If you've never seen 1967's Magical Mystery Tour, it can be difficult to describe exactly what the Beatles achieved -- or were attempting. It's a bizarre, often surreal series of scenes, stitched together by a handful of great songs, but coming in the months after the epochal Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the film and its accompanying soundtrack are a footnote, cited by some cynics as the beginning of the end.
Now, it holds up as a remarkable document of one band's boundless ambition (and its borderline creative mania, doubtless fueled by a few illegal substances) and a prototype for music videos, which would fully flower almost a decade after Tour's initial, disastrous release. As the Beatles works its way through its back catalog, remastered and re-releasing every major project, it's time for Tour to get its due, which it does, in a sparkling new transfer newly created for Blu-ray and DVD release.
Thanks to the generous folks at Capitol Records, DFW.com has a pair of Magical Mystery Tour Blu-rays to give away to two lucky readers. Email me with the subject line "There's a fog upon L.A." by 5 p.m. Central on Friday (10/12) and I'll select two winners at random from the entries. Employees of McClatchy are ineligible. Good luck!
