The Beatles Go To Smithereens

My son gave me a copy of the Smithereens tribute to the Beatles, Meet The Smithereens. I am so far behind on music I depend on him to tell me if there's anything out there I might be interested in. The CD has been out since January, but I just found out about it when he handed it to me.

I listened to it with interest but also some skepticism. I hadn't heard the album, Meet The Beatles in a few years, but I heard it so many times in years past it's as familiar as my mother's voice. I've loved it, but over time and as the Beatles evolved I thought of it as a freshman effort.

The Smithereens have done a fine homage. They have kept the original arrangements, even down to the "One…two…three…four!" count at the beginning of "I Saw Her Standing There." But they haven't tried to imitate the voices. The voices of individual members of the Smithereens have much the same qualities as the Beatles, so the vocals are handled very well, they just aren't the Beatles.

When Gus Van Sant remade Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho with Vince Vaughn and Anne Heche in the leads, and then promoted it as being "scene-for-scene" the same as the original I'm sure other people were like me, thinking what's the point? How do you improve on a movie like the original Psycho? I saw the remake and didn't think it added anything to the original, but it didn't really detract, either. So it is with the Smithereens and their versions of the Beatles tunes from Meet The Beatles. The Smithereens are very, very good at what they do, but why wouldn't they be? The band was formed in 1980, 27 years ago. None of the Beatles were even 27 years old when they recorded the songs that came out in record form in the U.S. as Meet The Beatles. The Smithereens also have the advantage of using the original arrangements, all tried-and-true. When George Martin and the Beatles made these songs the five of them were flying by the seats of their pants. No one knew that those songs, with those arrangements, would still sound fresh over 40 years later.

I remember in 1964 how many Beatles "fake" albums showed up in the bargain bins at drug stores; crude copies of the Beatles songs sung and played by studio singers and musicians, trying to get even a piece of that Beatles action at the cash register. Nowadays those records are collectible, but in those days I wouldn't go close to them. The Smithereens haven't done what those johnny-come-latelies did, just put out crap hoping to fool the unwary. They did these songs for the love of the originals and their enthusiasm for them comes through on the CD. But, like the scene-for-scene re-creation of Psycho you have to wonder what they have added to the songs, and why we should listen to the Smithereens note-for-note versions rather than just listen to a CD, or even better, the 12" vinyl, of the original Beatles.