I have had it up to here waiting for the Beatles catalogue to be remastered

lol yes

LOL. CD's are ridiculously cheap now, especially used - if you still want them, it's definitely a buyer's market. The box sets alone are worth it - I'm finding excellent copies of four or five-disc major label box sets for less than $20, in some cases as little as $10 (like MCA's great Patsy Cline box set).

This McCartney series is kind of blowing my mind. And watching him fucking with the faders on "Back In The U.S.S.R." is hilarious.

that moment where they discover a strangled high note in the tapes (cant quite remeber which song, from sgt pepper maybe?) & mccartney’s like THATS why we dont dig into the tapes was v funny

cited as Lucy In The Sky upthread :)

i haven't seen this moment yet, but when it happens i'm going to try to say "THAT's why we don't dig into the tapes" at the same time as macca

lol

you will know exactly when to say that because that strangled note is NOT understated

Oh, the other thing that was cool isolated were the background vocals of dear prudence which I'd never noticed were held for so fucking long without a breath

When they're listening to "Maxwell's," Paul is happy to point out that he couldn't have played those piano arpeggios, which he assumes were played by George Martin. He forgets to point out, however, that it's George Harrison playing the tuba-like bass that Rubin praises.

xpost re prudence

yeah that was incredible & the explanation was v funny too - because it was fun!

sometimes you forget they’re in their 20’s and just want to try stuff for fun/competition

Loved It, watched them all in a 2-day binge (they're only 30m each, TBF).

One of my favourite revelations, if you can call it that, is how odd and counter-intuitive some of the juxtapositions are. E.g. they isolate the bass on Dear Prudence, which has this distorted percussive attack, and they play it with just the drums, and RR notes that if you heard only these bits, you'd think it was a straighahead rock song. But instead, it's set against this dreamy woozy folk, and it's the odd combination that makes it sound like the Beatles. Maybe an obvious point for people who've studied them, but for me this was a fun insight.

finished final episode today
goddamn what a great series

i feel like i am among friends & can safely admit i cried during the “here there & everywhere” segment. i dont know why exactly. except i think it’s that thing i had watching the beegees doc, the palpable undercurrent of loss & creating something that outlives you

also i loved the wide-eyed, wonderous way he talked about the magic of “Yesterday” coming to him in a dream, fully forme.

love your posts on this, VG. wanna watch this through your eyes when i pick it up again.

Yeah you sold me on this, vg

it’s weird because it’s still macca as we know him, claiming ownership left & right, trotting out stories we’ve heard

but it hits different in this context. claiming ownership now looks more like seeking approval. like he’s fkn paul mccartney of the beatles but he still has this part of himself that needs affirmation that he’s good

rick will say “wow this part here is incredible” & a few moments there’s this beat where mccartney has this look like “oh! yeah? you think so?” like a) how is this happening and b) ok i love this man

just seeing him a little bit smaller, a little bit more human, it just makes me feel like i wasn’t wrong for feeling like he was maligned sometimes for aspects of his personality that are inherent to what makes him great

also everything they say about george martin comes from this v familial place, and ive always known this but seeing it laid out - like he really was not just a teacher but a kind of unattainable father to them all. it blows my mind that they were brought together <3

Damn I don't want to pay for Hulu but y'all are pushing me toward it.

I admit that the Philip Norman book poisoned me on Paul from an early age, but the older I get the more I love him, despite all you rightly say about his monomania and neediness. And yes, Here There and Everywhere is just so beautiful.

(On another note, does anyone think we'll get the second volume of the Mark Lewisohn, say, during the Biden presidency?)

i dunno. based on what he’s saying it sounds like it could be 5 years or more, easily.

i mean, writing the first one took long enouuh & that’s all pre-studio. imagine the insane archive he’s wading through now, nevermind interviews etc.

I haven’t watched this and from these feedbacks it seems great but the mention of the « yesterday » dream at the Ashers / « certainly it exists already ? » / scrambled eggs lyrics / are way too familiar alteady...

There are a couple of well-worn stories, to be sure, but he never wavers in his joy at retelling those stories. He still seem genuinely amazed that “Yesterday” just appeared out of nowhere. He was always a people-pleaser, but I never got any kind of annoyed or eye-rolling vibe from him. I feel like if someone asked him today, “Remember when you played on Ed Sullivan? What was that like?” he would immediately put himself back in that time and place and would be happy to go on about how wonderful it all was, despite having told the story literally thousands of times.

