Love (Beatles album)

Release history

George Martin and his son Giles began work on Love after obtaining permission from Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono and Olivia Harrison (the latter two representing the estates of John Lennon and George Harrison, respectively). The idea for using the Beatles' music in a Cirque du Soleil production had originally come from Harrison, who died in November 2001, through his friendship with the company's founder, Guy Laliberté.

Speaking to Mojo editor Jim Irvin in December 2006, Giles Martin said that he first created a demo combining "Within You Without You" with "Tomorrow Never Knows", which he then nervously presented to McCartney and Starr for their approval. In Martin's recollection, "they loved it", with McCartney saying: "This is what we should be doing, more of this."

In discussing the project, Giles Martin noted that elements were used from recordings in the Beatles catalogue, "the original four tracks, eight tracks and two tracks and used this palette of sounds and music to create a soundbed". Because he was concerned that they might not get the green light to proceed with Love, he began by making digital back-ups of the original multi-track recordings, just to get started on the project. He also said that he and his father mixed more music than was eventually released, including "She's Leaving Home" and a version of "Girl" that he was particularly fond of, which was eventually released in 2011 as a bonus track on the album on iTunes.

McCartney and Starr both responded very positively to the completed album. McCartney said that it "puts The Beatles back together again, because suddenly there's John and George with me and Ringo". Starr commended the Martins for their work, adding that Love was "really powerful for me and I even heard things I'd forgotten we'd recorded".

Love was first played publicly on Virgin Radio's The Geoff Show. DJ Geoff Lloyd, the show's host, chose to play the entire work uninterrupted, to allow younger fans to experience an album premiere.

Love placed at number 3 in the UK Albums Chart during its first week of release, trailing Westlife's The Love Album and Oasis' Stop the Clocks compilation. It was also successful in the United States, debuting at number 4 on the Billboard 200, where it was certified Platinum in late 2006. At the 50th annual Grammy Awards on 10 February 2008, the album won Grammys in two categories – Best Compilation Soundtrack Album and Best Surround Sound Album.

Release details

The album was released as a standard Compact Disc version, a two-disc CD and DVD-Audio package, a two-disc vinyl package, and as a digital download. The DVD-Audio disc contains a 5.1-channel surround sound mix (96 kHz 24-bit MLP), downmixable to two-channel. For backwards compatibility it also contains separate audio-only DVD-Video content with two-channel stereo (48 kHz 16-bit PCM) and 5.1-channel surround (448 kbit/s Dolby Digital and 754 kbit/s DTS).

Track listing

The DVD-Audio and iTunes release have longer versions of "Revolution" and "Back in the U.S.S.R.", increasing the total running time by about two minutes. The track listing for both discs is as follows: All tracks written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, except where noted (see also: Lennon–McCartney).

1. "Because" – 2:44
2. "Get Back" – 2:05
3. "Glass Onion" – 1:20
4. "Eleanor Rigby" (with "Julia" transition) – 3:05
5. "I Am the Walrus" – 4:28
6. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" – 1:22
7. "Drive My Car/The Word/What You're Doing" – 1:54
8. "Gnik Nus" – 0:55
9. "Something" (with "Blue Jay Way" transition) (George Harrison) – 3:29
10. "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!/I Want You (She's So Heavy)/Helter Skelter" – 3:22
11. "Help!" – 2:18
12. "Blackbird/Yesterday" – 2:31
13. "Strawberry Fields Forever"  – 4:31
14. "Within You Without You/Tomorrow Never Knows" (Harrison/Lennon–McCartney) – 3:07
15. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" – 4:10
16. "Octopus's Garden" (Richard Starkey)  – 3:18
17. "Lady Madonna"  – 2:56
18. "Here Comes the Sun" (with "The Inner Light" transition) (Harrison) – 4:18
19. "Come Together/Dear Prudence" (with "Cry Baby Cry" transition) – 4:45
20. "Revolution" – 2:14 (CD version) / 3:23 (DVD and iTunes version)
21. "Back in the U.S.S.R." – 1:53 (CD version) / 2:34 (DVD and iTunes version)
22. "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" (Harrison) – 3:46
23. "A Day in the Life" – 5:08
24. "Hey Jude" – 3:58
25. "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)" – 1:22
26. "All You Need Is Love" – 3:39

27. "The Fool on the Hill" – 3:30
28. "Girl" – 2:43

Track elements

Love contains elements from 130 individual commercially released and demo recordings of the Beatles, and is a complex remix and polymix of multiple songs known as a mashup. While a complete list has not been disclosed, highlights of how the elements were mixed have been noted by the press.