Hokeyboy

Oof but have you heard Carnival of Light? Some things belong dead.

Hokeyboy

I'm a collector; I still have my Capitol vinyls from when I was a kid in the 70s/80s, although my original "Blue Box" was stolen decades ago and would have been worth a fortune now. I bought it in London in 1984 and never opened the thing, as I managed to collect all the Parlophone imports, and at age 13 I somehow realized keeping the thing "mint" was gonna pay off bigtime. And it did. For the fucker who stole it from me 3 years later

Where was I? Oh, Beatles collector. I have ZERO interest in any compilations, but then these feature a ton of new Giles mixes so they're already preordered. What they're charging for them is stupid, especially the stupid red- and blue-vinyl editions, and I was stupid enough to pay for them. I suck nuts.

Honestly I'm more interested in next spring's Ultimate Edition of Lennon's Mind Games than anything from The Beatles; John's box sets have been spectacularly great. Or maybe finally getting those rumored London Town and Back to the Egg special editions from Paul. Or something honoring the 50th of Dark Horse next year from George's camp.

As far as the new song? I'm curious enough but that's as far as my enthusiasm goes for now. I loved Real Love when it was released in 96, but was already familiar with it from Lennon's Imagine movei soundtrack I just never warmed to Free As A Bird. I found it dour and dreary.

Nesbit

Good video detailing the history of the song.

devilshalo

Decker

Eh, it's alright. Don't love it.
And it is a bit weird to think this is an unfinished John song that was taken over 40 years posthumously, polished and released by people he hadn't reconciled with at the time of his death. I'm kind of torn about the whole enterprise.

Decker

Rob Sheffield thinks it's the Beatles final masterpiece. Maybe I need to take another listen.

X - Formerly Twitter

His article is certainly right about how much better and clearer John sounds now than he did on the Anthology tracks. That's thanks to Peter Jackson's technology he used on Get Back.

Nesbit

Yeah it is amazing what Jackson was able to do and yet my favorite part of the song is when it’s closest to the demo which i wasn’t even that hot on to begin with. Will listen to it a bunch more and it’ll probably grow on me a bit but it ain’t no Free as a Bird (also not a masterpiece)

IMO the best post Beatles Beatles song is still When We Was Fab even if it was just Ringo and George on it.

The remastered Love Me Do sounds great.

Decker what’d you think of Old Brown Shoe?

Decker

Never got around to it. Will now....

Decker

..... Well I really don't think I had ever heard it before, which is kind of weird. I must have, but it never stuck.
It sounds really sloppy. Like the Get Back stuff, just strumming and making shit up as they go along. I love George's enthusiastic singing, which is about as full and happy as I ever heard him sing, but the vocal track is so muddy. Hopefully it's cleaned up significantly on the re-release. I like the guitar riff but the song lacks the classic song structure, which along with the muddy sound makes it feel more like a demo than a final track. Really surprised this made the Blue Album cut list, seems more like an odds-and-ends sort of thing from Past Masters instead of something that belongs on a Greatest Hits compilation.
I look forward to hearing the cleaned up re-release version.

And yeah, I love When We Was Fab. What a cool track that was.

Coral

I'm not a Beatles purist or a big fan or anything, but the song feels like a John Lennon song from a solo album. Doesn't feel very Beatle-esque to me.

I think most of the positive reaction it's receiving is coming from a place of nostalgia. For fans, a new Beatles song in 2023 is something to get excited about - so they're not as critical.... in the same way a starving man is going to love whatever food is set out in front on him. I don't think the song is all that great... not even sure it's good. It's simply passable IMO.

In any case, they're going to make some money off of this.

Decker

CNN called it an AI song. I don't think that's a fair description of the process of isolating John's voice, though maybe AI was used in the technology.

Mike86

I would say the song is okay. Didn’t really catch me as something I’ll go back and listen to over and over again upon first listen but I guess you never know.

I do agree that it does seem more like a solo John Lennon song which obviously makes sense. Not a bad thing but not exactly a Beatles song in spite of what it’s being called.

I think more than anything the idea of getting a “new” Beatles song in 2023 is interesting/exciting. It is cool that it was able to come together and sound fairly natural.

Decker

I wish they'd use this technology to isolate John's vocals on both Anthology singles and especially on Free as a Bird where John's vocals are almost subliminal and then Paul comes in blaring at full volume.

Nesbit

100% on board for that.

BobO'Link

I don't particularly care for "Real Love" and "Free as a Bird." This one isn't as good as either of those and I also think all three are among the lesser of Lennon's solo material.

I'd love to get a new Beatles song. This one isn't it (and neither are the other 2 embellishments of John's demo tapes).

Coral

I think the only way that's going to happen is if Lennon and Harrison are resurrected.

It floors me that in a day that the Beatles release a kinda/sorta new song, only two weeks earlier the Rolling Stones released an album of actual new material - 53 years after the Beatles last album.
Both bands first albums were only 13 months apart.

It's going to be weird in the not too distant future when no members of either the Beatles or the Stones will be alive.

devilshalo

Trevor

Pretty darn good song, and even better video.

Decker

Okay yeah that video was very cool.

milo bloom

I listened while driving home yesterday, it was...ok.
Didn't knock my socks off but I'd like to have it in a mix of other Beatles songs to see how well it fits in. What time period was this originally worked on?

Decker

Literally Now and Then.
It was a demo John recorded in the mid-70s after he stopped putting out music and before his 1980 comeback. The three remaining Beatles worked on it as part of The Beatles Anthology at the same time they did Free As a Bird and Real Love. The idea was to release one new song with each night of the TV show, but they decided this one was unreleaseable as John's vocals were just about unusable. Then with Get Back, Peter Jackson had the technology to isolate John's vocals from the hissy track and use it properly with George's 1995 guitar and new vocals, bass and drums from Paul and Ringo present-day.

The Cow

It does work much better with the video backdrop.

JZ1276

Are the tracks on the Red/ Blue albums going to have the AI remixes also?

BobO'Link

From what I've read and understand, the original mono tracks on Red have had that done to create true stereo mixes rather than the hard left/right of the original US "stereo" releases. I'm really curious to hear those to see how it sounds. As a kid I had only a mono tape recorder and the mono AM radio for those so hearing them on those early US "stereo" albums is just kind of odd (I didn't purchase most of their material until after they broke up). I prefer the UK mono mixes because of that.

RayChuang

I first saw the original music posted on YouTube. Nice song so far. But the true music video version hits home because of its very strong nostalgia factor.