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.
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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
