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Post by My Avatar Is A Hot Babe on Nov 8, 2023 18:58:12 GMT
He should direct a new video when his remix drops. The more I listen to the track, the more I realize I need to remix this thing and take Ringo's voice out of it. The chorus backing vocals are the weakest part of this recording. Paul doesn't sound good either when isolated, but they kind of mushed him back there to not sound as prominent, but it's Ringo's Wilford Brimley backing vocals that are really hard to listen to. I don't understand why they did this. This record sometimes seems like they just mapped it out on paper and tried to like tick off a bunch of stuff on a checklist, but didn't think about it as just *making a record*, as in, what works best, what sounds best, etc. That's where having Jeff Lynne back in 94/95 was helpful, because despite being a Beatles fanatic, he took those songs on as new, contemporary recordings. I'd love someone to do a remix of this thing that just takes John's chorus lead, drops everything else (new Paul and Ringo vocal tracks, and probably even the 60s backing vocal samples), and then mix in some pitched FAAB and RL backing vocals (or, just leave John's voice alone). Considering we can now tell John's voice is doubled by Paul for much of the song, it's kind of weird that despite being so expertly isolated, there isn't a lot of John's voice by itself. Paul doubling John's lead is the same thing he did on FAAB (and probably RL), which is weird because those older tracks *needed* it more.
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Post by My Avatar Is A Hot Babe on Nov 17, 2023 18:08:38 GMT
These poats are just from the last four hours. I suppose both iterations of the story have more and less sympathetic interpretations. I understand why they wanted to frame it as the "third song", and leave it kind of falsely dramatically like that's how the sessions fizzled out. Obviously it requires not really thinking too hard about any of it (one might ask why they were so limited on time for instance). But I do think, while a more "dramatic" way to portray the end of the sessions, it kind of puts more of the onus on the song not being up to snuff by saying it was what halted the sessions. Had they told the likely correct story as far as the timeline, they could have said they were easily able to, possibly only temporarily, set "Now and Then" aside and move on to "Real Love." Then they could have just played it off like they never got back around to finishing the track and felt two was enough (which is at least *closer* to the true story, and is essentially how it played out, only without mentioning George didn't like the song). I also think both the doc and the overall promotion for "Now and Then" have been rather weird about barely mentioning or discussing FAAB and RL, and trying to explain they shelved N&T and moved on to RL would then bring that song more into the conversation. It's like they wanted the masses to see the uniqueness and novelty of "finishing" a John song in 2023, and didn't want to emphasize much that "oh yeah, well, we already did this same thing twice in 1994/95, and also, oh yeah, John's voice and piano being locked together on those two tracks didn't stop us from finishing them." Because then, again if one actually stops and thinks about it, it becomes apparent that they clearly *could have* finished N&T in 1995 the same way they did the other two. Which then leaves the prominent actual reason for shelving the song unexplained, and of course that reason is actually that George wasn't hot on the song and didn't want to keep working on it. Exactly; I think George at least just wasn't interested in spending months in the studio with Paul McCartney. Also, and I'd have to look this up to confirm, but I recall reading one story where one set of sessions (may have been FAAB) had to get going because Ringo had a vacation planned. It's like, if they prioritized their latest of a million vacations (their whole lives being many series of vacations) over a momentous reunion, they couldn't all be *that* invested in it. Just a quick follow-up on this, as I was able to check in with another person who was at one of the Red/Blue listening sessions, and they reconfirmed for me that Jeff Jones specifically said that a new version of the Anthology would be in our future; obviously he didn't elaborate on whether this would be an HD re-do versus an expanded version, and of course understandably didn't mention a timeframe. I don't know if he mentioned this at every listening session; there were multiple sessions of course. But I think it's fair to say an Anthology revamp of some kind is on the table. I tend to think it's happening a bit sooner rather than later (as in the next couple of years or so), but for all we know it could be delayed or stalled out as other projects have been. But it's definitely on the agenda, and I suspect some amount of work has already been done. It's surprising that even in the official press materials for the Anthology (some of which are included on the 2003 DVD), both Paul and Ringo express a surprisingly large amount of, not dislike, but less affinity for "Real Love", and seemingly not having to do with the composition quality itself. In the case of Paul, he seemed disappointed by not being able to have input on the song (which explains why he liked FAAB more, and also why