Jay-Z and the Beatles: Together again

Are we staring into the blueprint for a Jay-Z-Paul McCartney-Ringo Starr trio performance on a future  Grammy Awards show?

The rapper and the Beatles are once again intertwined on the national sales charts this week, Jay-Z debuting at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top 200 with “The Blueprint 3,” with sales of 476,000 copies. With his 11th No. 1 album on the Top 200, Jay-Z is now the solo act with the most No. 1 albums, breaking a tie with Elvis Presley that he established when “American Gangster” made it to the top in 2007. The only act with more No. 1s? The Beatles, whose 1968 double LP known as “The White Album” was a reference point for the title of the rapper's 2003 set, “The Black Album.” (For those of you with scorecards, that was the one billed as his final release before he went into retirement.)

During the same week that a committedly unretired Jay-Z moved ahead of Presley, all 13 of the Beatles'  original studio releases landed in the Top 20 of Billboard’s Top Pop Catalog Albums listing of works that originally came out at least 18 months ago. They sold 626,000 copies of the remastered albums; that five-day total tops 1 million when the individual albums within two box sets are factored in.

“The Beatles in Stereo” box set -- a 14-album, 16-CD collection listing for $260 -- sold almost 26,000 copies. “The Beatles in Mono,”  an 11-album, 13-CD set listing for $300, sold nearly 12,000 copies from the release date of Sept. 9 through Sunday, the end of the sales monitoring period tallied by Nielsen SoundScan. Adding the individual titles contained in each box set, the Beatles sold nearly 1.1 million CDs last week.

Ringo diss was just a joke, Simon Cowell says

“American Idol” judge Simon Cowell has been the one stung by criticism from Beatles fans since remarking on CBS' "The Early Show" last week that were the group to come before him in a talent competition, “We would have said, ‘We'll take those three [John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison] but probably lose the drummer.’ Ringo, I'm afraid we would have said, is ‘bad news’.”

“I said it as a joke,” Cowell told The Times over the weekend. “It was a tongue-in-cheek interview. But the sensitivity surrounding the group shows how much the public still loves them. You make a joke about them and people get really upset.”

Cowell, for the record, was a die-hard Beatles fan growing up in England. 

“'She Loves You' was the first record I ever bought,” he said. He hasn’t, however, rushed out to get copies of the sonically upgraded Beatles CDs released last week. “I never saw them, but I bought most of their records…..They always sounded perfect to me, so I haven’t gotten caught up in having to hear the new ones.”

And what would Cowell, one of today’s key arbiters of what works and what doesn’t in pop music, have counseled a group that offered up a single that runs more than seven  minutes, a ballad in which the refrain is sung 19 times during the final four minutes, as the Beatles did in “Hey Jude”?

“They wouldn’t hear a peep from me,” he said. “The one group worldwide I always wish I had signed was the Beatles.”

-- Randy Lewis

Photos: Ringo Starr, left, and Simon Cowell, right. Credit: Associated Press

Beatles box sets: An Amazon sellout [Updated]

 
Update: As of Wednesday morning, EMI reports that Amazon's stock of the Beatles boxed sets has been replenished. The site is once again taking orders.

“Money can’t buy me love,” the Beatles sang in 1964, and today, it couldn’t buy either the stereo or mono box sets of the remastered Beatles catalog at Amazon.com, which reported selling out of both a day before their official release.

The online retailer is, however, continuing to take orders for the individual CD reissues, according to an EMI Records representative, who said Amazon will be restocked on both box sets “soon.”

As of  midday today, six of Amazon’s 10 bestselling music titles were Beatles albums, and fully half of its Top 20 was occupied by the Fab Four. The box set containing stereo versions of all 13 of the Beatles' core studio releases plus two additional CDs with singles and other tracks that weren’t included on those albums lists for $260, while a limited-edition mono box, containing the 10 albums originally intended by the group and producer George Martin to be heard in mono, lists for $300. That set also includes a slightly different two-CD set of singles and non-album tracks.  Reportedly only 40,000 copies of the mono box have been manufactured for worldwide distribution, with 13,000 of those allocated to the U.S. market.

The sellout at Amazon indicates that the quartet’s tradition of topping the sales charts is alive and well 39 years after the band disbanded, paving the way for John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr to pursue solo careers.

The Beatles: Rock Band: So, what's the missing song?*

People who work in the world of video games love to keep consumers guessing about their newest products, and The Beatles: Rock Band is a perfect example.

They’ve trickled out titles of the songs that will be included in the initial game disc over the last few months, until those who have been following these announcements closely can tally 44 of the 45 songs destined for the game.

What’s the mystery song? Rock Band watchers are speculating on the game’s web site, with “Hey Jude” and “We Can Work It Out” seeming to be the front runners. I say: not even close.

