Search - Smithereens :: Meet the Smithereens: Tribute to the Beatles

Too good to be just a tribute

Fairleigh Brooks | Louisville, KY United States | 03/12/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I was driving my fifteen-year-old daughter somewhere as she picked up the jewel case for "Meet the Smithereens!" The disc was loaded and playing as I explained to her that The Smithereens had recorded a complete cover of "Meet the Beatles!" with the intention of exacting the Fab's sound as much as could be. It wasn't an interpretation, at least not by intent.



After a pause she asked honestly, "Why don't you just put on 'MtB!' and listen to that?" Her question was not only a good one, but also a fair one.



I countered by asking why she comes in the door after school to immediately IM a friend she saw eight minutes ago on the bus. It was a lame comeback without any correlation, which left me with her question. Why didn't I just cue up "Mtb!" and listen to the real thing? Is "MtS!" any different from an Elvis impersonator?



Yes, because the Elvis impersonator tries to become Elvis, however incompletely. And because The Smithereens are The Smithereens, with a long history of great original music. And not even The Beatles can eclipse the sound of The Smithereens, which leaks out of their high resolution tribute to their source in the same sort of way that a real laugh is unavoidable and can't be contained. After all, eventually the shape and content of the protege no longer fits the contours of the mentor, which is of course the entire point.



In larger scope, culturally, The Smithereens are reminding us - those of us old enough to remember - of those electric months that straddled the end of 1963 and the start of 1964. For those not old enough, "MtS!" - and the dedication of the group to recreating the sound of The Beatles - is a sort of implicit documentray of a Western cultural watershed.



The emergence of "MtB!" in the fall of 1963, followed by the first of the appearances "The Ed Sullivan Show," was a rip in traditional mores. In such a short time, at least by popular perception, the old ended and the new began. This schism had been incubating since before JPG&R came of age, of course, and so The Beatles in no way wholly created it; nor did any one entity. But they did happen to catch the wave at just the right moment to become the presenters of "Why not?" to the masses.



For anyone who, by age or isolation, was somehow unaware of The Beatles at that time it's not really possible to fully describe their impact, so I'll just say this. I was ten years old and in the fourth grade. I left school on Friday, February 7th to enjoy the weekend. On the night of Sunday, February 9th, I watched The Beatles perform on Ed Sullivan. When I returned to school Monday, February 10th, I was a different person. I couldn't appreciate intellectually what had happened, but I knew viscerally something had. A lot of us did that Monday morning, which was only confirmed by our teacher refusing to let as talk about what we had heard and seen. But we talked anyway. Quietly at lunch and enthusiastically on the playground. Something was up, something so powerful it washed over us despite being delivered in a black-and-white image and through a tinny mono speaker. Something big, something permanent.



That, really, is what "Meet the Smithereens!" is about. And so here we are in 2007, the 21st century, dealing not with The Future as we imagined it would be way back then, but with tribal warfare, religious fundamentalist nut jobs and, once the calculated selling of cool is removed from the mix, a stunning degree of conformity. I can't think of a better time of which to be reminded than when we met The Beatles. Thanks, Smithereens, you're gear!"

I give it 5 stars only because I can't give it six !!!!

Tom E. DeShovelle | 01/26/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is the most inspired tribute to the Fabs in a LONG time. Folks who complain about it being "only 28 minutes" might do well to brush up on their Beatle history ... that's all there was on the original album! That's the point. Yet, as disciples of classic rock (see their many & varied covers - The Seeker, Just A Little, etc) these guys pay homage like very few can. They don't make it an attempt at being "the Fab Faux", "Beatlemania" or any of those other "copy bands" out there and create the "note perfect" clones, with fake accents, etc. That stuff is OK to check out "live" but why buy a record of people trying to sound exactly like the Beatles (just buy the originals for chrissakes). No, this first and foremost sounds like a SMITHEREENS album. That said, you can hear the group's musical DNA in all it's big fat ringing guitar glory. Look, nobody's going to even TRY to tell you it's "better than the beatles" - if that were the case - NOBODY would ever get a good review ! But if you love the Beatles and even LIKE the Smithereens, this record is, to put it simply, ESSENTIAL listening. Pat D and the boys carry the torch in admirable fashion. The way the Fabs passed on their musical heritage (how many Carl Perkins songs did you REALLY know without hearing of them through one or more of the fabs ?), The Smithereens are doing for us in 2007. Don't think twice - this one is WAY MORE than alright !"

Brilliant cover from a great band

BethG | Georgetown, KY | 05/12/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Smithereens are NO Joke! I started listening to these guys when I was in college in the late 1980's. There has always been a Beatles influence in their music. In fact if I remember right a music critic once described their music as "the Beatles meet AC/DC".



While I never got to see the Beatles during their heyday (I was born in 1966), I have grown to love their music. I find the Smithereens album to be an acknowledgement and a "thank you" from them and bands like them that own a lot of their musical influence to the Beatles. Remember, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.



And if you want acknowledgement of true Beatles fans from back in the day of how great this tribute cover album is, my in-laws, who were in college during the Beatles invasion, LOVE THIS ALBUM!"