he chased after N&T), while Ringo seemed to feel the novelty of overdubbing old John demos was already running thin after doing FAAB. And these are all reasonable reactions, and I appreciate that we got at least *some level* of honesty from them about this. It's interesting, when you look at all the comments Paul, George, and Ringo made about all three songs, you don't get much discussion from them about actually *really liking* the actual *compositions*. They usually talk about it being nice to sing with John again, or talk about how they workshopped the songs, etc. The only time I can think of where any of them said they liked *the material* itself, meaning the composition, was Paul, who clearly immediately had an affinity for "Free As A Bird." I think Yoko played him all three or four of the demos, and Paul immediately zoned in on FAAB both as the most appealing song in terms of composition, and also most appealing because he'd be able to add to it, to "write with John" again. You don't really find George or Ringo waxing poetic about any of the compositions. And indeed, as I've pointed out, even in the new N&T doc, Paul doesn't ever really say he likes *the song* itself. He never says anything like "it was technically difficult, but I just liked the song so much, I liked the chord changes so much, I just really wanted to finish it." He speaks about the track in a more passive fashion, and speaks about the whole reunion thing as if the songs are a bit of a means to an end, the end being doing the reunion. I find it all very interesting. Yeah, I think that's just the usual Apple/MPL/Beatles politics and horse trading at play. Paul's collaboration with Jeff Lynne post-reunion on "Flaming Pie" is a bit of an odd one. He didn't give Lynne any co-credits on the jams, he intermittently swapped production credits between Lynne/McCartney and McCartney/Lynne on individual tracks, and Lynne was never mentioned in the feature-length "In the World Tonight" documentary (and was only shown for a few seconds in studio footage). I don't think he disliked Jeff; he clearly was happy to stay buds with him, even doing a relatively rare interview for Lynne's 2012 documentary (albeit showing up seemingly totally blazed). But I think using Lynne in the first place was a bit of a weird passive agressive thing, a bit of telling George "I'll show you, I'll use *your* guy on my next album!" Obviously if this was even a bit of the intent, it didn't seem to work, and George was nowhere near any of those Paul/Jeff sessions. I also think Paul was never going to be able to work long-term with someone like Jeff. As folks have attested over the years, Paul was not always easy to produce. Talk to Hugh Padgham. Paul would tend to pull the "how many hits have you written?" type of deal with people like Padgham. It was one of his occasional fallbacks, that he was often working with non-musician producers who hadn't written their own hits. Yet, Jeff Lynne was a guy who he wouldn't be able to say this to. Jeff was/is just as capable as Paul of writing and recording (and producing) a whole album on his own, and Paul certainly couldn't tell Jeff Lynne "how many hits have YOU had?", because Lynne had a bunch of ELO hits, not to mention his stuff with Petty, Harrison, Orbison, the Wilburys, etc. To be clear, I think Paul likes Jeff and they didn't seem to have anything but a good working relationship from everything I've heard. But I just don't think Paul could ever bring himself to have a true partnership or collaboration longterm with anybody but John Lennon. Even the Elvis Costello project, while producing some great material, fell apart and each guy just divided the stuff up and went home and did their own thing. Very pertinent questions. Marc Mann did get a credit on "Real Love", you'll see a credit for him on both "Anthology 2" and the "Real Love" single, I believe for "Audio Sequencing." I was a bit surprised Mann didn't get even some kind of special thanks on "Now and Then", but I guess not *that* surprised. As for the time constraints, it's extra interesting because none of them were touring or even seemingly in the middle of recording their own albums. They obviously had various projects/charities/events as they always did. Ringo did a tour in the later summer of 1995 as I recall, but that was after the sessions were over. I think they were *all* aware that staying together for too long for any great interval could spell disaster, potentially at least. Even Paul in that December 1993 interview, where he's still just talking about recording "incidental" music, even then Paul seems apprehensive and, I'm loosely paraphrasing, basically tells the reporter "We're going to go in and just see if we can even actually finish anything, and also see if we can get through it without killing each other." I think between not wanting to drag things out, and also because they probably did all have other things they had scheduled, they just pinned down a week or two in February 1994. They knew the song, if finished, would be part of the Anthology, and they knew the Anthology was over a year from coming out. So they knew they'd have plenty of time to do *more* if they felt they wanted to. Which is precisely what they did. But I think again that while FAAB turned out well and they liked it well enough, they all also knew they still shouldn't get bogged down in months and months of work, and they probably