Remastered Beatles CDs: A sneak preview*

How do the newly remastered Beatles CDs sound?

As one who got a sneak preview recently at Capitol Records in Hollywood, let me boil it down to one word: Fab.

These won’t leave anyone feeling that they’ve been missing out for all these years, and they’re not likely to make Beatlemaniacs out of anyone who hasn’t cared for the Liverpudlians’ sound before now.

But they do offer something that might have seemed nearly impossible so many years down the line: a fresh listen.

Two of EMI Records’ engineers who have overseen the remasters, Allan Rouse and Guy Massey, were on hand to A:B the new versions against the CDs that Beatles fans have been accustomed to since they were first issued 22 years ago.

Three of us — I was joined by writers for a couple of audiophile magazines — listened to a CD that included portions of new and old versions of 14 songs spanning the group’s recording career.

Calendar will have an in-depth piece in Sunday's Arts & Music section looking behind the scenes of the remastering process as well as a glimpse into the Fab Four’s entry into the world of videogames through The Beatles: Rock Band.

But here are a few observations from the preview session:

Paul McCartney's fab night at Coachella

Much ado was made the minute Coachella Music & Arts Festival chief Paul Tollett announced that Paul McCartney would be one of the 2009 headliners. He’s too old, some griped. Coachella’s for Gen X and Y, not the dreaded Boomers, others sniped. He’s too populist...he’ll dull Coachella’s hip factor.

The verdict from his Coachella debut on Friday? Never underestimate the power of a Beatle.

Perhaps some fans stayed away because a member of the world’s most popular rock band showed up, but for the ones who didn’t, the night belonged to Paul.

Pity the poor acts who had to go on opposite him while 95% of those still on hand for the conclusion of Friday’s opening show packed themselves like so many sardines as close to the big Coachella stage as they could. The Crystal Method still drew a few thousand dance-minded fans into the Sahara Tent, but thrash rock band Genghis Tron only landed 100 or so for its evening closing show, while Gustavo Santoalalla’s scintillating group Bajofondo pulled in 700 or 800.

Many on hand for McCartney couldn’t get any nearer than a quarter mile away, and they were grateful for video screens about 40 feet tall on either side of the stage magnifying that still-cherubic smile for all to see.

McCartney in turn delivered a two-hour-plus show in as strong a voice as he’s exhibited in his Southland stops in recent years, and one with a goodly number of surprise choices that took the set well beyond the Beatles/Wings greatest hits run-through he easily could have fallen back on.

He opened with “Jet,” from his 1975 album “Band on the Run,”  rocking hard at the outset as if to counter those who consider him an overly sentimental pop romantic. Which he is, but he used Coachella to exploit the visceral energy of early rock that so strongly influenced him, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr, especially in his rendition of Big Joe Turner’s raucous “Honey Hush.”

“Let Me Roll It,” a soul-rock shouter, found him as gritty as one can get who has so powerful an attraction to pop melody and fetching harmonies. He included a couple from his more experimentalist side project "The Fireman," along with individual tributes to his wife Linda, who died 11 years ago to the day on Friday, Lennon and Harrison.

“It’s an emotional day for me,” McCartney, 66, said as though he were chatting with a few friends in his living room rather than tens of thousands of cheering fans. “But that’s OK. That’s good.”

Even when it seemed he couldn’t top himself after a fireworks-laden rendition of his James Bond movie theme “Live and Let Die,” after which he led a monumental singalong on “Hey Jude,” out came three more Beatles barnstomers: “Birthday,” “Can’t Buy Me Love” and “Lady Madonna.”

Hip comes and hip goes, but McCartney proved once again, a great pop song lasts forever.

--Randy Lewis

Photo by Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times

Paul McCartney, Tom Hanks, Eric Idle, Tom Petty salute George Harrison

Paul McCartney topped the star-studded turnout Tuesday in Hollywood for the unveiling of a Walk of Fame star for his former Fab Four band mate George Harrison at a ceremony that also drew such celebrity friends and admirers as Tom Hanks, Tom Petty, Eric Idle, Jeff Lynne, Joe Walsh, T-Bone Burnett and Harrison’s widow, Olivia, and their son, Dhani.

“Hare Krishna” was all Dhani Harrison had to say after alternately touching and humorous tributes from his mother, Idle and Hanks as well as Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge.

“I asked myself, ‘What would George think about a star on Hollywood Boulevard?' ” his close friend and Monty Python alum Idle said. “I thought I heard his voice, and it said, ‘It’s a bunch of old bollocks.’ ”

McCartney wasn’t among the scheduled speakers, and when he hopped up to the microphone after taking part in a round of photo snaps with the assembled guests in front of the freshly minted star, it had been shut off. He simply shouted, “Thank you!” to the hundreds of fans who spilled out into Vine Street in front of the Capitol Records Tower, where Harrison’s star now sits near those of the Beatles and John Lennon.

