I was given a Beatles Tribute album a couple of days ago called Reloader, it has a variation of the Revolver cober which is quite well done and the list of the artists on the back made me think the music might be a bit grungy/indy eg: "The Jesus Factory" "Dork" "Army of Half Wits" "Guru Brian" . There was no listing of band members, no credits for production, no blurb and when i looked for info online I found absolutely nothing about it. There were a couple of reviews on Amazon. Having listened to it the album feels very consistant so I'm guessing those band names are all fake and the album was probably organised arranged produced by one person using a whole lot of musos. I'm usually not that excited by Beatles covers, but this album intrigued me and I liked it, I don't think that it would have a wide appeal and I have no idea why it was made.
But the whole thing has a kind of faux 60s style to it, the songs range right across the Beatles repertoire from She Loves You to Come Together, it has quite a few singles Strawberry Fields (instrumental version), Hey Jude, We Can Work it out, Day Tripper & She Loves You. The sound has quite dead dynamics, but it is all very carefully crafted, they diverge from the originals somewhat but they clearly know them extremely well and there are a lot of really strong references, the sound effects on Yellow Submarine are done perfectly. The arrangement of Sgt Pepper is very different kind of disco with great horns, Nowhere Man is a really intriguing instrumental arrangement with harpsichord and this very trebly 60s electric bass sound.
It really made me think that there will be a place in the future for compilations of Beatles songs created by an artist that draw on but play upon the Beatles original sounds.
A Day in the Life really played up the drum fills, it has the final piano chord but I'd say played with a single piano so it sounds almost like a spoof.
Has anyone else been fascinated by a Beatles cover album? This one is mysterious for it's lack of info, but also interesting for the care taken with it, the qual;ity of the singing is pretty good, but the vocals always seem kind of referential rather than a personal interpretation.
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Topic: Reloader - A Tribute to the Beatles (Read 1265 times)