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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (April 25, 1973)
dab oebrosten entertainment Beatles end long, winding road Review by Jim Gray Every business has its commercial rip-off gimmicks. Bargain stores have green light specials. Bars have "two-fers" and Ladies Night. The record business has collection albums. Usually put out under the standing title "The Greatest Hits of . . .", they are generally boring and mostly nodescript. Featuring artists from Donny Osmond to Jefferson Airplane, the albums are little more than an audio catalogue of box-office winners. They consist of a group of "hit" individual cuts lumped together for profit's sake, with little continuity, rhyme or reason. Once in a while, however, a collection album is something more than that. That is the case with Apple's new Beatles collection, m two two-record sets: The Beatles 1962-7 966 and The Beatles 1967 1970. Fust of all, the album's setup is extraordinarily tasteful. The ear!y set has a red color scheme throughout, the later set blue. Both covets feature exceptional photographs of the Beatles, taken from identical positions seven years apart. The photographs alone say 1,000 words about the group's development. Inside, on the center spread, is a large, intriguing photo of the four intermingled with a crowd behind a fence. The record sleeves, also ted and blue respectively, are covered with all the words from all the songs. The individual cuts, of course, are excellent. But they are more than could be expected. The selection and arrangement is skillfull and artistically magnificient. The songs are arranged not, as one might expect, in a strictly chronological order, Instead, they are carefully structured to display the growth, changes, trends and personal accomplishments of the group fiom beginning to end. It starts, not with the foursome's fust U.S. successes, but with "Love Me Do", "Please Please Me" and "From Me to You", which did not surface in the U.S. until the group's explosion into Beatlemama, "I Want to Hold Your Hand". Cuts from the Beatles first American album Meet the Beatles don't appear until late on the first side. The album is packed with every single hit imaginable, as well as the group's most notable album cuts. Its producers displayed the best of taste in including only highest quality released recordings, disregarding complete historical accuracy. For instance, the "Can't Buy Me Love" included on the first side is the technically excellent version for the Hey Jude album, rather than the sloppier single version. Scarcely a major accomplishment is ignored as the album skillfully builds to climaxes time after time, making it more than a heap of disorganized Golden Oldies. It would be a mistake to react in this instance with "But I already have a lot of Beatles albums." Any record collector with a medium sized library has two or three Beatle waxes to his credit. Few, however, have collections as all-encompassing as the compact four-record set at hand. This album is a supplement, not a re-hash. The saddest part about the collection is that it was rushed into production to grab sales away from pirate profiteers who are peddling Beatles collections without permission, not granting royalties to the artist (notably television's Alpha Omega.) While these collections have lower prices, they are generally not of as high quality as the Apple collection, because the pirates have no access to original tapes and highly-developed Apple equipment. And they do deny artists' their due proceeds, a sad state of affairs for a "tribute" collection. It's almost incredible that, with a forced speed-up on production, Apple came up with such a tasteful and well coordinated production. It's a tribute not only to the Beatles, but their management, All in all, the Apple collection is one of the best buys in records in some time. It's more than a collection album. It's a chunk of history. f ft . .."it' ' til ' -J'.' J. U4 tv ' r. , " - . ..... .( ' ,n .&; . r- - t Arbus monograph captures camera brilliance God only knows how many big, hairlcover illustrated book-, the kind called coffee-table Ixjoks- are published c.ir.h e.i''. They cover the taruje of subject', fioir. Nonnuii Rockwell to the history of circuses ,71th tJM inteiest value that raffjes from mildly amusmg to astounding. IV cau . of tla; scarce local demand for these book,, which often cauy a hefty pnee tag, they are often not stocked, Although most local booksto-es will order any book in print, many cintomurs '..mpiy aren't avv.ni; of the- existence of some good books. Two of these are Dime Arbus, An Apurturo Motmqrmh a"d The Pulim. Diane Arbus photographed for many of the loading United States fashion magazines. In 19G3and 1966 she received Guggenheim Fellowships. In 1907, some of her photographs were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in a show entitled "New Documents." For her part in that throe photographer exhibit, Arbus received much acclaim. In 1070 site produced .1 portfolio of 10 photographs which was to be the fust of a seiies of limited editions of her work. Diane Arbus committed suicide on July ?G, 1971. In July, H)7?( she was the first American photographer to be exhibited at the Venice Biennale. The book contains some inteiesting text; At bus' comments on photography taken from lectures to photography classes and fiom interviews. A few short for-instances: "...I did paint but I hated painting and I quit right after high school because I was continually told how terrific I was It made mo feel shaky. I remember I page 12 hated the smell of the paint and the noise it would make when I put my brush to the paper. Sometimes I wouldn't really look but just listen to this horrible sort of squish squish squish. I didn't want to be told I was terrific. I had the sense that if I was so terrific at it, it wasn't worth doing." "I never have taken a picture They're always better or woise." I've intended. "I do feel I hav; some slight coiner on something about the uuaiitv of things. I mean it's very subtle and u little emb.jn assing to me, but I really believe' there are things which nobody would see unless I photographed them." But tin; main thing in this book, of course, is the photographs. They are powerful, almost psychological studies of people. Many of the subjects .111' 'freaks' in the sense that they differ fiom the jverage American. The subjects include' physical f'caks, transvestites and nudists. But many of them, loo, are apparently quite ordinary subjects. For one thing, all the subjects are in cooperation with the photographer. They face the camera-defiantly, happily, unconcernedly. The photographic effect is that they open themselves up to examination. In casting about for an adjective, "powerful" is the one which seems best to fit these photos. Looking at them is a moving experience. Diane Arbus, An Aperture Monograph, is priced at 1 b in hardcover. (iuily fHjbraskun The Pulps is a collection of "50 years of American Pop Culture" compiled and edited by Tony Goodstone. During the 20s, 30s and 40s sundry pulp magazines thrilled people of all classes with hundreds or lurid titles like "Spicy Detective," "Weird Tales" or "Astounding Stories." Their garish covers depicted an astounding variety of categories: detective, science fiction, western, supernatural, jungle, pirate, aviation and war, sports, horror, superhero, love and up front sex. The pulp magazines were the cradle of sensationalism in American art and literature. They contained some of the best anrl some of the worst adventure fiction ever written, The best came from writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Bradbury, H P. Lovecraft and Edgar Wallace. The worst of the pulps titillated their readers with weird stories of flagellation, sadism and voyeuristic sex involving naive but well endowed females ("flash of white thigh, breasts straining at their silken prison.") The Pulps contains 100 full color reproductions of pulp magazine cover art and more than 50 stories, poems, features and articles. They are presented with their original black and white illustrations and ads and are put into their social context thanks to commentary by editor Goodstone. It's a great schlock collection which should appeal both to those old enough to remember stashing their favor tie pulps under the mattress as well as to those young enough to appreciate the pulps for their pop art and cultural value. Wednesday, april 25, 1973