George Harrison's All Things Must Pass: by Tim Frommer For the thirtieth-anniversary of the re-mastered and reissued debut of the Silent Beatle, George Harrison has spared little in a Monty Python-esque, animation-rich site dedicated to the re-release of All Things Must Pass. As the warning reads right on the home page, "not for the faint of bandwidth or resolution." Indeed, Flash, Shockwave and Quicktime are all required to enjoy the bells and whistles (and cricket chirps, album clips, videos and joy buzzers). Fun for a work break -- or those with cable modems at home -- but try this on dial-up with a lot of free time, like enough to find Buddhism. The intro page introduces the album's new cover, a colorized version of the original with some added touches, namely nuclear reactors and a collapsed freeway looking very reminiscent of San Francisco post-Loma Prieta. All the while, the chorus of the album's biggest hit, and the first #1 single by a solo Beatle, "My Sweet Lord." [Ed.: See DAA Plagiarism list] Be sure to mouse-over just about every inch of your screen. I keep finding new little twists each time I return. Just one example: click on the gas station price pole to see a toy car drive into Harrison's hip. And could you find the skyrocketing petrol meter? Patience, something George probably learned in India, is a good quality to have when visiting the site. With so much techno-gizmology behind the scenes, pages take a long time to load and there is minimal cacheing since images aren't being saved to your hard drive with Flash so they have to reload even when you use your browser's back button. New flying, crawling or wheeling creatures emerge on each page gradually. Click too fast somewhere else and you'll likely miss something or other or yet another. Harrison wrote new liner notes for the record that are reprinted on the site and contain a wealth of information. At the very least, he gets to acknowledge the players on the record -- something that he couldn't do thirty years ago as it wasn't industry practice. Usual suspects Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton are singled out as are numerous others, especially engineer Phil Spector. For about half the songs, Harrison's original lyric scribbles are reproduced. Unfortunately, they (and other album art treats) are reduced to a small frame whose dragging feature is a real hindrance for appreciation. Perhaps I need to dunk my head in the Ganges because I felt hindered from site nirvana frequently , even as I enjoyed some of the offerings. I had no trouble downloading the screensaver, but couldn't get either commercial or the one video to play. The lyric sheets were unique, but why no sound clips save the album's most popular cut? Old photos, but not nearly enough considering the trove that must be out there. A biography, but no complete discography or links to other Harrison sites on the web. New York-based design shop @Radical.Media is the creative force behind the chuckling gnomes, et al and I feel the designers grew to like their online world a little too much, neglecting the user. Artists l Essays l The List l Sites & Sounds New Issue l Best Of l Fave Links l About Us |
|||