Past Masters Volume Two - Beatles (The) (CD 1988)

Sesame Street bothered the hell out of me when I was a kid. I'm not sure when that started to happen, but something about the whole show just seemed a bit "off" somehow. Perhaps it was the whole "Bert and Ernie thing" that struck me as odd, or maybe it was that Oscar fella who lived in a trash can. It could be that the cookie-munching blue thing or that fellow who liked to count annoyed me.

So, what does this have to do with a review of a Beatles album? There was at least one thing on Sesame Street that struck me as clever when I was growing up, and that was a bit on which a hippy-looking muppet was playing a piano and doing some parody of "Let it Be." In that version, though, the lyrics were:

Letter B
Letter B
Letter B
Yes, Letter B
It's found in "bat" and "baseball"
Letter B

Funny, huh? And it proves a point. The Beatles are so ingrained in our culture that even producers of a kids show rip-off a Beatles song and feel comfortable doing it. I wasn't the only kid who "got" the whole parody, and I'm sure I wasn't alone.

This album contains "Let it Be" and a host of other fantastic songs from the Beatles. In fact, this disc contains 15 singles, "B sides" and oddities that were released between 1965 and 1970. This disc is the companion to, naturally, Past Masters Volume I that has all those earlier Beatles songs. The idea in releasing these in 1988 was to give collectors easy access to all the stuff the Beatles put out commercially. By purchasing the Past Masters discs and the 13 studio albums from the band, the happy collector could have a complete collection of tunes from the band.

The songs here range from the blues-rock "Day Tripper" all the way to the completely odd "You Know my Name (Look up the Number)" on which the band pretty much fools around. Included, too, are such fantastic tunes as "Paperback Writer," "Rain" and that hard-rocking version of "Revolution." Particularly enjoyable is the version of "Across the Universe" that's on here. I hate the version that's on Let it Be because Phil Spector managed to slow it ruin it by slowing it down and tossing a choir and orchestration on it. The version here is faster and very simple, and is just great. Damn that creepy Spector, anyway.

In short, one listen to this will remind even the most jaded music lover what made the Beatles so great. The music here is endlessly creative, evolving and manages to balance artistic sensibilities with the need to sell some music. The great thing about the Beatles is that the vast majority of their bold ideas worked. For example, John Lennon's backward lryic in "Rain" sounds a bit unusual, but turns out just fine. Hell, slowing down that entire track was an odd thing to do, but it turned out just fine, too. The extensive vocal overdubs in "Paperback Writer" are fantastic, too, and "Let it Be" is fairly unconventional in that it's almost a gospel tune.

All in all, this is a collection of songs we all know and a hell of a lot of us love. Some might argue that the entire Past Masters collection has been replaced from the recent One compilation, but I disagree. That's because you get some "B sides" an oddities here along with the "big" singles on the two discs that make up the Past Masters set. That's worth something, I think.

Now, here's a track listing:

1. Day Tripper
2. We Can Work It Out
3. Paperback Writer
4. Rain
5. Lady Madonna
6. Inner Light, The
7. Hey Jude
8. Revolution
9. Get Back - (single version)
10. Don't Let Me Down
11. Ballad Of John And Yoko, The
12. Old Brown Shoe
13. Across The Universe - (alternate, "Wildlife" version)
14. Let It Be - (single mix)
15. You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) - (mono)