The six-part audio drama, “Reunion” released exclusively for Spotify — but not an original production made for that podcast platform — on February eighth and April sixth and seventh. There’s a reason the show’s not on other platforms. Read more to find out. This was an expedited review. Also, this will be a two-part review for reasons that will hopefully make sense later.

Beatles Music, Abrupt Transitions and Audio Proofreading

The story more like an excuse to put Beatles’ music in an audio drama. It relies heavily on the songs already available on Spotify not only in terms of quantity, but quality as well. Unfortunately the quality in this case is not a good thing. Just like AI, the technology is limited. Unlike AI, there are better ways to handle wanting to put copyrighted music in a podcast. Most of them aren’t legal, but the overall quality would increase greatly if the transitions between song and story were less jarring. Seriously, it’s so sudden. It made me wonder if the experience is different on Spotify Premium. Did users with the subscription get access to the full song and not a sample? I honestly didn’t know until I asked, received the script and read the opening pages.

Turns out, according to the writer, Spotify Premium members do experience the full song. Still, going into the music and coming out to the scenes was so jarring and happened just as I was getting into the story. Switching back to the topic of transitions. It would sound so much better with the songs part of the final production mix. A place where the artist has more creative control over what the listener hears and what their expectations might be. There were a multitude of ways to have Beatles Music without copyright. The most obvious of them being a cover band. Something that’s both part of the story and in the actual credits.

Yes, it would cost money, but imagine the creative control. Why not use that more and put in the mix rather than rely on Spotify to provide the songs? Aside from a few scenes that stuck with me, the aspects meant to make the story stand out from other audio dramas stood out for the wrong reasons. All this could very well be avoided if the music wasn’t integral to the story. Something I think doesn’t need to be there as it hurts more than helps it. This is all my opinion and is not legal advice by any means. It is also in no way a reflection of what the creator intended or did with this podcast.

A glimmer of hope is that by a little after the halfway point, I started to piece the story together the story. However it was only after I started reading the script along with the podcast. Without it, the long narration and constant stops and starts due to Spotify samples would’ve been enough to make me stop listening. Typically I try to listen without seeing the words all the way through first. This was one of those rare instances of not being able to stand not knowing what was going on past the halfway point.

The Legacy of the Beatles Music in the Soviet Union.

The behind the scenes story is much more interesting than the first three episodes. Karash took this story from every possible medium until deciding on audio drama. Something that would compliment a story about group of friends in their 60s who try to get their Beatles cover band back together after one of them died causing the protagonist Widlovsky to have basically a midlife crisis. Another potential title for this audio drama with Beatles’ music.

Lastly, the acting feels more like theatre acting than someone from film or television. It’s a bit over the top at times, bordering on being a terrible take to use in certain scenes. Something that shouldn’t happen more than a couple times in an episode, because even with shows that do everything remotely, it’s rare that a certain line read knocks me out of the story. Part of the problem are the Eastern European accents for the almost entire cast. It makes me wonder what a native Eastern European audio drama would sound like.

Thoughts Pending

That ends the first half of this two-part review. For reasons hopefully obvious if you’ve read this far, I’m gonna try this again with Spotify Premium. Will my thoughts change? Because of this, I’ll hold off on a final rating. However to give you a sense of where I think it’s at without the premium membership. I’d give it 6.5/10 Stars. This is with the new rating system started this month.