. Here, instead, is an outstanding cover.

Grade

5/5: love it

References

References
↑1 Note that the Capitol Records version of “Revolver” is the US version and is incomplete; the UK version, released by EMI, has the missing songs.