Review Summary: This tour isn't that magical or mysterious.
After the super heights that Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band reached in 1967, the Beatles soon rushed another album out the door called Magical Mystery Tour. And its...only ok. It definitely isn't a bad album but it leaves a lot to be for desire and kind of just comes off as a worse version of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It seems like the Beatles had the same ideas for this album as that one but couldn't really come up with a better way to express all of those ideas in new ways.
One thing I do like about this album is the movie that went along with it. One standout scene is that of the Beatles working at a spaghetti restaurant and a very large woman eating there. There is also a great scene of annoying people on the "magical mystery" bus that takes the people on the Magical Mystery Tour. Its a very cool movie and really helps enhance the songs with cool music videos spattered throughout the film in true MTV style that would come. Sadly its the only Beatles film I've seen but if its any indication, then they made some cool psychodelic films.
But the album is a different story as it has a good mix of good and bad. It should be noticed that this one like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band has its own theme song at the beginning but it is also dropped just like the album before it. It has a couple really popular singles like Hello Goodbye and All You Need Is Love, but it also has its share of crap like Blue Jay Way and Flying. The best songs onthe album are probably the great and down tuned Strawberry Fields Forever and the happy bouncy Penny Lane. Overall its a pretty good album but defintiely not as good as Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and sometimes comes off like a rehash of it.
