Band Of The Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst Plays Lennon & McCartney* – Band Of The Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst Plays Lennon & McCartney

Ah honestly - nobody needs to own this, but it's an interesting curiosity.

The Beatles music has been successfully transposed to many different genres, sometimes with below-par results, but at the very least the quality of the songs shines through, whether they're jazz, reggae, soul, classical or even kiddie-choir interpretations.

This LP of military band versions of Beatles tunes, on the other hand, is an example of what happens when you utterly lose all the "feel". It's as if somebody took some Fabs songs, shoved them in a beaker, then boiled them with a bunsen burner for fifteen minutes until they were reduced to their driest powdered essence, with no flavour or scent at all.

The precise, mathematical military rhythms of these twelve Beatles songs, all played without emotion, verve or swing (and of course, it's not the job of any military band to provide any of these things) is the closest you'll come to the group's work sounding unremarkable, the perfect soundtrack to an obedient march around the square. "Ob La Di Ob La Da", predictably enough, just about works, but poor Eleanor Rigby, and pity the fool on the hill, who sounds as if he might be shot for not obeying orders.

As I said, it's... interesting. It's amazing it exists. Worth a couple of quid to show your friends when they visit, but you won't play it yourself voluntarily very much (if ever).