Andrew_Hicks's Full Review: In My Life * by George Martin
Upon listening to this album, one of my roommates pointed out that we really don't know of any of the other artists George Martin produced, just the Beatles. The Martin-written liner notes only say there numbers are "too many to count," but if the artist list on the 1998 In My Life tribute album is any indication, his John-Paul-George-Ringo years were probably the ones that defined his career.
It's certainly his amazing and unparalleled production work with the Beatles that authorized him to make a self-indulgent tribute album like this in the first place. And think about it -- in theory, having George Martin put together one last hurrah of Beatles classics with the artists of his choice could be a smashing success. Unfortunately, the artists of Martin's choice are mostly ham actors and adult-contemporary superstars.
Rarely have the Beatles been done justice by cover artists. Those are primarily songs you just shouldn't touch, unless you have just the right combination of hubris and invention to pull it off. Stevie Wonder did in 1966. Joe Cocker did in 1969. Robin Williams, Goldie Hawn, Celine Dion, Phil Collins and Jim Carrey definitely did not in 1998. If anything, the extremely embarrassing Martin tribute is worth having around for a drunken laugh or two at a party. This is the aural equivalent of the 1978 Peter Frampton/Bee Gees atrocity Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which Martin also participated in, by the way.
Among the unintentionally funny numbers:
* Williams and Bobby McFerrin singing "Come Together." Williams tries his best to actually sing and not be funny, which makes matters even worse, and McFerrin does his trademark one-man, Jones-from-Police-Academy vocal accompaniment. Equally bad is Carrey, also playing the straight man, singing "I Am the Walrus."
* Goldie doing a horrifically self-indulgent lounge song version of "A Hard Day's Night," which is ironic because she hasn't worked like a dog since the late '70s.
* The Collins take on Abbey Road album-closer "Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight/The End." Martin gushes endlessly in the liner notes about Phil's talents, including the fact that Collins was able to duplicate Ringo's drum solo in "The End." I'd leave that off my resume if I were you, Phil.
* Last but not least, Sean Connery's poetry reading of the album's title track, "In My Life." It's not quite as funny as Shatner singing "Lucy in the Sky," but Connery's somber over-attention to detail definitely falls into the category of the hilarious.
It's sad, truly sad to see Martin cheapen his work with the Beatles by overseeing these cut-rate, cutout-bin remakes, then endlessly praising them in the liner notes, no less. (He even speaks for John Lennon at one point, declaring that the slain Beatle would surely have loved Carrey's version of "I Am the Walrus.") The only brief saving graces on the album are the classical music songs -- violinist Vanessa Mae does a fairly brilliant version of "Because," and John Williams makes over "Here Come the Sun" in movie-score style. But that doesn't change the fact that In My Life contains some of the absolute worst Beatles covers ever. No exaggeration.
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