Posts Tagged ‘The Beatles’

Every Beatles Fan Should Buy The Beatles Stereo Box Set

The Beatles are not a “just the hits” type of band. You cannot buy just Beatles 1 and be done with it. In actuality, believe most of their greatest tracks were not their biggest hits but instead their more experimental tracks such as “I Am The Walrus.”

If you really want to understand The Beatles incredibly influential music you have to listen to their LPs completely instead of only listening to the big hits. I’m not alone in believing that they made many of the top albums of all time and even their not so great albums (like 1964’s Beatles For Sale) have quite a few great recordings.

That’s why I think it’s such a marvelous idea to Buy The Beatles Stereo Box Set. The box contains every LP (and every non-album track with the inclusion of the Past Masters double CD set) that they recorded and released during the 60s.

In other words it has pretty much all of their releases except for Live at the BBC CDs and the three Anthology sets. This makes sense since those releases aren’t included as a part of the band’s “official catalog”. These extras are more like the “special features” on a DVD rather than the main movie.

There are a few more of their officially released recordings that are not included, for example there’s 1999 release called Yellow Submarine Songtrack that is completely different from the 1969 Yellow Submarine release. It’s actually much better and definitely worth a listen for it’s different mixes (it’s actually remixed, not just remastered.) Love and Let It Be… Naked are also not included.

With The Beatles Stereo Box Set, I also highly recommend that you Buy The Beatles in Mono Box Set which contains the mono mixes that The Beatles usually considered to be the “real” versions of their albums back in the ’60s. It may be hard to understand today, but when they were putting their music to tape they thought the mono mixes to be of much more importance when compared to the stereo mixes up until about 1968.

Review Of The Beatles 1964 Album Beatles For Sale

Beatles For Sale (1964) is an often dismissed Beatles album. I think that’s a real shame because while it’s undoubtedly not among The Beatles greatest studio albums, it does have it’s good qualities and I do think it’s worth taking a good listen to.

Particularly I think the 8 original Lennon/McCartney songs on the LP are quite good (even if not as great as the original songs on A Hard Day’s Night and Help!) What really stands out about these songs is that they have a certain cohesive feeling to them. I think they’d work fantastically as an EP.

The album really starts wonderfully with John’s “No Reply,” “I’m A Loser,” & “Baby’s In Black.” These are three great songs and they all have a downcast mood that connects the tracks together in a cohesive fashion.

I’m not a huge fan of the covers on this album, unfortunately. Even more unfortunately is that they make up almost half of the album (six of the fourteen songs are cover songs.) The sole covers that I’ve got any patience for are “Rock and Roll Music and “Words of Love” However even those two are not nearly as good as original Beatles songs.

The most popular of these Lennon/McCartney originals on this album is “Eight Days A Week” which is a song that both Lennon and McCartney dismissed and the band never played it live, not even once. But despite that, it is a good tune. No, it isn’t among their best songs, however it is catchy and the fade-in opening is quite cool.

All of the songs on this album sound way better on the new digitally remastered discs than they did on the old 1980s CDs. I strongly recommend that you buy The Beatles Stereo Box Set and The Beatles Remastered Mono Box Set and give both the stereo and mono versions of this album a good listen before you go about your business.

I’m definitely not claiming that Remastered version of Beatles For Sale is destined to be your new favorite Beatles album, but I do believe you’ll find that’s far better than it’s reputation says it is. I believe Beatles For Sale is better than With The Beatles, Please Please Me, and Yellow Submarine.

I definitely listen to late 60s albums like Magical Mystery Tour and Abbey Road a lot more often than the earlier LPs like this one, but that doesn’t mean I do not enjoy listening to the earlier ones too. I believe there’s interesting bits in all of their recordings. And I can’t wait to hear all of them on remastered vinyl when The Beatles Remastered Vinyl Box Sets are released in the spring of 2010 (rumored date.)

Here, There, And Everywhere: My Life Recording The Beatles

Geoff Emerick’s Here, There, and Everywhere is ikely my most favorite Beatles connected book. Why? Because it offers such a fascinating perspective on the recording of The Beatles legendary LPs.

I like that the book is focused on what was happening in the studio instead of what the members of the band were doing personally. Comparatively other Beatles books are too centered on the biography of The Beatles and not enough on the music. It’s because of their songs that anyone is concerned about their personal stories.

The book is not entirely about The Beatles, it’s really a Geoff Emerick memoir (with a clear focus on his time recording The Beatles) however if you think that that may make it less interesting, I really don’t think that it does. I actually think it helps make his interactions with The Beatles appear more “real.”

The book’s “realness” is one of my favorite things about it. I have read a heap of books on the band but most of them seem kind of clinical in comparison. Like a bunch of facts thrown together. With Here, There, and Everywhere I really felt like I was there at the studio in the 1960s. Sort of a fly on the wall, taking it all in.

This book offers a great look into The Beatles as musicians there’s actually a series of books called The Beatles as Musicians which goes into that more indepth.) We get a glimpse at McCartney working tirelessly to get his bass guitar parts on Sgt. Pepper just right and we see George improve his guitar playing talents through the decade.

