At first blush I thought that 'Goodbye Beatles'
must have been a farewell tribute come cash in on fan dismay at a popular band
who had just split up, but if that was the aim then this release would
have been about three years too late. Ah well, so much for my off the cuff
theories.
What is factual is that although the
images of the fab four on that cover are from their late, circa 'Let It Be' era,
the songs on this album are drawn from all stages of their career, albeit
seemingly ordered on the basis of a throw of a dice in a way that defies reason
and chronology (for example, 'Michelle' is followed by 'Please Please Me' is
followed by 'The Fool On The Hill', and so on). The (very) small print on the
bottom left made me smile too - 'These are cover versions recorded in the
style of the originals'; a timely warning to anyone fool enough to think
they were getting a bona fide Beatles 'best of' I suppose. But it made this
worth investigating.
The name of the act performing on this ('The Johnny
Dunne Singers') is suggestive of an established vocal ensemble with no small
pedigree in the easy listening field. After all, there were plenty of these
sorts of acts around in the seventies, but a quick online search shows that this
album represents the sum total of Mr Dunne's singer's recorded output. What's
more, they don't appear to have any other independent existence outside of this
record either, but having now listened to
it I can confirm that the above 'small print' is woefully misleading - none of these versions are in fact
recorded in the style of the originals. For one, with 28
of them to get through they are by necessity performed as sawn off medleys
rather than full versions of the actual songs. Yes the basic tunes are there and are recognisable, but
melody, meter and even song structure are shifted at will to accommodate the
combined talents of Mr Dunne's singers but not in a way that does the songs any
favours in the 'original style' stakes.
Basically a mixed ensemble of what sounds like (to
these ears) no more than three males and three females, the ladies are as shrill
as budgies and shriek like harpies through scales of their own creation. The
boys in turn adopt a clipped, po-faced and over reverential tone, much like The
King's Singers tackling Rossini but without the wit, inventiveness or ability to
sing in tune or harmony. Between them they manage to suck any joy, energy or
pathos out of Lennon and McCartney's songs until they're dry husks that are all
ground out with the same grim and humourless determination through the rictus
grin mouths of month old corpses, regardless of whether they started off as rock
and roll, psychedelia, chamber pieces, ballads or Merseybeat. The backing music is suitably minimalist to allow the singers their
centre stage (there are some drums, a bass, a trumpet, an occasional piano and
that's about it) but it gels with those awful vocals with all the finesse of a
late night drunk vomiting into the gutter
So wide of the mark is some
of this stuff that it makes me wonder as to the level of familiarity these
singers actually had with the source material before they started, but if the
mistakes on the cover and label are anything to go by, then the answer is 'not
much'. 'With A Little Help Of My Friends', 'Obladee Obladaa', 'A Ticket To
Ride', It's A Hard Day's Night', 'I Want To Hold Your Hand', 'She Love's You' -
I'm not trying to be hair-splittingly petty about all this, but if you can't
even be bothered to get the song titles right then what chance for the rest of
it? And the answer to that is 'none' - 'Goodbye Beatles' is an unappealing mix of hackwork and pretension that makes
for a deeply unsatisfying listen. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that borders
on the painful, like watching a film of a favourite dog being mistreated and
being powerless to intervene. All you can do is walk away and vow never to play
it again. Which is how I intend leaving it.
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