After decades of speculation and waiting, the world has finally heard the last Beatles song, assembled from a 1978 cassette demo of John Lennon's that was cleaned up and isolated with AI technology and frankensteined into a new track. So is it worth buying?
The Beatles have long managed the trick of making people rebuy their entire catalog multiple times, First the original LP's, then the remixed versions on the 80's CD's, then as MP3's, and now back to vinyl, which is the reason this song exists, as an enticement to buy the new versions of the classic "Red and Blue" compilation albums to be rereleased shortly.
First off, the new song is...OK. It's not great, it's not the long-lost amazing Beatles track fans wanted but neither is it terrible. Frankly, it's hard to muster up enough emotion to quantify a response to it. The Lennon vocal is very cleaned-up but it's really nothing you haven't heard before. The song itself is pretty unsubstantial with a very negligible melody and a sluggish pace. Paul's bass playing is nice and it's cool that we get to hear all four together for a last time, but there is no feeling of coherence- it's quite clearly four different performances smushed together into a song by technology. There is no warmth to the sound, no ambience, no sense of humanity. The pasted-on string section doesn't help (you can tell this was Paul's idea.)
As for the physical single, yeesh. The cover by artist Ed Ruscha, is easily the worst Beatles cover of all time. It looks cheap and hastily thrown together and does not LOOK like a Beatles cover, it looks like your kid brother messed around in Photoshop for five minutes. The flipside, a remixed "Love Me Do", is completely superfluous as it is going to be on the previously mentioned reissues of the Red and Blue compilations. So why waste it here? Collectors buy B-sides for unreleased goodies, you can't tell me there's nothing in the vaults. How about releasing the legendary track "Carnival of Light"? A mixed version exists that McCartney is just sitting on.
The price point I've seen this thing going for (around $18 for the 7", and $23 for the 12") is a completely ridiculous attempt to gouge collectors. Expect to pay twice as much at least for the now-obligatory colored vinyl permutations.
All you need is love, sure. But what Beatles fans don't need is another attempt to empty their wallets for what is at heart a gussied-up demo that Lennon himself totally forgot about.
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