Yellow Submarine [Digipak]

Performer: The Beatles
Engineer: Geoff Emerick
Producer: George Martin
Distributor: EMI Music Distribution

Notes: The Beatles: John Lennon (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Paul McCartney (vocals, guitar, bass); George Harrison (vocals, guitar); Ringo Starr (vocals, drums). This newly remastered edition of YELLOW SUBMARINE includes 15 fully remixed/remastered tracks, including songs which were originally released on RUBBER SOUL, REVOLVER, SGT. PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND, MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR, and the original soundtrack to YELLOW SUBMARINE. The Beatles: Paul McCartney (vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass); John Lennon (vocals, guitar, keyboards); George Harrison (vocals, guitar); Ringo Starr (vocals, drums). Engineers include: Geoff Emerick, Norman Smith, Keith Grant. This reissue of YELLOW SUBMARINE has been digitally re-mastered. It comes packaged with replicated original U.K. album art, an expanded booklet containing original and newly written liner notes, and rare photos. Limited quantities of the CD are embedded with a brief documentary film about the album. Audio Remasterers: Sam Okell; Sean Magee; Steve Rooke; Guy Massey; Paul Hicks. Liner Note Authors: Mike Heatley; Dan Davis; Kevin Howlett. The only Beatles album that could really be classified as inessential, mostly because it wasn't really a proper album at all, but a soundtrack that only utilized four new Beatles songs. (The rest of the album was filled out with "Yellow Submarine," "All You Need Is Love," and a George Martin score.) What's more, two of the four new tracks were little more than pleasant throwaways that had been recorded during 1967 and early 1968. These aren't all that bad; "All Together Now" is a cute, kiddieish McCartney singalong, while "Hey Bulldog" has some mild Lennon nastiness and a great beat and central piano riff, with some fine playing all around -- each is memorable in its way, and the inclusion of the Lennon song here was all the more important, as the sequence from the movie itself in which it was used was deleted from the original U.S. release of the movie (which had no success whatever in the U.K. and quickly disappeared, thus making the U.S. version the established cut of the film for decades, until the late-'90s restoration and DVD re-release of the movie). George Harrison's two contributions were the more striking of the new entries -- "Only a Northern Song," a leftover from the Sgt. Pepper's sessions, generated from a period in which the guitarist became increasingly fascinated with keyboards, especially the organ and the Mellotron (and, later, the synthesizer), and is an odd piece of psychedelic ersatz, mixing trippiness and some personal comments; its lyrics (and title) on the one hand express the guitarist/singer/composer's displeasure at being tied in his publishing to Northern Songs, a company in which John Lennon and Paul McCartney were the majority shareholders; and, on the other, they present Harrison's vision of how music and recording sounded, from the inside out and the outside in, during the psychedelic era -- the song thus provided a rare glimpse inside the doors of perception of being a Beatle (or, at least, one aspect of being this particular Beatle) circa 1967. And then there was the jewel of the new songs, "It's All Too Much"; coming from the second half of 1967, the song -- resplendent in swirling Mellotron, larger-than-life percussion, and tidal waves of feedback guitar -- was a virtuoso excursion into otherwise hazy psychedelia, that was actually superior in some respects to "Blue Jay Way," Harrison's songwriting contribution of The Magical Mystery Tour; the song also later rated a dazzling cover by Steve Hillage in the middle of the following decade. The very fact that George Harrison was afforded two song slots and a relatively uncompetitive canvas for his music shows how little the project meant to Lennon and McCartney -- as did the cutting of the "Hey Bulldog" sequence from the movie, apparently with no resistance from Lennon, who had other, more important artistic fish to fry in 1968. What is here, however, is a good enough reason for owning the record, though nothing rates it as anything near a high-priority purchase. The album would have been far better value if it had been released as a four-song EP (an idea the Beatles even considered at one point, with the addition of a bonus track in "Across the Universe" but ultimately discarded). And the original soundtrack was partly supplanted by the release at the end of the 1990s of the Yellow Submarine (Songtrack), which marked the first of the remastered Beatles albums, thus reducing the appeal of the original. No one would argue that there's a huge amount more than meets the eye (or ear) there, but listening to the original album anew 40 years on, one is still struck by how mostly second-rate, and recycled and rejected Beatles material still sounds so good. And while George Martin's instrumental music from the film wasn't what a lot of Beatles fans were looking for, it was relegated safely to side two if one wished to ignore it. And even that material offered a pleasant surprise or two -- first, over how much more enjoyable it was than the Ken Thorne-arranged background music for Help! (could one imagine a full side of that on an album?); and, second, the fun that Martin has as an orchestrator with some of George Harrison's recent Hindustanti music excursions on "Sea of Time"; the latter is doubly interesting, as Martin in later years, in his autobiography All You Need Is Ears, admitted to regretting some of the antipathy he showed to Harrison and his music and songwriting during their time together with the Beatles. And, finally, as a Beatles-lite release, Yellow Submarine does have its moments of welcome on the turntable or the CD player -- it's not every time that calls for listening as ambitious and demanding as The White Album, Abbey Road, or Sgt. Pepper's. ~ Richie Unterberger & Bruce Eder Admittedly, the soundtrack to Yellow Submarine wasn't one of the highlights in the Beatles' catalog, so providing an official alternate version of it is no big deal. It only contained four new songs -- two of which were written by Harrison, which indicates how seriously Lennon and McCartney took the project, if their enjoyable throwaways ("Hey Bulldog" and "All Together Now," respectively) didn't provide enough of a clue -- plus two previously released songs ("All You Need Is Love," "Yellow Submarine") and a side of George Martin instrumentals from the film's score. The Beatles never assembled a slighter album while they were active, so it wasn't a sacrilege when their organization decided to assemble a "songtrack" -- a soundtrack that featured only the songs in the film, not any of the instrumentals -- to coincide with the re-release of the film in 1999. In a way, it's an improvement on the soundtrack since it eliminates dead weight and strengthens the original six songs with nine songs featured in the movie ("Eleanor Rigby," "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," "Sgt. Pepper," etc.). It's a little jarring not to hear the songs from the soundtrack in a different order on the songtrack, but ultimately the record is entertaining, if a bit familiar. That's not the case with the sound, though. The Beatles (or their managers or their company, since the three surviving members feel as curiously uninvolved with the songtrack as they did with the soundtrack) have decided to make this the first remixed CD in their catalog instead of simply producing a new remastered tape. The differences are slight but never really an improvement, making this an enjoyable but unnecessary addition to the group's catalog. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine Admittedly, the soundtrack to Yellow Submarine wasn't one of the highlights in the Beatles' catalog, so providing an official alternate version of it is no big deal, even if it was hailed as the beginning of the "Beatlennium" (a term the group's publicists coined to publicize this release). The soundtrack always felt cobbled together, because it was. It only contained four new songs -- two of which were written by Harrison, which indicates how seriously Lennon and McCartney took the project, if their enjoyable throwaways ("Hey Bulldog" and "All Together Now," respectively) didn't provide enough of a clue -- plus two previously released songs ("All You Need Is Love," "Yellow Submarine") and a side of George Martin instrumentals from the film's score. The Beatles never assembled a slighter album while they were active, so it wasn't a sacrilege when their organization decided to assemble a "songtrack" -- a soundtrack that featured only the songs in the film, not any of the instrumentals -- to coincide with the re-release of the film in 1999. In a way, the "songtrack" (which is what the Beatles associates insisted on calling the new effort) is an improvement on the soundtrack since it eliminates dead weight and strengthens the original six songs with nine songs featured in the movie ("Eleanor Rigby," "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," "Sgt. Pepper," etc.). It's a little jarring not to hear the songs from the soundtrack in a different order on the songtrack, but ultimately the record is entertaining, if a bit familiar. That's not the case with the sound, though. The Beatles (or their managers or their company, since the three surviving members feel as curiously uninvolved with the songtrack as they did with the soundtrack) have decided to make this the first remixed CD in their catalog instead of simply producing a new remastered tape. The differences are slight but often notable and never really an improvement; as a matter of fact, it could likely be enough to irk, possibly anger, longtime Beatlemaniacs. It helps distinguish the Yellow Submarine "songtrack" as much as the new sequencing, but the whole project inadvertently raises a question: Why not remaster the entire Beatles catalog, which desperately needs it, and reissue the original albums with the original artwork, which was butchered on the CD issues (hey, there's no other term for cutting the back cover photo of Revolver into quarters). That seems like a better start to the "Beatlennium" than this enjoyable but unnecessary addition to the group's catalog. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine Starting out as a sing-a-long vehicle for Ringo Starr on REVOLVER, "Yellow Submarine" became the inspiration for the 1968 animated feature film of the same name. Most of the soundtrack was composed and orchestrated by George Martin, but the remaining six songs were far from being Beatle cast-offs. George Harrison's two contributions, "Only A Northern Song" and "It's All Too Much" mark the adventurously experimental phase the Beatles were in at that time and dabble in woozy psychedelic shadings laced with orchestrations that continued to influence cutting-edge pop artists for decades to come. Along with the aforementioned "Yellow Submarine," other Lennon/McCartney compositions include the good-time, skiffle-flavored "All Together Now," the Lennon-driven rocker "Hey Bulldog," and "All You Need Is Love"--the unofficial flower-power anthem. The original soundtrack for the Beatles' animated motion picture classic YELLOW SUBMARINE wasn't one of the Fab Four's strongest releases. While it included four songs penned especially for the movie and many Beatles standards, it was bogged down with instrumental pieces from the movie's score. So in 1999, Capitol issued the 20th century's last Beatles compilation, the YELLOW SUBMARINE SONGTRACK, which replaced the instrumentals with other Beatles songs featured in the movie that didn't make it to the original soundtrack. Fans of uncommon Beatles material will relish "Hey Bulldog" and "All Together Now," while the better-known hits such as "All You Need is Love," "Nowhere Man," and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" are also obvious highlights.