wanted Lynne and Mann to do their thing both because Mann had the then-very-new PC savvy to do it, and also because they wanted to hit the ground running once they were in the studio. Imagine just plopping those songs down for the "Threetles" untouched. It would have been weeks of prep work, prep work that the "Threetles" wouldn't have been much help with because they weren't PC savvy at that time. I think there were a number of still tense moments during the sessions. Paul himself described writing a few new lines on FAAB with George as being a rather fraught process. I also recall reports that George at one point started getting cranky about protecting FAAB from being bootlegged. I think, especially before the sessions began, Paul wasn't sure how it would go with Jeff Lynne. I also think George Harrison historically was not a Geoff Emerick fan, so Emerick being there at Paul's behest was probably another thing George, while tolerating and I'm sure acting professionally, didn't make him want to hang around for a long period of time. Yes, of course, I understand the marketing angles. But nothing was stopping them from doing *all of that*, and *also* mentioning *at some point* that they really liked the song. I think the whole thing is predicated on everybody just assuming the material is top notch, and it's all about the tech/logistics of doing it. I think this is just one of those things that may seem normal until you actually stop and think about it. I think Paul knew/knows that "Now and Then" was a song that had a lot of promise, but was not like A+ material out of the gate. He literally said about "Now and Then" in 1995 that "we all decided it wasn't one of John's best songs." I believe we'll set the password as ALLFORLOVE It's from an October 1995 interview with Allan Kozinn. I'll include the bit below. Now, to be fair, I think this was all *partly* to cover for George being the main instigator in shelving the song (which wasn't revealed for a number of years, although I believe the rumors persisted pretty early on that George balked). But I do think it indicates Paul also felt the song was always going to be a challenge: Is there going to be a third one?
There’s one other piece that I like the beginning of, but we’d have to do a hatchet job on it. So we did the two that were the two favourites. And there is one that we’ve done a little bit of work on but I’m not sure we’re going to bother with that one.
What’s the title?
Yeah, what’s it called – I don’t know, it didn’t really have a title [Sings: “You know/it’s true; it’s up to you…] That beginning bit’s great and then it just goes a bit crummy. We all decided that it’s not one of John’s greatest songs. So that we’d have to manipulate all of that, which is just a little bit more difficult. “Free As a Bird” was easy; it was obvious what John was trying to get in the middle eight, so we could kind of fill it in just like a coloring book. “Real Love” was real easy, because lyrics and everything was there.
Technically, it was very hard; there was a buzz that went through it, an electronic buzz goes right through the tape if you listen to it. I hadn’t really noticed it because I don’t listen to things like that. But Sean actually pointed it out to me when he was playing it to me. He said, “What are you going to about the buzz, man, you know there’s a big buzz there.” So he gave it to Jeff Lynne who took it to L.A. with a computer. They Sonic-Solutioned it and then they got rid of the buzz and found all the clicks, which were hiding behind the buzz. Then they had to do a big job on that. But once they’d done that, that was very easy to do. And it’s a little more bland. But on listening to it, it insinuates itself, and it’s so hookey, “Real Love.” It grows on me. I think “Free As a Bird” is slightly my favorite song. I think Yoko likes “Real Love” better. You can hear John’s voice a little clearer on “Real Love”. We were stuck with the kind of technical limitations there; we had to do what we could with what we had.It should be noted that something is a bit off in that last paragraph, perhaps an edit in the interview, because Paul is clearly talking about "Now and Then" and then all of a sudden is talking about "Real Love." The full interview is here, and has a lot of interesting tidbits about the Anthology and reunion sessions: McCartney on the 'Anthology' - The Inside Story on the Film, Album and ReunionAnother interesting bit from that 1995 Kozinn interview is where Paul, as I was alluding to in an earlier post, actually talks about liking *the song* itself; he's never spoken about any of the other reunion songs like this: So I came over for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame where I was inducting John as a solo artist, so then things warmed up a bit then, and Yoko said, well, I’ll play you the track when you come over for that. So that was good. I went over to the place, the Dakota, sat up late just jawing and drinking tea and having fun and stuff. And she said, I should play you the tapes. And she played us three songs: “Grow Old With Me”, “Free As a Bird” and “Real Love”. And I liked “Free As a Bird” immediately, I just thought, ****, that is really I would have loved to have worked with John on that. I liked the melody. It has kind of strong chords. It just really appealed to me. If John had played me those three, I would have said let’s just work on that middle one first.
