Final Impressions

I suppose I should finish up on the impressions for the Beatles remasters. I’m just going to do it all briefly. (I don’t think I’ll be doing Past Masters, but let’s just say that that’s excellent.)

We start, of course, with that most famous of albums. Sgt. Pepper’s clearly benefits from the remaster. I think both versions sound fine though I’m partial to the Mono version. What’s also interesting is the use of different tracks, which is most noticeable on this album than others, I think. Good Morning Good Morning proceeds with different effects, at different pitches and also different tempos when you compare the Stereo and Mono versions.

All that said, my opinion is that the Stereo edition sounds a fair bit closer to a modern recording, and to that end, I actually prefer the Stereo version of A Day In The Life.

The same things could be said about Magical Mystery Tour, except that I want to add that this tends to be one of the most underrated albums in the Beatles catalogue, and certainly the remasters are a good excuse to dive into it with great attention. The clarity here is fairly amazing, though I would say that the Mono version sounds the richer perhaps because of its balance; the Stereo version appears to be somewhat “over-remastered”, if you catch my drift. That’s not as serious as it might sound, but the impression definitely lingered.

The White Album is spectacular in the remaster. Surely the difference isn’t night and day, but it’s definitely a noticeable cleaning-up. I prefer the Stereo one, primarily because the Mono sounds slightly as if it were being played through a wall. While the same could be said about many of the remasters, the Stereo version here doesn’t seem to suffer so much from the same sharpness/thinness/lack-of-warmth that the respective versions of the other albums seem to. It sounds pretty much like a contemporary album, actually.

To me, the biggest improvements on Yellow Submarine are to be found on the orchestral tracks. Admittedly, though, Hey Bulldog has a lot more punch, and that’s definitely welcome. No Mono version, of course.

On the other hand, the improvements for Let It Be are probably the least noticeable for me. It might in part have to do with the release of Let It Be… Naked all those years ago. I’m not sure.

Abbey Road sounds fantastic. That may be bias on my part because it is after all my favourite Beatles album. It might also have to do with the complexity of the arrangements and instrumentation (arguably anyway, compared to maybe Let It Be). Or it might have to do with how this is after all the most recent of the Beatles albums and is more in line with modern recording techniques. It sounds rich, full, and is basically the perfect way to end your Beatles listening marathon.

Admittedly, I cheated and listened to Abbey Road first, and when I got to The End, I said to myself, “This is the reason they did these remasters.” I’d never noticed the bass before on that, but it was so outstanding in the remaster and was compelling enough to give the track new life. And that’s precisely the reason these remasters are so important. The Beatles have always been compelling and vital, but these remasters enriches the experience, restores voices you didn’t know the lads possessed. The remasters preserve the Beatles at their finest by allowing the enormous character of their music to transcend the technological limits of their time.

Most of all, the remasters remind us that the Beatles catalogue has been with us for some four decades before this immense project, and that it continues to stay relevant, continues to stay alive, is a testament that technicalities in art are simply technicalities. There is permanence in this music because the boys had such enormous hearts, and, well, those were really some damn good songs.

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On Rubber Soul and Revolver.

Well, in theory, I could tell you the same things you’ve heard multiple times already, that the remasters are great, that the mono sounds warmer than the stereo, and that the stereo sounds a lot closer to the original stereo mix found on with the mono edition. For the record, I’m a little sad I don’t actually have the mono version because these are two albums where I liked the mono version of Rubber Soul better. On the other hand, as far as I’m concerned, stereo is the way to go for Revolver.

Yes, I could do that. But I guess there isn’t much a point to it. Instead, I want to talk about these albums.You see, Rubber Soul ranks among my favourite albums of all (Beatles or otherwise), and to hear the remaster gives me joy beyond the simple admiration of the technology and work that went into cleaning up these albums. From the delightfully distorted album cover and the unambiguously cool name, to the cracking opener, the gorgeous ballads and the vicious final track, it’s a hell of an album.

It’s also commonly lumped together with Revolver. Like now.

Except I don’t like Revolver so much. It just seems to lose its way a bit, and I’ve always thought that a couple of the tracks there were really boring. Though I should say that for no particular reason, And Your Bird Can Sing is one of the most played songs in my library. It’s just so much fun. (I think that really sums it up. I like a number of the songs on Revolver a lot, but I just couldn’t ever bring myself to like the album as a whole.)

