Although essentially a Paul McCartney release, four of the five tracks on Liverpool Sound Collage were co-credited to The Beatles.
The ambient electronic pieces came about after artist Peter Blake asked McCartney to create a soundtrack for the On Collage exhibition at Liverpool’s Tate Gallery in 2000. Blake had previously famously designed the iconic artwork for The Beatles’ album Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band with his former wife Jann Haworth.
McCartney used snippets of speech from Beatles recording sessions from the 1960s. Most prominent of these was dialogue from the group’s 8 November 1965 session for ‘Think For Yourself’, which appeared on Rubber Soul, and the 1 February 1967 session for the song ‘Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’.
Liverpool Sound Collage contained five tracks. ‘Plastic Beetle’ and ‘Made Up’ were credited to Paul McCartney and The Beatles. ‘Peter Blake 2000’, the longest piece, was a ‘collaboration’ between Welsh band Super Furry Animals and The Beatles. ‘Real Gone Dub’ was by producer/engineer Youth, who had previously collaborated with McCartney on two electronica projects under the name The Fireman. The closing track ‘Free Now’, meanwhile, was credited to McCartney, The Beatles, and Super Furry Animals.
Samples from McCartney’s 1991 classical composition Liverpool Oratorio also featured in the collage pieces. During ‘Made Up’, meanwhile, he is heard walking the streets of Liverpool asking residents what they think of the city and The Beatles.
In 2001 Liverpool Sound Collage was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album. It lost out to Radiohead’s Kid A.