So it was good. Really emotional. I warned Ringo to have his hanky ready when he listened to it. So I took the tapes back, got copies made for the guys and they liked it. And we said, okay, we’ll get it… The great thing about it was, he hadn’t finished it. And so he’s in the middle eight and John’s going, “what ever happened to, the life that we once knew [scat singing on unintelligible syllables]… as you do when you’re blocking in lyrics when you haven’t got them. You just use words… ma-da-mim-some-DAY…you just throw in something that will fit the syllables.Yeah, I lived through those heady days of crazy rumors through 1994 and 1995. The short answer regarding that "Face the Music" article is that it's mostly BS. They didn't record ten hours of material, it obviously *did* get released, and if we want to get nitpicky, the FAAB demo was missing part of the bridge; Paul and George didn't write or sing any new verses. There were TONS or articles/rumors like that during that 94/95 period, some like that one clearly were rooted in a germ of truth and then somehow garbled either on purpose or via various games of telephone. I don't think any firm information exists on how long the FAAB sessions lasted. I suspect it was more than 3-4 days in total. I think they probably could have done most of the work in 3-4 days once everything was in place. Keep in mind that they first sat down and wrote new lyrics, researched John's chords, and then changed some of them (you can see this in the tiny bit of '94 footage on the Anthology DVD set), then made at least an initial attempt at "playing along with" John, only to find that didn't work, and then the three of them just straight up re-recorded the song from scratch, and then dropped John's demo back in where needed. I suspect this all took longer than 3 or 4 total work days. Whether some of that was spread across later dates, perhaps mixing dates that didn't involve recording, I can't say for sure. You know, I gotta say, I've already gone on record that my fear from months ago that cynical social media would tear apart a new version of "Now and Then" was largely unfounded. For that I'm glad. But.... I think the glut of over-the-moon reviews of this thing, both the fake ones and even *some* of the seemingly real reviews from longtime/big fans (and I'm not talking about this board), are increasingly getting embarrassing. The video above isn't the worst I've seen. That particular one is kind of just whatever, it's two dudes "making YouTube content." I like "Now and Then"; but I don't know what's worse, the clearly fake reactions from "professional reactors" Visine-ing their eyes for their videos, or longtime fans reacting to this thing with this weird kind of fingers-in-the-ears relief that the song wasn't an unmitigated front-to-back disaster. I was listening to a podcast (I think it's the "I Am the Eggpod" one; I don't do a lot of Beatles podcasts on the regular), and the hosts, who previously I had listened to doing a great interview with Mark Lewisohn and who seem very even-handed and analytical about stuff, seem completely starstruck by this song. It's as if a celebrity walks into the room and people just fawn over them. It's like that, but about a song. The song is the celebrity; the piece of memorabilia, the thing for fans to *get* something out of that doesn't seem to have much to do with the *song*. They want to wring an "experience" out of this thing. It's a "moment", it's "emotions", etc. All those things are fine and true. But I can't help but think at least some of these people are going to be embarrassed when they go back and look at how much they *weren't* actually listening to the song or putting it in *any* kind of context. So on this podcast, after they fawn over the song, they start playing testimonials from other fans reacting to the song. Now, I appreciate that these are seemingly real fans, I think? These aren't YouTube reactors that listened to their first Beatles song last week. But, these testimonials just get increasingly befuddling. At one point, one guy *admits* that there's *nothing* that would keep him from giving this song a positive review. He seems determined to make himself like it come hell or high water. It's like, I appreciate the honesty I guess, but c'mon man! Somebody has probably already linked to this at some point in the last couple weeks, but I finally watched the little "reaction" done by Rick Beato. I've watched some of his stuff over recent years; I have mixed feelings on his stuff and he seems to have ballooned in popularity on his channel, which has kind of turned the whole thing a bit more bloated and on autopilot to capitalize on that, but in any event, I think his rundown of "Now and Then", while not *precisely* how I feel about, is probably the closest I've seen anybody on YouTube or social media get to how I feel about the song. Long story short, I like it, I'm glad it came out, I don't wish it hadn't come out, it has some great chord changes and some good melody work, but...... the unavoidable reality of what this song has to be in order to come out in 2023 dictates that I can't in good faith say it's an amazing, A+ track. Listen to what Beato says at the very end, I think that's how some fans kind of end up feeling. It's a very conflicted position to be in I think. Yeah, I lived through those heady days of crazy rumors through 1994 and 1995. The short answer regarding that "Face the Music" article is that it's mostly BS. They didn't record ten hours of material, it obviously *did* get released, and if we want to get nitpicky, the FAAB demo was missing part of the bridge; Paul and George didn't write or sing any new verses. There were TONS or articles/rumors like that during that 94/95 period, some like that one clearly were rooted in a germ of truth and