No one has ever claimed it's the Beatles best album, but it undeniably contains some of their most magnificent music. That seeming conundrum exists because MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR isn't really an album per se, but rather a cobbled together mix of the soundtrack to the wildly uneven 1967 made for TV movie of the same name (released as a 45 RPM double EP in England) and...
Read moreNo one has ever claimed it's the Beatles best album, but it undeniably contains some of their most magnificent music. That seeming conundrum exists because MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR isn't really an album per se, but rather a cobbled together mix of the soundtrack to the wildly uneven 1967 made for TV movie of the same name (released as a 45 RPM double EP in England) and single hits from earlier in the year. The soundtrack songs, perhaps because they were written as incidental music (including "Flying," the band's only instrumental and the only track credited to all four Beatles) are mostly slight, if charming, with the lovely if sentimental "Fool on the Hill" being the standout. But the meat of the album are the just-pre and just-post {|SGT. PEPPER|} singles - "Strawberry Fields Forever," "Penny Lane," "Hello Goodbye," and "I Am the Walrus," all of which are either incredibly innovative or masterpieces or both. Sublime bonus: "All You Need is Love," an ode whose message may or may not be true, but whose self-referential montage finale (ending with a chorus of "She Loves You") is unquestionably the precise moment when a rock-and-roll record first flirted with post-modernism.
Brand: CAPITOL
