BEATLES FOR SALE
In the autumn of 1995, at the height of Britpop, EMI unleashed the Beatles'
Anthology project; an exhumation of three albums' worth of outtakes,
rarities and alternate versions overseen by the band and producer-mentor
George Martin as well as a simultaneously-broadcast television series. The
Anthology programmes provided a visual history of the Fab Four from their
pre-fame beginnings through to the messy, acrimonious split in 1970, given
extra insight by new interviews with everyone concerned.
Now the series comes to DVD in a 5-disc boxset, laced with 81 minutes of extra
footage and the never-before-seen video for Real Love, the second of the *new*
Beatles songs released as a single in early 1996 and arguably superior to Free
As A Bird.
It's an expensive time for Paul McCartney fans, with his live double album
Back In The World and accompanying DVD also just out. The third Macca live
record in just 12 years, following 1990's Tripping The Live Fantastic and
1993's shabby Paul Is Live!, Back In The World has attracted publicity for its
attempt at rewriting pop history by altering the credits for the Beatles songs
included on the album, from the familiar "Lennon-McCartney" to "McCartney-Lennon".
Apparently this latest move is merely to more truthfully reflect McCartney's
greater contribution, yet he has tellingly ignored any Beatles material on
which he wasn't the main composer from the 32-song live set for the ongoing
world tour captured on Back In The World.
However, the George Harrison-penned Something is affectionately rendered,
fuelling the deliberately anti-Lennon/Yoko Ono suspicions. Meanwhile Harrison,
sadly no longer with us after losing his battle against cancer in December 2001,
has another posthumous single released this month. Any Road is the opening
track from Brainwashed, the album George was working on in the final
months of his life and which was completed by longtime collaborator (and fellow
Traveling Wilbury) Jeff Lynne in conjunction with Harrison's son Dhani.
|
