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I love The Beatles, always have done, and always will. I grew up on them, having their music drilled in to my head (not literally) on an almost daily occurrence. My Dad particularly is a massive fan, or at least was in the Sixties when he was actually living through the first glory days of British music. These days he’s more an American country fan and I’ve taken up the mantle of Beatles fanatic. My mum too was there when it all happened, but is now more likely to be listening to some Mozart or Brahms. So it’s left to me, who just wished he’d experienced the glory that was the swinging sixties to keep playing Strawberry Fields et al. When I first heard about this album, I had mixed emotions. It’s a new Beatles album, fantastic, I can’t wait, how cool is that?!? But hang on, John and George are no longer with us, Paul has gone classical and has marriage/divorce/one legged women worries. Ringo ermm well, he used to narrate Thomas the Tank engine and ermm his son Zak Starkey is now the drummer for both The Who and Oasis, Which isn’t a bad job. So it was clearly not going to be a new new album, and so it has come to pass.

Love by The Beatles is in essence a mash up album, featuring reworked, reimagined versions of classic songs that we all know and love. Based on the Cirque Du Soleil show of the same name, it was produced by the legendary George Martin and his son Giles. According to Wikipedia, “They worked from the original master tapes from the Abbey Road studios to produce a medley of Beatles music by remixing favourite songs.� In other words they took one song, a classic that has been listened to for 40 years and added some bells and whistles using the new fangled technology that didn’t exist decades ago. The Cirque Du Soleil’s Love show is based on The Beatles story and that of the characters in their songs such as Eleanor Rigby, Sergeant pepper etc. The show originated from George Harrison’s friendship with Cirque founder Guy Laliberte, and is currently wowing people in Las Vegas.

Fragments of 130 songs are used on the 26 tracks in total, from well known Lennon singing parts to violin segments unheard until now. The 80-minute CD feels like an experimental trip through the Beatles career, with ambient flows seeping into your unconsciousness. As well as the mash ups, there are some classic tracks left virtually untouched apart from a few effects, or a tweak here and there. The sound isn’t the old, the classic, it’s new, exciting and something different than you’d come to expect from listening to a Beatles album. It’s brought them slap bang up to date, back into the current, and the ascendancy. It’ll appeal to the fans, who can spot which parts are from which songs, and revel in the glory of the audio quality coming through their speakers. New listeners, those who have only heard about the Beatles in passing, or the odd song on the radio will enjoy Love as an album in it’s own right and may even seek out The White Album because of it. That’s got to be a good thing to keep these geniuses and their music alive a little longer. It’s easy to be suspicious or unsure of this whole concept but to me it just again shows how imaginative and groundbreaking this group of 4 Liverpudlians were and still are. Love - The Beatles? Yes, I must admit I do.

The Beatles, Love Album, Cirque Du Soleil, Lennon, McCartney, Las Vegas