No. 43- Love

Album: Love

Band: The Beatles


Year Released: 2006











I really got into this album...
Spring 2007

Favorite songs include...
“Strawberry Fields Forever” 
“Come Together / Dear Prudence / Cry Baby Cry” 


Why it’s so good... 
I think there are two ways for Beatles fans to approach this album- the first is the way my old boss John approached it. He absolutely hated the idea of re-creating Beatles songs in any fashion. He felt those songs, the way they were originally done, are the reason The Beatles are so legendary. So why tamper with that?

But I took the second approach- I embraced it. Maybe it’s because I live in a generation where sampling and remixing is so commonplace, but I think this is such an amazing idea.

If you don’t know this album, it’s basically several Beatles classics remastered and mixed together. It’s hard to fully describe the brilliance of this album without actually listening to it.

But you listen to a song like “Octopus’s Garden”, which begins with the strings of “Good Night” and features sound bits throughout from “Yellow Submarine”- all Ringo Starr songs- and you get the concept of this album.

Or listen to those few seconds where "Hey Jude" turns into "Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".

And when you know that the album was done as a soundtrack for a Cirque du Soleil Beatles-themed show, you appreciate the theatrics even more.

Generally I’m against including greatest hits albums on lists of favorites- only because the point of those are simply to make money and introduce someone to a band’s better known singles. And I struggled on whether or not this album would fit in that category or not. But because it completely re-created each song on it and in many ways re-created The Beatles as a 21^st century band, it deserves its place on this list.

And I’m also a sucker for any album that really requires listening to it from start to finish, as opposed to each song individually.