then somehow garbled either on purpose or via various games of telephone. I don't think any firm information exists on how long the FAAB sessions lasted. I suspect it was more than 3-4 days in total. I think they probably could have done most of the work in 3-4 days once everything was in place. Keep in mind that they first sat down and wrote new lyrics, researched John's chords, and then changed some of them (you can see this in the tiny bit of '94 footage on the Anthology DVD set), then made at least an initial attempt at "playing along with" John, only to find that didn't work, and then the three of them just straight up re-recorded the song from scratch, and then dropped John's demo back in where needed. I suspect this all took longer than 3 or 4 total work days. Whether some of that was spread across later dates, perhaps mixing dates that didn't involve recording, I can't say for sure. I think elements of it are growing on me as well, and I liked it from the outset. I think I'm appreciating the composition of it more, and also George's contributions that are there. I still think the amount of overdubs, especially in the choruses, and the overall mix and mastering is the weakest link in the song. I continue to find it fascinating that FAAB and RL were criticized for a kind of kitchen sink, big production sound, yet "Now and Then" is actually *very* similar to those tracks in that so much has been slathered on to kind of smooth the whole thing out. But I would argue FAAB and RL are actually cleaner and crisper. Again, that "Stereo Atmos" mix someone posted on YouTube was probably a more sympathetic mix of the track. I'm all for heartfelt reactions. I mean, I think there is a long-term issue with the lack of *any* non-emotional elements to those reactions (where the song might as well be a still photo or a painting), but I appreciate and respect heartfelt, genuine feelings and reactions. YouTube is mostly *not* that. Indeed, I've watched some compilations of "Fake Fan Reactions" in other genres (e.g. people saying "whoa!" every five seconds watching a mundane Marvel Disney+ show), and some of those *same* people popped up reacting to "Now and Then." I mean, I guess there's a point where when these people do this *for a living* that they start to make themselves think they're actually feeling the things they're "performing." I mean, at some point it becomes a weird kind of existential question. Like, if you can think about something sad and make yourself cry on cue, is that real emotion? But in any event, it's such a weird, vapid, goofy genre of "reaction" that, when it starts encroaching up on the Beatles, I kind of find extra problematic. Or rather, I should say, I don't lose sleep over it, but I refuse to act as if those reactions are good for anybody or genuine in any way. But the George Martin approach is exactly what Jeff Lynne and the three Beatles did. They remade the song and then dropped John back into it. I've read that George Martin interview. He was correct, but he missed that that's what they ended up doing with the finished product. And to be honest, George Martin's treatment of "Grow Old With Me" does an even less efficient job of integrating the old demo into the new overdubs than FAAB and RL did. I also don't think FAAB sounded "like the Wilburys." It definitely had several hallmarks of Jeff Lynne productions, especially the drums of course. But in some ways it was the antithesis of Wilburys tracks, which were always super dry, with grainy acoustic guitars and usually subtle or no backing vocals, relatively little piano, etc. Paul being there was key in keeping the song from sounding too much like a Harrison record or like the Wilburys.
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Post by My Avatar Is A Hot Babe on Apr 30, 2024 17:24:38 GMT
Contrast that to Jackson's Get Back, where I'm pretty sure neither Ringo nor Paul have even viewed *the full* version. Compare the Beatles nitpicking John and Yoko footage in 1969 with Jackson's film, where, as I mentioned before, I'm pretty sure Paul and Ringo have not even *watched* the entire thing. (but to be frank, even Paul and Ringo have almost surely NOT watched the full "Get Back" doc) Neither Paul nor Ringo watched the entire "Get Back" film, and I suspect neither have seen "Let It Be" often if ever since 1970, especially Ringo. Is this actually true or your opinion? Where did you read or see this ? I can believe Ringo just watched part to give approval but it’s hard for me to believe Paul would let it go out without watching it in its entirety. No response from ALF.
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Post by My Avatar Is A Hot Babe on May 1, 2024 17:26:14 GMT
Why Ringo is so cranky about the film is a bit harder to understand, beyond his simply having not seen the film in 54 years and just buying into the narrative *others* ironically created about the film. I'm sure he associates it with negative feelings. The problem is that, in interviews, he tries to characterize what is in the actual film rather than just his own feelings, even though he obviously has no recollection of the actual content of the film. He's not going out there and saying "I haven't seen the film in over 50 years. All I know is I just associate it with a negative period." For that matter, I'm pretty sure Ringo never watched the entirety of "Get Back" (I don't think McCartney did either). They were shown highlights, and the prompt of the project, and what Jackson went on and on about, was that they got along and had fun, etc. I think Ringo has talked about *all* of the Get Back/LIB stuff without actually sitting down and watching the entirety of what he's going out there and characterizing. That's very common, but still unfortunate.
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