Crafting the Fourteenth Album
Around May of last year, I rewatched Richard Linklater's Boyhood. While watching I couldn't help but remember the response that the movie had initially received when it was released back in 2014, and the biggest complaint lobbed against it - it's indulgence. I couldn't disagree more. As far as I'm concerned it's a modern masterpiece, easily the best of Linklater's oeuvre, but I can still understand the criticism. At nearly three and a half hours and filmed over the course of twelve years; a character study focusing entirely on the twists and turns of one person's adolescence can't help but seem a little overblown.
I also acknowledge my biases, after all, I'm only two years older than Ellar Coltrane's character, Mason. Besides sharing a somewhat similar childhood, there are also just too many small pop culture throwaways that can only really be appreciated by my generation. It's all really well done and worth a watch if at least for one notable scene:
When Mason is a teenager, his Dad (Ethan Hawke) decides to give him a birthday present he's been working on - "The Black Album", a collection of solo Beatles tracks assembled to "elevate each other" as he puts it. The songs range from throughout each member's post-breakup output and are arranged to balance their collective quirks and bring out the best of each other. Hawke probably describes it best.
As for me, after rewatching Boyhood last year, I decided to attempt to craft my own vision for this concept, something I would call the "Fourteenth Album," as I do count Magical Mystery Tour (since it's awesome) and Yellow Submarine (even though it's not). I assembled about sixty songs that I would eventually narrow down to a double album. In the vein of The White Album, the lions share of tracks belong to John, Paul, and George with just a couple of Ringo's thrown in for good measure.
Around that time I ended up moving back to Chicago and needless to say, I forgot about this little project entirely. But with all the free time I've had due to COVID-19, I happened to stumble upon my selections once again and got to work. Each album side is only twenty-two minutes, as required by a typical vinyl LP press, and can thus be listened to just as easily in quarters.
Enjoy!
Around May of last year, I rewatched Richard Linklater's Boyhood. While watching I couldn't help but remember the response that the movie had initially received when it was released back in 2014, and the biggest complaint lobbed against it - it's indulgence. I couldn't disagree more. As far as I'm concerned it's a modern masterpiece, easily the best of Linklater's oeuvre, but I can still understand the criticism. At nearly three and a half hours and filmed over the course of twelve years; a character study focusing entirely on the twists and turns of one person's adolescence can't help but seem a little overblown.I also acknowledge my biases, after all, I'm only two years older than Ellar Coltrane's character, Mason. Besides sharing a somewhat similar childhood, there are also just too many small pop culture throwaways that can only really be appreciated by my generation. It's all really well done and worth a watch if at least for one notable scene:
When Mason is a teenager, his Dad (Ethan Hawke) decides to give him a birthday present he's been working on - "The Black Album", a collection of solo Beatles tracks assembled to "elevate each other" as he puts it. The songs range from throughout each member's post-breakup output and are arranged to balance their collective quirks and bring out the best of each other. Hawke probably describes it best.
Now that album is indulgent. At fifty-one tracks and well over three hours, it acts as more of a greatest hits box set than a real substantive album. Even though it's a great idea, the whole concept has been implemented to a greater effect elsewhere. Before Linklater and Hawke got their hands on the back catalog, author Stephen Baxter published a short story called "The Twelfth Album" (for some reason choosing to ignore two extant Beatles albums, don't ask me why I haven't read it). That was back in 1998, in the afterglow of the massive Beatles Anthology documentary and the corresponding new experimental tracks that came with it. Unearthed John Lennon vocal cuts received accompaniment from George, Paul, and Ringo in what was then billed as two brand new Beatles songs, an idea that no doubt must have resonated with Baxter.
The story itself considers an alternate history where The Beatles did not break up and their early '70s work was instead recorded as a group. For my money, this is the best song selection of the bunch, with two tight album sides and an apt title: "God". Any aspiring sequencers out there should try and find a happy medium behind "The Black Album" and "God" and anyone crazy enough can always try something like "Everyday Chemistry".As for me, after rewatching Boyhood last year, I decided to attempt to craft my own vision for this concept, something I would call the "Fourteenth Album," as I do count Magical Mystery Tour (since it's awesome) and Yellow Submarine (even though it's not). I assembled about sixty songs that I would eventually narrow down to a double album. In the vein of The White Album, the lions share of tracks belong to John, Paul, and George with just a couple of Ringo's thrown in for good measure.
Around that time I ended up moving back to Chicago and needless to say, I forgot about this little project entirely. But with all the free time I've had due to COVID-19, I happened to stumble upon my selections once again and got to work. Each album side is only twenty-two minutes, as required by a typical vinyl LP press, and can thus be listened to just as easily in quarters.
Enjoy!
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