Emerick was a very important part of the band’s sound during their most creative period in the mid ’60s. Amazingly on his 1st full day as lead engineer he came up with ideas that helped make the last track on Revolver, “Tomorrow Never Knows,” sound so revolutionary.

If you are interested in buying this book you aren’t stuck with buying it on old fashioned paper, you’ll also buy it for your Kindle. If you do not have a Kindle yet then I recommend buying the Kindle DX Digital Reader because of it’s larger size, it makes it easier to read. If you live outside of the United States, you’ll need to order a Global Wireless Kindle.

Of course, as much as I like reading about the recording of The Beatles music, I enjoy listening to their music even more than that. And I think it is a fantastic idea to have the new remastered versions of The Beatles back catalog around to hear to while you are reading this great book. In particular I recommend buying The Beatles Remastered Mono Box Set because Emerick mentions on several occasions in the book how he thinks that the mono mixes are the superior versions of those albums that have a mono mix (specifically in relation to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.)

The Beatles 2nd Album: With The Beatles

With The Beatles is definitely not not the best Beatles studio album, in actuality I think it’s arguably their worst non Yellow Submarine album. But that is not to say I do not like hearing the album in it’s new fabulous remastered format nor is it to say that it does not have any good tracks on it because because I definitely do and it definitely does.

But I do think that when thinking only about the 8 original songs on the album, it’s probably the least good selection of original songs The Beatles ever put out on a record (the underrated Beatles For Sale has a much better selection of eight original songs in my opinion) on the other hand, the six covers on this album are quite nice (superior to the six covers on Beatles For Sale, which was their fourth album.)

My most favorite original songs to listen to on the With The Beatles Remastered CDs are the first 3 tracks: “It Won’t Be Long,” “All I’ve Got To Do,” and “All My Loving.” Particularly, I’ve been enjoying song #2 “All I’ve Got To Do” in mono. It sounds delicious.

Another song that has really been making an impression on me is track #9, “Hold Me Tight.” Paul wrote and sang lead vocals on this one and he’s been very dismissive of it. And while I’ll agree the song isn’t perfect, I think it has a certain charm.

“Till There Was You” is my favorite cover on the album. It’s a very cheesy sickly sweet love song and while I feel I shouldn’t like it, I do anyway. The LP’s last song, “Money” is an excellent way to end the album. When I listen closely to the remastered mono version I actually hear the song as much more unhinged than I realized. It rocks pretty darn hard. It’s a great reminder of how hard The Beatles could rock even in the early days.

For most of the albums I do prefer the The Beatles Stereo Box Set versions when it comes 2009 Beatles box sets but I do think that this CD sounds better in mono than in stereo.

The Beatles Stereo Box Set

The Beatles are the most fantastic band of all time but unfortunately up until 2009 their music has not been available in the best possible quality on Compact disk. Why? Because when The Beatles were first mastered for Compact disk in 1987 the job wasn’t done particularly well. This is because digital mastering in 1987 was still pretty new technology and many advances have been made since then.

The Beatles In Stereo Box Set includes stunning remastered versions of every track The Beatles released from 1962 through 1970. That means every album from 1963’s Please Please Me through 1970’s Let It Be. It also includes all of the non-LP tracks that were released during their active career on the double disc Past Masters set.

If you’re like most Beatles fans then you probably already own all of their LPs on CD and you’re questioning the wisdom of buying them all again just because they may sound a little bit better or they are in nicer packaging. But the truth is that they sound a lot better. The difference is very noticeable. And really, this is the most popular pop music ever recorded, I think it deserves to be heard in it’s best possible quality.

Some songs such as “Long Long Long” sound so much more clear that it’s really seems like an entirely new recording. There’s so much in this music that I’m really hearing for the first time because of how much improved these remastered versions sound. Even Abbey Road (which is commonly thought to be the most modern sounding Beatles album) sounds much superior.

It’s incredible how clear each individual part sounds with these new remastered versions. I can listen to each harmony vocal separately now! I can listen to every guitar part. But all of this clarity does not come at the expense of analog “warmth.” I actually think these new CDs sound far more “warm” than the old ones because of the superior technology used to capture the sound off of the original analog tapes.

I strongly recommend The Beatles Stereo Box Set for every fan of The Beatles. It also makes a great Birthday or Holiday gift if you have a Beatles fanatic in your life.

Of course I also definitely recommend The Beatles In Mono Box Set because in a lot of ways it’s even more of an incredible experience, at least if you’re like me and you had never listened to these original mono versions before. It’s a magnificent experience to be able to listen to Sgt. Pepper’s in it’s original mono for the very first time. To get to listen to all of the additional sound effects on the vocals and to get to hear how “She’s Leaving Home” is faster and a semitone higher!

These mono versions are really how the recordings were initially meant to be listened to by the band so it’s a true joy to get to hear them like that for any genuine Beatles fan.