1 - Beatles (The) > Reviews > Give Me Money, Whole Lot Of Money

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Definitely a cut above the rest
Lyrics	Sublime
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
How does it compare to the artist's other releases	Good
Value for Money

Advantages:	25 classic singles
Disadvantages:	A couple of dud tracks and the fact that everyone owns these songs anyway

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

During their eight-year span of recording music, The Beatles were one of th most productive bands in history, in terms of both output and quality. Therefore, an album full of number 1 singles by The Beatles isn't going to be too bad. Their continued popularity also suggested that such an album would shift millions of units. And funnily enough, both of these predictions are true.

'1' is a collection of The Beatles’ entire collection of number 1 singles from the USA and America. Mariah Carey released an album with a similar concept a couple of years ago. That sold by the bucket-load too, but thankfully '1' doesn't make the listeners want to rip out their own eardrums.

All the singles are in chronological order, from the simple but charming 'Love Me Do' to the orchestral 'The Long And Winding Road'. 27 tracks of Beatley goodness is surely just about as good as it gets? Well, not exactly so. There are a couple of reasons for this.

The first is that because it is an album of all the No. 1's they have to include songs link 'The Ballad Of John And Yoko' and the indulgent 'Get Back'. Both these songs are sacrosanct because they are Beatles songs, but neither are any good by anyone's standards. (Cue heated comments from other Ciao users). TBOJAY is also a bit misleading being neither by the Beatles (only John and Ringo) and also not really being a balled either.

The second problem with this album is that it represents the safe, corporate side of The Beatles. The songs date from a time when musicians made their green from selling singles, not albums and inevitably EMI were interested in the more populous orientated tracks for singles. Hence the lack of experimental tracks like 'Tomorrow Never Knows' or wonderful album classics like 'A Day In The Life' or 'Girl'.

Another problem is that singles that didn't get to No. 1 but remain classics like 'Please Please Me' and 'Strawberry Fields Forever' have to be left off. Therefore this album cannot truly be called a 'Best Of'.

Which leads me to ask "what's the point?" Obviously the answer is £££. This is not a retrospective look at their entire catalogue like the Red and Blue albums, it is not an interesting sideways look like the Anthology or 'Live At The BBC', it has no artistic merit.

Maybe you think this article is overly critical, but there is good reason for this. For a start, if you don't know what to expect from these songs, you must live on Mars. This album was always going to be brilliant, but it cannot be called a classic. Most people have all these songs anyway. There are so many Beatles compilations, but all you really need is the original albums, the 'Past Masters' series and maybe the Anthology set.

If I wanted to have this album, I would just burn all the tracks onto an 80 min. CD-R. I own copies of them, so it's perfectly legal. If you don't have them, it's a superb investment and a CD to please everyone. I just can't help thinking it's all just a cynical moneymaking scheme.