I’d saved up my money for months, every
penny I earned from my part time job, in order to purchase the blue box of
Beatles vinyl albums. And I played those discs non-stop. Experimenting, I used my dad’s
reel-to-reel to record and play the introduction to Come Together at half speed
(completely awesome, by the way), I played tracks backwards, just to hear what
they sounded like (including Revolution 9 and "Turn Me On Dead Man"),
and I plugged the turntable into his brand new cassette deck to create my own
Beatles medley. Almost forty years later I can no longer remember the reasons I
had for doing this, but I selected songs which had a similar tempo, and with
many false starts and a fast finger on the pause button, I finally created a track I
was happy with.
A year or so later, a friend who was a part
time DJ, played a track to me. Because it included some Beatles, he figured I
might like it. It was a dance medley. A bunch of songs spliced together with some
Beatles thrown in. And, I was quick to point out to him, a solo Ringo number. Entitled
Let’s Do It in the 80s Great Hits, and credited to an artist named Passion, it was
originally compiled by a Montreal DJ to play at clubs. I don’t think I ever
heard it again until last year when I went hunting for it.
Someone else who heard it around that time
was a Dutch music publisher. As he held copyright for one of the tracks, Venus, the hit song by Shocking Blue, he realised it was a pirate release that used snippets of
official recordings. The track had gained some popularity in
dance clubs and so he saw the potential in creating his own, legitimate version.
Originally released in late 1979, the
result was Stars on 45, which jammed some old pop standards together before delving into the Beatles back catalogue. Produced by
Jaap Eggermont, who had been a member of an early incarnation of Golden Earring, it was an incredible feat in the days of analogue recording. Snippets
of songs performed by some very talented sound-alikes, all
recorded independently, before being compiled against a drum track which provided
a solid dance beat. Radio DJs started playing only the Beatles section, and so
new edits were made. A second single was released, which included only two non-Beatle
tracks. It took more than a year, but by 1981 the single hit the charts around
the world. Finally an album was released. Titled Stars on Long Play, the medley was now almost 16 minutes long and consisted of only Beatle material. (The North American cover is reproduced below)
As a teen it took me a little while to determine whether they’d
used actual Beatles recordings or not. To immature ears, it certainly sounded
authentic. Even now it’s an excellent facsimile. (On a similar note, check out what they did with The Rolling Stones.)
Capitol records responded with all the
speed and class for which it’s renowned. For several years they’d been rehashing
Beatles material in poorly conceived, themed compilations, such as Love Songs, Rock and
Roll, and Ballads, mostly with awful artwork and little input from the Beatles
camp. The executives behind the Rock and Roll album, for example, turned down
John Lennon’s offer to design the artwork after he complained about the 1950s
imagery Capitol used. They also rejected George Martin’s remasters from the
master tapes, citing the desire to use original versions no matter how
inferior they sounded. And so in March 1982, Capitol released another compilation, Reel Music,
featuring songs The Beatles had used in their films. This is an album
that screams the label's intention to milk the Beatles cash cow for all it was worth.
And in the spirit of making money following the success of Stars on 45,
Capitol edited seven songs (Magical Mystery Tour,
All You Need Is Love, You've Got to Hide Your Love
Away, I Should Have Known Better,
A Hard Day's Night, Ticket to Ride and Get Back) to create a Movie Medley single. The single reached number 12 on the American charts. In the UK, Parlophone initially refused to release it as they considered it tawdry. Two months later they conceded defeat and released it anyway as they could no longer ignore local demand for
imports. It stalled at number 10 on the British music charts. It remains the only Beatles single never released on CD. And I can see why.
It's awful.
It's awful.
More recently, I haven’t particularly enjoyed the
Beatle songs as performed by the cast of the TV series, Glee. I’m not a fan of the
show nor its musical interpretations, but as a school teacher I heard some kids
talking about some of those songs shortly after those episodes. And so I
recognise the show’s role in re-introducing bands like the Beatles to modern teenagers.
And whether you love or hate it, that’s exactly what
Stars on 45 did for my generation.
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