Daveportivo's Cultural Evaluation Facility

Yellow Submarine is hardly a review you get excited by, it's without doubt the least revered and most certainly the least loved Beatles album, and quite frankly for good reason. It's a throwaway album, a soundtrack comprising two recycled singles, and seven instrumental tracks from the Yellow Submarine motion picture. Therefore we can be rather quick and to the point. Yellow Submarine feels confused, stuck between a b-side compilation and a interesting concept. The instrumental half of the album has flashes of brilliance, and George Martin's arrangements are intriguing but rarely exciting, as there is no direction or sense of purpose to tie them together. For example March Of The Meanies is a lovely albeit slightly cliché piece, dark and atmospheric with a sinister cartoonish air. The problem is it feels superfluous, this doesn't reminded us of a beloved movie scene, it's just a neither here nor there orchestral arrangement. There's little to be gained from listening to the instrumental arrangements, there certainly pleasant and creative, but they don't feel like classics, your fully aware that this is not Kill Bill or Last Of The Mohicans, they simple are what they are, and what they are is pleasant but forgettable.

As for the Beatles originals, well there not so original, All You Need Is Love is recycled from both The Magical Mystery Tour and it's release as a single in 1967, and Yellow Submarine similarly featured on Revolver and was also released as a single in 1966. So already with seven instrumental tracks and two rehashed singles Yellow Submarine feels flat and instantly inessential. However there are some buried classics, Hey Bulldog feels like a buried treasure, it recently resurfaced on The Beatles Rock Band video game, and it kicks like mule. It has a great piano hook, a beautiful bouncy bassline and a crunching riff. Best of all Hey Bulldog contains one of Lennon's best scathing vocal performances, he has a real biting sarcastic edge when he sneers "What Makes You Think Your Something Special When You Smile". It's easily one of Lennon's most thrilling tracks. Harrison also offers a gem in the form of A Northern Song, it's very subversive, it's quite abrasive at first but it really ingrains itself into mind and with repeated listens the melody is revealed. It was cut from Sgt. Pepper's... and in that sense is just a throwaway from the scrap heap, but I'm certainly glad A Northern Song wasn't lost to musical history. Harrison's other offering It's All Too Much is less endearing, it has a fine vocal melody, but it never really comes together as a track in a satisfying way. McCartney's All Together Now is equally frustrating, it's one of his cutesy tracks, but this just pushes it too far, it's too simple, too sugary, and while it's certainly catchy it lacks any real charm.

All in all Yellow Submarine feels like an ill thought out throwaway, and that's because it was. While it is technically a soundtrack you still feel short changed, after all A Hard Day's Night and Help! were great fun and entirely original, and Yellow Submarine simply isn't. It's recycled, thrown together, and lacks the love and attention of the other Beatles efforts. It's undoubtedly their worst album and it deserves as much attention as they gave it (which is of course next to none). Do yourself a favour download Hey Bulldog and A Northern Song and save yourself a few quid, this is for completists only.