The Beatles - Get Back

[Litterick]

'Harrison is alternately surly and prickly, as you might be if you brought in a song as good as All Things Must Pass and got a lukewarm reception. Lennon is visibly, joylessly stoned out of his gourd. Valiantly attempting to jolly things along, McCartney keeps slipping into passive-aggressive wheedling. Matters aren’t helped by the original documentary’s director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who insists that the band should perform in an amphitheatre in Tripoli – “Torchlit! In front of 2,000 Arabs!” – and is heroically undaunted by various Beatles telling him where to stick his idea.'

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... our-sanity

[sizzlingbadger]

I really enjoyed part 1, so cool to watch them create songs like Get Back from scratch...

[Bg]

Keen to watch, but taskmaster final first

[blackstratblues]

'Harrison is alternately surly and prickly, as you might be if you brought in a song as good as All Things Must Pass and got a lukewarm reception. Lennon is visibly, joylessly stoned out of his gourd. Valiantly attempting to jolly things along, McCartney keeps slipping into passive-aggressive wheedling. Matters aren’t helped by the original documentary’s director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who insists that the band should perform in an amphitheatre in Tripoli – “Torchlit! In front of 2,000 Arabs!” – and is heroically undaunted by various Beatles telling him where to stick his idea.'

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... our-sanity

This guy is an idiot. Any long time Beatles fan is over the moon watching this.

[jeremyb]

I’m not a Beatles fan, but I love this kind of thing, can’t wait to get back home and watch it, might even make me a fan, who knows…

[clubhouse]

'Harrison is alternately surly and prickly, as you might be if you brought in a song as good as All Things Must Pass and got a lukewarm reception. Lennon is visibly, joylessly stoned out of his gourd. Valiantly attempting to jolly things along, McCartney keeps slipping into passive-aggressive wheedling. Matters aren’t helped by the original documentary’s director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, who insists that the band should perform in an amphitheatre in Tripoli – “Torchlit! In front of 2,000 Arabs!” – and is heroically undaunted by various Beatles telling him where to stick his idea.'

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radi ... our-sanity

This guy is an idiot. Any long time Beatles fan is over the moon watching this.

Totally agree. His lens is myopic in focus in regarding this from a purely consumerist entertainment, fluff piece. It’s a fly-on-the-wall insight on the first, global pop/rock/boy/studio band…a musicologist’s/historian’s/documentarian’s /fan’s/song-writer’s text book. This guy is used to reading Disney comic books. Not all text books read that way…except maybe the Haynes workshop manual on the Vespa largeframe scooter

[werdna]

Alex Petridis writes solid music reviews so there will be truth there. Also has a great sense of humour and used to write very funny satire in the column "Lost in Showbusiness" - the best satirical writing I'd seen in a long time. Co-wrote the Elton John biography.

[clubhouse]

Alex Petridis writes solid music reviews so there will be truth there. Also has a great sense of humour and used to write very funny satire in the column "Lost in Showbusiness" - the best satirical writing I'd seen in a long time. Co-wrote the Elton John biography.

Elton John??? C’mon, man. Crocodile Rock…Candle in a Wind…with credentials like that, yeah man…gold standard authority, right there.

[blackstratblues]

Alex Petridis writes solid music reviews so there will be truth there. Also has a great sense of humour and used to write very funny satire in the column "Lost in Showbusiness" - the best satirical writing I'd seen in a long time. Co-wrote the Elton John biography.

Even the Beatles wrote some bad songs

[murky]

My favourite parts so far -

Random shots of Harrison’s Krishna mates spacing out in the corner.

Paul banging out the chords to Let it Be in the background, and everyone prattling on not giving a f#*k.

[clubhouse]

Alex Petridis writes solid music reviews so there will be truth there. Also has a great sense of humour and used to write very funny satire in the column "Lost in Showbusiness" - the best satirical writing I'd seen in a long time. Co-wrote the Elton John biography.

One of the points of a fly-on-the-wall documentary is to record a transparent document of events without bias...warts and all. If he interprets surly, prickly, joyless, stoned, passive-aggressive wheedling, etc. it's not the fault of the actors, film or post-production editing...it's not designed for pure entertainment's sake...it's not an Elton John pop song...easily accessible, consumed and disposed of.