Rolling Stone (10/28/99, p.106) - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "...Without the visuals, YELLOW SUBMARINE...essentailly amounts to an overview of the Beatles' psychedelic phase, and, as such, it's entertaining enough..." Entertainment Weekly (9/17/99, p.81) - "...there's no disputing the enduring charms of these playfully spacey tunes, which add up to a handy distillation of the Fab Four's psychedelic period." - Rating: B+ Q (11/99, p.142) - 4 stars out of 5 - "...Songs such as 'Eleanor Rigby' and 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds'...stripped down to the crank-case, polished and carefully rebuilt....the music is still wonderful..." Alternative Press (12/99, p.106) - "...the boys' oddest, most wayward period....Why not another chance to celebrate a modern entertainment wonder that never loses its humanity throughout time and repacking - the Beatles?" Mojo (Publisher) (11/99, p.125) - "...a Beatle lucky dip is never less than serendipitous....the Yellow Submarine tracks, throwaways or not, are individual marvels..."

No other band has had quite the same impact as the four lads from Liverpool. Over the course of eight years and more than a dozen albums, the Beatles changed popular music and culture forever, spearheading the 1960s British Invasion and shaping rock & roll along the way. Along with their amazing musical output and unprecedented worldwide celebrity, John, Paul, George, and Ringo were responsible for many pop music revolutions, major and minor--writing their own material, pushing the limits of the studio, making films of their music, printing song lyrics on albums--that today are taken for granted. Although the Beatles disbanded in 1970, their artistic legacy is permanently ingrained in the entire world's musical vocabulary.

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