The most important thing I took from Pulp Fiction was that I
could be either a Beatles fan or an Elvis fan. Oh I could like both just fine
but I had to choose between them, I had to like one better. Being 20 at the
time I took the obvious answer, a new Beatles box set had been released a few years
earlier, my college invited a Beatles tribute band called 1964 every year, and
everyone, including my closest friends, loved the Beatles. So I chose Elvis.
Okay maybe it isn't that simple, my parents weren't big
Beatles fans, but I had family who were nuts over Elvis Presley. I started
listening to Elvis as a young boy in the 80’s because, let’s face it, there
wasn't much going on in the 1980’s (cue angry pop fans). The Beatles seemed to “poppy”
for me at the time, I had to be different, so I respected the Beatles but chose
Elvis.
I think the other important factor is my first real introduction
to the Beatles. My brother’s girlfriend came home with a CD of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. I
loved it, I was shocked that I had chosen any other way. This album is amazing,
nothing like the stereotypes I remember. So now I learned I
was a Beatles fan, and an Elvis fan. Sgt. Pepper quickly rose to the top of favorite albums list, I would tell me friends, “Oh I love that Sgt. Pepper album
and I would get the reply, “Oh I like the early stuff, they got weird on that album” I wondered what could be better, it was like the author was sitting down to read the newspaper and then singing about it.
I didn't know there were separate parts of the Beatles
Camp. I will admit that the early stuff is catchy and I look forward to sitting
down to hear it for the first real
time on vinyl but, my home will always be with the weird stuff these guys had some wonderful forethought and weren't
afraid to try different things. I love them for it, and am a solid Beatles fan
now because of it. It isn't hard to find newly pressed Beatles’ albums so I
will gladly work my way through.
In fact, my mother-in-law is a huge Beatles fan, so
around my birthday she came to my wife and asked what I wanted. Later my wife
came to me and asked, I replied curtly with, “I don’t know, see if she can find
Sgt. Peppers.” A week later it arrived on my step. So I may leave the Beatles for my birthday.
This album is nice heavy 180 gram vinyl with the original artwork and a
special insert for the re-release telling the story of the album including notes
from producers and Paul (it seems like all fans tend to simply refer to them by
their first names as if they were friends, so though I don’t really know him I
am a fan so I will refer to him as so). The other insert is a cut out with
metals, mustaches, and pictures, I had to inform my daughter “These really aren't
for cutting but they sure are pretty aren't they.”
There is an extra track on this album for those of us that
don’t have automatic tone arms, well, maybe it isn't a track. It is an
obnoxious phrase telling me that the record is done and I need to remove the
arm. But then it really could be any other.
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