Contrast with George who, starting around the late ‘80s, despised being pelted with the same questions. On a Simpsons DVD commentary, Matt Groening talks about how, when George came in to record his lines, the writers asked him the same old Beatles questions, and George seemed glum and a little standoffish, giving terse one-word answers. Groening then asked him about Wonderwall Music, and he instantly perked up and went on at length about it.

these are all great examples of why I do not like Paul

This is a nice thing that someone I follow on Twitter wrote a while back: 64 Reasons To Celebrate Paul McCartney

I did not expect such enthusiasm for a Fela show, but his description of it (which sounds amazing) does give the impression it burned into his soul.

I haven’t watched this and from these feedbacks it seems great but the mention of the « yesterday » dream at the Ashers / « certainly it exists already ? » / scrambled eggs lyrics / are way too familiar alteady...

― AlXTC from Paris, Saturday, July 31, 2021

His demonstration on a piano of how chords, melodies, and harmonies work is useful.

it’s not going to change your mind if you already hate him

if you are already a fan, mildly on the fence or bear him no ill will you might enjoy it

yeah this sounds like a very good watch for people who can tolerate him, sorry for being cranky

I can barely tolerate him as an interview subject; this is fine and often terrific.

Me neither. Just took a glimpse at a few minutes of the first episode and it seems like Rick Rubin is really able to get some good stuff out of him.

I hate to think what kind of asshole I would look, if I was subjected to the white hot intensity of examination McCartney has had. He’s had to represent the soul of a generation in western culture, and to maintain warmth and affability under those circumstances, well of *course* there’s an act, but he chose to be folksy and generous and not retreat into arrogance or climb on his high horse. At this phase of life I think he is owed whatever respect and accolades that he needs after 60+ years of enriching people’s lives.

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Loving this. I don't know a lot about Rick Rubin and was curious … why him? Googled a bit and didn't immediately find any current interviews explaining how this happened, but I did come across a dead link to an old interview where he was praising the Beatles and dug out the archive.org version:

https://web.archive.org/web/20130627020553/http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2013/06/26/rick-rubin-on-crashing-kanye-s-album-in-15-days.html

Let’s rewind for a second and go back to the beginning. What was the first great song or sound that you can remember hearing?

The Beatles, “Rock ’n’ Roll Music,” the Chuck Berry cover. I was probably 4, and I can remember feeling electrified. That was the first real rock ’n’ roll I’d ever heard.

What is it about the Beatles? What made them work?

It transcends everything. It’s much bigger than four kids from Liverpool. For me the Beatles are proof of the existence of God. It’s so good and so far beyond everyone else that it’s not them.

Yeah this series is great so far, I flew through the first four episodes. Rick Rubin is not someone I would have guessed would be such a good interviewer. It's also nice that they go through some Beatles songs that aren't all/mostly Paul, but he's still able to give interesting insight

just finished it this morning! lovely all the way through. i am glad they spent so much time, in each episode, showing how paul is one of the greatest bass players of all time.

Has anyone mentioned how good Paul looks in it? I guess the black and white photography helps. He looks cooler/hotter than I've seen him for a long time.

Industrial Light & Magic

Ha. That reminds me. When the first episode ended Ob-la-di-ob-la-da started playing and I thought "Oh, they're going to have to fade this out pretty fast" but then the credits just went on and on and on, including, yes, dozens of digital artists, and the song nearly had time to play out. I kind of love that everything that surrounds The Beatles is still such a big deal that even a one-on-one interview in a studio involves such a massive production.

he discusses "Waterfalls"!

So Paul’s also briefly in this Mark Ronson thing that’s also about dudes moving studio faders up and down.

So Paul’s also briefly in this Mark Ronson thing that’s also about dudes moving studio faders up and down.

this is appropriating VH1 Classic Albums culture

rubin is amazing in that dailybeast article, thanks for posting that old link.

I love shows where they move faders. Moar plz

otm

I love it too. It's difficult to find stems of a lot of songs (or maybe I don't know where to look) so hearing an isolated track is always pretty thrilling for me

oh man what's that radio show where a classic rock dude breaks down a classic track playing all the isolated parts? it got some ILM discussion a while back but i can't remember on which thread. i remember episodes on Black Hole Sun, Once In A Lifetime, and The Impression That I Get, but I don't think any of those were how it actually came up in the first place.

Hmm not heard of that but I'd like to if you remember the name. Rick Beato does some of this dissection on his YouTube channel, but he doesn't always have the stems and he's cagey about where he gets them from when he does

Are you thinking of Song Exploder?

I think you mean this?

https://www.955klos.com/thesession/

^^^ yes! that's it, thank you.