HIGH Fidelity

THE BEATLES
LOVE

Track listing:

1. Because
2. Get Back
3. Glass Onion
4. Eleanor Rigby
5. I Am The Walrus
6. I Want To Hold Your Hand
7. Drive My Car/The Word/What You're Doing
8. Gnik Nus
9. Something
10. Being For The Benefit of Mr. Kite!/I Want You (She's So Heavy)/Helter Skelter
11. Help!
12. Blackbird/Yesterday
13. Strawberry Fields Forever
14. Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows
15. Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds
16. Octopus's Garden
17. Lady Madonna
18. Here Comes The Sun
19. Come Together/Dear Prudence
20. Revolution
21. Back In The U.S.S.R.
22. While My Guitar Gently Weeps
23. A Day In The Life
24. Hey Jude
25. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)
26. All You Need Is Love

Performers: John Lennon, Paul McCartneyGeorge Harrison, Ringo Starr

Date of issue: 20 november 2006
Publisher: Apple/Parlphone/EMI 3 80789 2
Type: DVD-Audio/CD (PCM stereo, PCM 5.1 24/96, DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1)

November 20, 2006 the album The Beatles Love was published – a disc produced by the legendary producer George Martin and his son Giles. The album reached in Poland the status of Golden Disc and is in the lead of most frequently bought albums – according to OLIS and on the Top-20 of the Empik stores Love is on the 2nd place.

Love is an unusual position, because the way the music was approached by the mixing team was unusual. Using the original tapes from the recording sessions, sir George and Giles created a unique sound scenery at the EMI Abbey Road studios. “This album puts the Beatles back together again, because suddenly there's John and George next to me and Ringo” - said Paul McCartney. “It's kind of magical” “George and Giles made such a good job combining these tracks. It is really powerful for me and I even heard things I'd forgotten we'd recorded” - comments Ringo Starr. “This album has the feeling of love, and that's why the title is LOVE” - adds Yoko Ono Lennon. “They have let everything that is beautiful and daring out come out” “The music is stunning. I think the most amazing thing about it is that you can pull it apart and all the elements carry with it the essence of the entire song” - says Olivia Harrison.

Love – where did the idea come from? The legendary producer of The Beatles, sir George Martin, was asked by the two living members of the quartet from Liverpool – Ringo Starr and Paul McCartney and the two widows – Yoko Ono Lennon and Olivia Harrison to make experimental mixes of the band's recordings for the use by the Cirque du Soleil. Sir George accepted and using the whole archives of The Beatles recordings, together with his son, he created Love. Music from the album was used in a performance under the same title that was presented in the Mirage theater in Las Vegas. How did this masterpiece come into existence? The gentlemen Martin mixed into one whole 26 songs from various stages of The Beatles' work. But this are no ordinary remixes, but world championship of mixing of musical pieces! They made something incredible – they analyzed thoroughly hundreds of the band's recordings, chosen compositions were split into pieces and later put together regardless of the originals. They placed citations from one recording into another, connected whole sections of instruments and vocals creating a very modern sound, just as it should be in 2006. And how does this sound? Captivating! Already in the very beginning, with “Because” I fell to my knees. The new arrangement – acapella – sounds beautiful, in the background only delicate singing of a bird can be heard, wings flattering, a bee passing by, howling owl and a light wind. And further on the disc there are many surprising and beautiful moments, among them the incredibly sounding “I am the Walrus” and a curiosity - “Why My Guitar Gently Weeps” with a newly recorded strings added, pure poetry. You don't have to be a fan of the band to admire the magnificence of this album; I experienced this myself. I hope, that due the appearance of this album on our music market new generations will look back – start searching for valued music from the 60-ties, or maybe 70-ties, and discover its magnificence. So many wonderful things were brought into existence during those two decades, it would be a pity if they would disappear into oblivion.

So much for the marketing materials. The real world brings quite a surprise: the album was issued in two versions: as a CD (or CCD, what seems more probable, taking into account the usage of copy protection by EMI for many years now, and the lack of the Compact Disc logo supports this impression) and as a set consisting of a CD (CCD) and DVD. And the latter will be presented here. The DVD is a DVD-Audio with a 5.1 24/96 multichannel mix. If we have a DVD-V player then a menu is presented where we can choose between dts, Dolby Digital and PCM 2.0. If we have a DVD-A or multi format player the disc starts playing automatically, without the need of entering the menu (a screen is not necessary). This is a multichannel mix, but on the stereo output we get a stereo mix. This is because during the mastering the sound engineer put special flags (transparent to the signal) to the disc that instruct the player how this material should look like in stereo version – a kind of remote mastering.

First the CD version. The sound is incredibly clean and saturated. Comparing Love to disc issued by the Japanese, and those are the best digital editions of The Beatles I know, one can hear how good the job was done by the gentlemen Martin. Classic discs (I am talking about the Japanese editions of Toshiba-EMI) have a bit more air around the voices and instruments but also a thinner and less substantial sound. Without any doubt. The sound on those is further away, what usually helped precision, but comparing with Love, not once and not twice I had the idea, that this is not the universal recipe for high resolution and naturalism. The Beatles like from Love were not heard like that before. The base drum from “Get Back” strikes strong and dynamic and does not resemble punching a cardboard box. The upper treble was mercifully softened, what made the quite near located voices sound unobtrusive. From time to time, like in “Glass Onion” the age of the recording can be heard; this mainly due to the compression of the vocals. I think this is not an effect of remastering (so not an error), but the more emphasized presentation shows, that the recording was not perfect. On the other hand I never heard strings like on “Eleanor Rigby” - the cello was especially impressive, with a strong, saturated midrange. The vocals on the whole disc are warm and saturated, what can disorient a bit after listening to the original recordings. However they sound fabulous. Only in “Help!” it seems they have been warmed a bit too much. This gives a near and full sound, not as clear as in the original, but probably more natural.
The DVD-Audio version is phenomenal. Although the CD played on the Lektor Prime was much better than the DVD-A played on the Arcam FMJ DV29 (I am just listening to it's successor DV139, but it is too early to say anything about it), but this is an over threefold difference in price and the medium is not able to bridge that. But when we compare the CD played on the Meridian G08 and the Arcam, then I am not sure if I don't like the “dense” version better. I mean I like it, because it is less aggressive and has better articulated “tastes” but I write like this to not make the impression that I tyrannize anybody...

Sound quality CD: 7/10

Sound quality DVD-A (stereo): 8/10

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