The Better Beatles Cassette LRR-025

Limited to 50 copies.
The Beatles have been taken on by everyone from the Feelies to a bunch of dogs, each adding their own slant to things, so why do I dig this particular record so much? Well, honestly, this quartet from Nebraska in 1980 actually were trying to make the Beatles' music sound better. However you judge in terms of improvement, the attempt was done in a pure spirited way with a set of basic electronic elements, vocals, bass and drums, managing to project a sense of lofty artistic and definite postmodern design, but without pretentiousness. Because of the cold/synthy approach here, a lot of people already lump the Better Beatles in with a similar ideology the Residents took to their cover targets (Hank Williams, James Brown, Stones, etc.), but I think the Eyeballed Ones were a bit more mastered in the art of media manipulation and the connotations attached to pros like themselves taking on pop culture. The Better Beatles, again, just really seemed to really just have vibed on attacking the songs with the vocabulary they had inherent within themselves. Add that in with the fact that in Middle America circa 1980, the Fab Four's indelible etch upon pop consumer consciousness (even for kids who weren't around during their heyday) seemed a logical monolith to chuck in start to mount.
-WFMU