illusionofjoy | OTR: The Beatles - Past Masters, Vol. 1

After listening to Abbey Road, Past Masters, Vol. 1 feels like a huge step backwards for The Beatles. Indeed it is, since this is a compilation of all their early (pre-Sgt. Pepper) singles. When Capitol issued The Beatles Box Set, they were faced with a conundrum: what to do about all of those non-album tracks that the band had put out. Granted, they could have just stashed "Red" and "Blue" in the box and have left it at that, but that would have created a huge degree of musical overlap while still leaving several songs out, thus angering completists would would be buying the package for everything in the first place. So, the record label made two new compilations, titling both Past Masters. While there is still some overlap ("Love Me Do" also appears on Please Please Me), this was the more effectively way of tying up all of those loose ends that merely buying the albums wouldn't cover.

Honestly, even when I was younger, I thought The Beatles later work to be far superior to their early stuff. "Love Me Do" is thoroughly insipid as is "She Loves You." Sir Paul, I'm only five tracks in and I've had enough of silly love songs!

And what can be more annoying than "I Want to Hold Your Hand?" Hearing it in German as "Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand" only two songs later! (Oh, and "Sie Liebt Dich" is the German version of "She Loves You" - crazy-making.) To have The Beatles pretending to be innocent at this point in their career (circa 1964) is preposterous - we all know they were huge rock stars who could have lined up at the "pussy buffet" anytime they felt hungry, pardon my blunt vulgar take on the situation. At least the Rolling Stones were being forthright during the same time period with "Let's Spend The Night Together."

As I mentioned previously, listening to Past Masters, Vol. 1 right after Abbey Road is a bad idea. However, the rules of the challenge require that albums be listened to in chronological order. As I don't own a copy of Let It Be yet, this disc was next in line. Even so, I doubt it would sound any better after Let It Be either. If you're a young'un who has no idea what The Beatles are all about, I'd have to recommend either Abbey Road or Past Masters, Vol. 2 for your first listen - it will be so much more enjoyable.