I'm being cruel, but I have to let loose with this one.
I recently procured for myself the boxed set of the 2009 Beatles Re-Masters (the one in stereo, not the hard-core Mono set) and had it sitting on my shelf for a good 2 months without even taking the plastic wrappers off each album inside the box. I figured I already had the 1987 boxed set which is bad enough, and it wasn't going to surprise me in any way shape or form, so what was the rush?
Today, I finally decided to open them up and at least encode AAC files for the iPod, which meant I had to hunt up some artwork because believe it or not, "Get Album Artwork" got me sweet F.A. which meant I had to go to Amazon to pull off the album art (as you do). But that's not the bit that's 'worthless', no no, - that's actually the cute ironic bit.
The bit I'm going to have a cruel laugh about are the 1 star reviews the Beatles are getting on Amazon. Some of this stuff is side-splittingly hilarious in what it reveals about the writers, more than the Beatles. After all, what possibly more can be written about the Beatles that could add to the weight of their cultural significance, and our collective understanding? But these people not only try, they're trying to push back the tide of historic and world opinion. It's brave, funny and idiotic.
Take this one from 'Beatles For Sale':
1: No Reply: a depressing song about a cheating girlfriend. Its songs like this and Run For Yr Life that make Lennon to be the hypocrite that he is. In his songs he bitches about cheating, and yet he destroys his family with an adulterous affair with Yoko Ono. He obviously knew neither Jesus Christ or cared about his family. In ways, he disgusts me. And yet, this is not the love of God. Adultery is a bitter subject for me, and I cannot be real objective. But I try. And I listen.
I cracked up laughing. I mean, what is one to make of this? clearly the guy is struggling with balancing his faith with his love of the Beatles, but this is pretty silly stuff. Then Amazon asks, "was this review helpful to you?"
No.It wasn't, but it amused me for 15 seconds. Heck, I'm still laughing. Yes it's freakin' hilarious. Here's another from the 1 star reviews for 'A Hard Day's Night':
The preformance quality on these songs isn't good. The Beatles sound like they did this disc just to take commercial advantage of the movie. They don't sound energetic on more than half of the tracks, and most of the songs have no meaning and are pointless.
Most are two minute half-effort run throughs that make the listener bored. If the group were to record this album with the same songs even two years later,it would've been better but they sound like a fish out of water.
I think their songwriting wasn't completly developed at that time, notice they did cover tracks on the next album, also notice how much more sincere that one sounds. If this was the band's only or first album they would've never made it. They sound like the Monkees here! This is terrible, I'm sorry you guys can't stand me criticizing a Beatle's album, but this is the worst (trust me, I have all of their albums).
Poor playing, manufactured sound, bad album.
You shake your head in laughter at reviews like that. This is some person's conception of an early album by the Beatles with absolutely zero awareness of the era in which it was recorded; worse still, they're expounding on some faulty notion of historicity and musicality as if they're going to convince the world that 'A Hard Days Night' isn't an important piece of recorded history.
Here's another equally outlandish minority opinion:
this album let alone the stupidity of beatle lovers is outragous. this isn't that great and NEITHER was the POP group you losers like so much. in case you don't know THERE WERE OTHER ACTUALLY BANDS IN THE 60'S not strictly these losers as the media impleays. the media what do they know NOTHING they know NOTHING about or between a REAL ROCK band or the diferrence between a POP group and A ROCK GROUP. the beatles a "rock" group AS IF. they were BEARLY in the studio and whenever they played live you know right away that they are ALL studio. the beatles were NEVER a rock band just A TEEN IDOL POP GROUP WITH BORING SONGS THAT ALL SOUNDED THE SAME.
I cracked up. Who does this person think is going to be convinced by this rant? But hey, they took the time to type it into Amazon, and Amazon asks...
I know I always put the boot into bad reviews and bad reviewers of films, but I have to confess I've been misguided. There's much worse out there. The general public let loose upon the virtual soapbox is an even worse promulgator of uninformed idiotic opinion. There's a book out there that says the web is making us dumber. It's not true. Judging from these reviews, there are plenty enough dumb people, it's just that they're all getting a say, and if you're bored like me, you'll probably come across it and get to read it. The funny thing is, some of the people handing out 5 stars are just as gob-smacked stupid.
No comments:
Post a Comment