Magical Mystery Tour

Magical Mystery Tour has been remastered at Abbey Road and is housed in a triple panel card package with historical notes. The album also includes a mini documentary directed by Bob Smeaton, which is included as quicktime files on each album.

The documentary contains archival footage, rare photographs, and never-before-heard studio chat from The Beatles, offering a unique and personal insight into the studio atmosphere.

The first six songs on Magical Mystery Tour were the soundtrack to The Beatles' TV movie of the same name. While the film was an experimental mess, the experimental pop of the album included some of their most memorable productions.

The soundtrack side was dominated by Paul McCartney pop tunes, including the bittersweet piano ballad "Fool on the Hill" and "Your Mother Should Know," an impossibly catchy bit of vaudevillian pop.

The album also featured George Harrison's mystical "Blue Jay Way" (about his house in Hollywood) and John Lennon's "I Am the Walrus," which wedded a stream-of-consciousness lyric to a fierce drum beat, layers of strings, odd voices, and some dialogue from Shakespeare's "King Lear."

McCartney's "Hello Goodbye," which led off the assorted singles, featured some neatly arranged contrapuntal vocals and may well have been about the dissolving partnerships (songwriting and otherwise) between McCartney and Lennon.

Lennon's strangely arranged "Strawberry Fields Forever," whose two halves blend different takes of the same song, one slowed down to match the pitch of the other, was a trippy reverie. Its bridges, orchestrated with horns, cellos, and backward cymbals, are sheer brilliance.

"Penny Lane," a wistful fantasy featuring a beautiful trumpet solo, was McCartney at his melodic best, the am foil to Lennon's fm headiness.