Idiotribute

I’m sure there were others, but for me the tribute album thang started with A Vision Shared, a wonderful set of Woody Guthrie and Leadbelly songs. Since then the tribute album has become almost a genre of its own. Several feature prominently on my playlists. I don’t have Springsteen’s We Shall Overcome but I will have, soon. This morning, listening to NPR’s Pop Culture podcast, there was something entirely new. a tribute to The Beatles, by The Beatles.

Well, by George Martin and his son Giles, which is almost the same thing. Cirque du Soleil commissioned the soundtrack for its new show, Love, and the Martins had complete freedom to use anything recorded at Abbey Road. Judging from clips in the programme, the CD will be one to buy. The old familiar Beatles sound is there, but the mash-ups and remixes give it a freshness that really struck me. Sure, those old familiar Beatles sounds are good, but maybe precisely because they are so burnt into my brain I no longer really appreciate them. The clips I heard made me marvel, again.

I’ll be fascinated to see what Neddie and the other real musos make of it.