Every time I am asked to write about the new Beatles remixes, I’m confronted with the enormous task of listening to the entire package which, in their expanded versions, is an awful lot of material. In the case of Revolver’s super-deluxe edition, there are five discs containing 63 tracks and a 100-page hardbound book in a slipcase. The vinyl set has four LPs and a 7-inch EP with the book. There are two other options for the less well-heeled or insanely interested: a deluxe two-CD digipak with a 40-page booklet and a single CD/single LP vinyl picture disc.
Did you really expect anything less?
As for my job to review all of this, I have to deal with all the emotional issues that come with it. Each new expanded track version and all of the associated bonus written material creates a dilemma. You see, I can’t just report on this stuff. I lived this, and this forces me to confront my past in regard to where I was when first exposed to it and what it meant to me at the time.
How could it not.
I am reviewing the holy grail of pop culture.
It’s just not the music. It’s the foundation of all that came after.
Rubber Soul may represent the base camp of the acceptance of The Beatles as the greatest band to have ever existed, but Revolver is where the band put on parachutes and jumped out of the plane!
I know that (an album that I’m sure will be the next in line for a remix) certainly was an astonishing piece of work, but — well, read on. It has become very fashionable ahead of as the greatest of all Beatles albums. Furthermore, this new remix of has me reflecting on my own experience of hearing it and in real time and gauging its effect on me.
