"The album has the feeling of love and that's why the title is Beatles: Love," Yoko Ono Lennon chirruped recently, in her customary hello-flowers-hello-trees manner, about the Beatles new album, which sees Giles and George Martin mashing up the Fab Four's back catalogue into a fluffy aural puree. And for once, the critics are as misty-eyed as Sean's mum about the songs initially rejigged for the Cirque Du Soleil.
"The vocal harmonies of Because arrive with the clarity of an ice blue sky. The chugging introduction to Get Back hurtles out of the mix like a train. The pumping fairground organs of Mr Kite reek of steam and sawdust," drooled Observer Music Monthly's Neil Spencer. The Times' Pete Paphides was put in mind of the Beatles' 1995 "new single", Free as a Bird, "in which a mythical Beatleworld opens up around you, complete with pretty nurses selling poppies from a tray and running piggies."
Virgin Radio's Geoff Lloyd preferred a more sugary analogy. "Instead of each song being its own cake, it's the whole lot melted down, stirred up together and made into new ones. I know it's not strictly possible to melt a cake, but you know what I mean."
Uncut's Paul Moody agreed that this Battenberg of a record was "sumptuous" and "jaw-dropping", but he was more hungry-bellied to find out which Beatles bit went where. "Love represents a sonic Da Vinci Code for Beatles trainspotters", he said, "who could spend the rest of their lives arguing over whether the snare sound is derived from No Reply or Paperback Writer."
Proud peacock Mark Ellen of The Word spotted three out of four effects that the Martins had added to the mix - "the faint overdub of insects, sheep and birdsong on Because, a police siren before Walrus, the string arrangement on While My Guitar."
But a dull ache in the tummy lingered elsewhere. Alexis Petridis said sagely that putting an ambulance siren over the top of Julia, "the most emotionally complex Beatles track of all, an outpouring of Oedipal longing wrapped up in a tender expression of new love" might sour the milk somewhat. And the Independent's Andy Gill lamented the need to experiment to excess, given the "pulling-apart" of Strawberry Fields and the annihilation of Come Together, "where the original's chunky solidity is entirely sacrificed".
The last word must go to a voice on the Mojo messageboard who wondered "what the result would have been like if they'd handed the tapes over to Britain's top remixers," before commenting sagely, "no amount of post-production will ever make Octopus's Garden any good."