It's the inside struggle of a band of mates falling out of mateship, battling with rekindling past selves, transitioning identity from pop/rock gods to whatever-the-hell-comes-next (...they obviously don't know) all the while, and literally, under a microscope of scrutiny and internal/external pressures that no-one but them would really know of. The judgement of whether or not the end result is, musically, any good or whatever is a side issue...it's the look under the hood that's important.

This is the shit of being a musician...real people with real issues trying to create stuff with shit swirling about them. Life rambles, has sandwich breaks, talks about the weather, has a flicker of inspiration and...we're off again chasing the muse. This dude needs to get off the cocaine...it's not all big glasses, sparkly jump-suits and platform shoes.

Grump over.

EDIT: to a degree, it could be argued the bloated, bombastic production of the latter 'Let It Be' album (string and keyboard pads galore) allowed dear Elton some operating licence...

[sizzlingbadger]

Totally agreed, it's not "entertainment" for the masses. The restoration of audio and video is amazing, as a fan of the Beatles I found the whole thing totally fascinating. Seeing the birth of some of their hits is an incredibly humbling experience and just goes to show the genius of their musicianship.

[Litterick]

Totally agree. His lens is myopic in focus in regarding this from a purely consumerist entertainment, fluff piece. It’s a fly-on-the-wall insight on the first, global pop/rock/boy/studio band…a musicologist’s/historian’s/documentarian’s /fan’s/song-writer’s text book. This guy is used to reading Disney comic books. Not all text books read that way…except maybe the Haynes workshop manual on the Vespa largeframe scooter

No, he is a highly respected music critic who happens to have a different opinion from yours.

[werdna]

Elton John’s 70s output was nearly as good as the Beatles. The deep cuts are way better than his hits. Amorena, somebody Saved My Life Tonight, My Fathers Gun, Burn Down the Mission, Tiny Dancer, Captain Fantastic and maybe 25 others. Amazing songwriting, strings by Paul Buckmaster, classic 70s sound that never dates. Roots music sitting somewhere between The Band and pop music. In the 70s, he was the biggest selling artist because of his song quality.

[clubhouse]

Totally agree. His lens is myopic in focus in regarding this from a purely consumerist entertainment, fluff piece. It’s a fly-on-the-wall insight on the first, global pop/rock/boy/studio band…a musicologist’s/historian’s/documentarian’s /fan’s/song-writer’s text book. This guy is used to reading Disney comic books. Not all text books read that way…except maybe the Haynes workshop manual on the Vespa largeframe scooter

No, he is a highly respected music critic who happens to have a different opinion from yours.

Of course, an opinion differing to mine...and he has a much larger media reach than I... and he has a body of professional work supporting his credentials…and, no doubt, his editor probably supports a review that sells more views, clicks, etc …but, he is viewing and criticising the documentary on entertainment grounds (an Apple [pun intended] criticising the toast for a lack of juice)…

Petridis, himself sets up the expectation of a documentary:

“Peter Jackson’s Get Back is a documentary series…”

“But the moments of inspiration and interest are marooned amid acres of desultory chit-chat (“aimless rambling”, as Lennon rightly puts it) and repetition. There is a point, about five hours in, when the prospect of hearing another ramshackle version of Don’t Let Me Down becomes an active threat to the viewer’s sanity. That is doubtless what recording an album is like, but for an onlooker it is – to use the language of 1969 – a real drag. Much opprobrium has been cast at Yoko Ono for her constant presence at Beatles’ recording sessions, but, after this, you marvel at her fortitude for sitting through them.”

To experience the “acres of desultory chit-chat” puts the activity into context. Making shit up isn’t necessarily a romantic, explosion of inspiration and a fevered, Beethovian or edited/sped-up, Hollywood deal to entertain, in it's own moment, an audience…it is “doubtless what recording an album is like”…if the viewer wants to consume the creative experience and needs instant gratification, this is obviously not for them…try Rocketman, Bohemian Rhapsody...

He, on his highly respected throne, is not necessarily the sole audience for every musical note rendered and like those he reviews/criticises is capable of a mis-step. If a doco contains entertaining moments…cool. If it doesn’t, cool. That’s not it’s point and he misses that.

It could be argued that Jackson’s oeuvre points to a deliberate use of ‘time in exposure’ as a cinematic device…not quite what a pop consuming audience may be prepared for but one that a doco viewing one would be fully comfortable with…watch Ken Burn’s Jazz or Country Music docos sometime.

But, he’s getting some mileage from us and probably will attract some curious views for the doco from his review…