Hanks, prefacing his remarks with the explanation that “I’m representing the Americans,” told the crowd that Harrison’s first guitar had cost the equivalent of 75 cents. “But he desired to make it sing, and to make that guitar weep.”

Coachella: Paul McCartney finds himself in a new place

A chilly morning wind was blowing down Sixth Avenue, but it was warm inside Radio City Music Hall even though the grand old palace was hushed and its balconies deserted. A production team was busy preparing for the night's concert, an all-star charity event, and a few dozen lucky VIPs were loitering in the back and craning their necks to see the stage. There, loose-limbed and cheery in the spotlight, stood Paul McCartney, a performer who has been in the ear of the world so famously and for so long that it's a bit startling to see him in a quiet moment and realize that he is in fact an actual human being, not just a songbook with a voice and a name.

After playing the brassy Beatles classic "Got to Get You Into My Life," McCartney sat at a piano and, without looking down, his fingers found the familiar first notes to "Let It Be." It's a song that could make a bare cinder-block building feel like a cathedral, but there, echoing in the regal hall's empty corners, it had witnesses dabbing their eyes. After the church-steeple finale, a cheer went up and McCartney acknowledged what might be one of the smaller ovations of his career: "Thank you for that ripple of kindness pouring down the red-velvet rows. . . . "

Less than an hour later, sitting backstage, McCartney mentioned that "Let It Be" sounds very different to him now than when he recorded it in 1969. "In truth, a lot of them mean new things to me, I hear stuff I didn't hear in the past," said the 66-year-old singer. Like a man thumbing through a box of old love letters, he sees unexpected between-the-lines messages, such as hints of mysticism he now detects in the simple lyrics of "Got to Get You Into My Life."

Read more Coachella: Paul McCartney finds himself in a new place

Photo credit: WireImage

11 L.A. artists honor Paul McCartney's 'Ram'

Justin Gage would have cringed at the critical catcalls that greeted Paul McCartney's second solo album, "Ram," when it was released in 1971 -- that is if he'd been alive. Gage, 33, discovered the album through his Beatles-obsessed father's record collection and was puzzled at the notion that it was labeled as "irrelevant" and "lightweight" when it was originally issued.

"It's beautiful. I think it was his last great moment before going off to do the Wings thing," said Gage, who helms the popular L.A. blog Aquarium Drunkard and its spinoff label, Autumn Tones Records. "In the past year or so, I kept hearing it turn up on turntables at house parties...  People were talking about it, and a lot of artists I knew seemed to be fans of it."

Harnessing that groundswell of interest, Gage assembled "Ram on L.A.," which features a track-by-track tour through "Ram" by 11 L.A. indie rockers, including Earlimart, Radar Bros., Amnion, the Parson Redheads and Bodies of Water. It's available for free download at Gage's website, but patrons are asked to make a donation to McCartney's favorite charity, No More Landmines.

Paris Hilton wants to duet with Paul McCartney

Remember at Coachella a couple of years ago when the Jesus and the Mary Chain performed with Scarlett Johansson for "Just Like Honey"? ScarJo did fine but it was definitely one of the more OMG moments of the festival.

Now we challenge you to imagine a somewhat similar deal but on a much more brain-shattering level: Paul McCartney and Paris Hilton. (What a perverse thrill it was to bold-face those two names together.)

Now that we've got your attention -- and yes, we realize that the picture of our city's blond heiress is what really caught your eyeballs -- we'll tell you the news. According to Spin, the 15-minutes-in-2006 pop star sidled up to McCartney on Sunday at a post-Grammys party and asked him if he would be interested in a duet. She went on to explain, "I'm a singer too and have had an album out."

McCartney has shared the mic from time to time -- this one with Michael Jackson really tickled me when I was a kid, especially with its cartoon "Deadwood"-era opening -- but he begged off from a collaboration with Hilton, citing his jammed schedule.

That's when Paris should've shown him that dazzling camera-snaring smile and scampered away, but she apparently went on to compliment not his amazing body of work but his "cute" hair. "It's just like in the Beatles." She's got a point, actually; he's pretty much rocked the same haircut since 1964, with only a little bit of variance in the back.

Anyway, the same impulse that made some of us wish to see M.I.A. go into labor at the Grammys makes us want to see Paris go on stage with Macca. Sacrilege, travesty, maybe, but there'd be a lot of jaws on the ground, in addition to crushed water bottles.

--Margaret Wappler

Hilton photo by Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty; McCartney photo by Larry Busacca/Getty Images