Love

The resulting remixes and medleys, as heard on equipment that probably costs more than your house at Abbey Road, could make you weep with joy. It may not sound as good on a common-or-garden stereo, but you'll still mist up a bit.

Love is turning everyone into an audiophile, then, which means it's making younger people a little older. And it's also a mashup remix, which means it's making older people a little younger. They were just a pop band, yes, but if anyone can bring all these music fans together under one tent, it's the Beatles. Which is what Love is ultimately all about.

This is Love’s ultimate achievement. A band long broken up, and so majestic they’ve been relegated to history books, has been refashioned in a way that makes a fresh and startling presentation of songs as familiar as the Ten Commandments.

It's a dazzling, expansive experience that ranks among the year's best.

Love vindicates the Beatles' status as master musicians and conceptualists.

The question of whether anybody would listen to Love more than once if the original Beatles albums were available in equivalent sound quality is a nice one. But it doesn't seem to matter much when you can almost feel the spit flying from John Lennon's mouth during Revolution, or when A Day in the Life's orchestral swell comes surging from the speakers. After all, it's hard to ask questions when your breath has been taken away.

Love could only have been made by someone who knew this music inside out, who has nurtured, cherished and polished it since the day it was composed, who saw its potential in an era when pushing rock'n'roll past it boundaries was a new art form.

Love may not be a full-on revolutionary take on the Beatles catalogue, but it does bring back some of the most awesome material ever to come out of a recording studio.

You could figure it as a sop to today's interactive mash-up culture. Or you could say it's just extending the medley-ish, segue-happy ethos of Abbey Road to the band's entire catalog. Really, it's both, and it's bliss.

Figuring out where each part is originally from will be fun for the fanatics, but isn’t necessary to enjoy the mix.

The album holds some pleasant surprises.

It’s an album of connoisseurship, revealing the inspired details tucked into so many Beatles songs.

Stimulating, entertaining and moving. You'll listen to it more than you have Anthology, I promise. [Dec 2006, p.100]

Flabbergasting... a genuine revolution in the head. [Dec 2006, p.133]

If the scale is almost beyond comprehension, Love also represents a sonic Da Vinci Code for Beatles trainspotters. [Dec 2006, p.104]

The loveliness comes at a predictable cost in breakaway energy. [30 Nov 2006, p.112]