I’ve always explained this lumping-together by saying that it’s because this is where the Beatles started to experiment, to mess around, to mix things up. Which isn’t really true, because that happened at least beginning from Help!. But whatever it is, they form a wonderful bridge between the early Beatles catalogue and the Beatles at their height, the more gigantic and ambitious stuff that followed. They’re competent albums without submitting to some oppressive need to reach, to extend beyond conventional expectations. In other words, they’re tidy and compact. And the result isn’t immediately impressive, but it is true, and honest, and it sticks with you for the rest of your life.

I mean, really, listen to these songs carefully. I know I did when I got my stereo remasters.

Michelle is one of my favourite songs of all. And the funny thing is, I can’t for the life of me tell you why. It’s just important to me. I keep going back to it time and time again, trying to identify that one thing that makes it so precious, so unforgettable, and I can’t find it, and then I think, that’s all the better, as if to say that it’s magic spell would be undone if I’d uncovered that little truth.

And then there’s Eleanor Rigby, so visceral and strange, so elegant in its lyricism and arrangements, and so unlike anything I’d ever heard before. And listening to it again now, I think it always seemed to say so much more to me than it was actually intended to. All the lonely people, Paul sang, where do they all come from? Far from being about the destitute and poor, it seemed to hint at a greater mystery, a larger tragedy at work, and one we wouldn’t ever understand.

So my point, as I’ve tried to bring forth to you in my most disorganised and roundabout manner, is that these songs meant something to me once, and they still mean something to me now. I’ve never quite been able to identify those things, but it’s wonderful to recognise it now that these albums have come back to me in that giant black box. It goes beyond the innovations found in their music, beyond the precise performances, and beyond the ingenious writing. It’s something vital and true, something wonderful, something to believe in.

I remember listening to In My Life for the first time. I got goosebumps. I had heard a version by another singer before. I can’t remember who it was, except that it was a female singer. That was just poppish and sweet to me, but the one on Rubber Soul just got to me somehow. Just yesterday, before I wrote this, I put it on again. It’s funny to listen to it again now.

What’s changed is how it defines my perception of the Beatles history. Here are the boys, and they’re getting all grown up, and you know, the times ahead aren’t going to be easy at all, but they’re stepping on the gas with their big hearts and open minds, or so you would like to believe. There is a fragility captured in their earnest voices, and it clearly belongs to youth. One way of looking at these albums is that they’re a transition that reflects the same transition we all experience in growing up. It’s just the most precious thing, at once frightening and fantastic. And at the heart of it, the four lads whom we want to venerate as heroes, as gods, reminding us that the thing that’ll see them through the coming years is the fact that they had each other.

And what didn’t change? you ask. It’s simple. I still got goosebumps.

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More Beatles

Here are some more impressions. We’re going to do Beatles For Sale and Help! today. I know I’m very late, but better than never, as they say.

I have strangely opposite reactions to the remasters with respect to these two albums. I prefer the stereo remaster of Beatles For Sale. It sounds more in line with what we’re used to hearing in modern music. Certainly, both can be easily distinguished from the original records and the ’87 remasters. Just listen to the resonant guitar opening in I’ll Follow The Sun. It’s gorgeous.

To my mind, the stereo version has a nicer balance. The mono version also seems more distant to me, like on Rock And Roll Music, where John’s voice seems a little far away from the rest of the band. The separations are irritating as usual on the stereo edition, but not enough to frustrate me. I also find, as with most of the other remasters, that I can hear the individual voices more distinctly in the stereo version, and I think that’s a matter of taste.

To me, the songs here seem more alive. As expected, there’s a little bit more depth, more clarity and better balance with these songs, but as a whole, Beatles For Sale seems to glow. It’s like hearing an album proper for the first time after listening to it from behind a wall your entire life.

On the other hand, I like Help!‘s mono version better. The stereo version sounds noticeably harsh in areas. This was especially clear to me in You Like Me Too Much. That said, it also has more punch, so it may be a matter of preference. I find that it takes a little acclimitisation before I actually start enjoying the mono version (it’s like it takes place in a different kind of space altogether), though, all things considered, it has a warmer, fuller, and less disjointed sound that I prefer.

Help! is far from my favourite Beatles album, but it has some songs that I’ve lived with and will continue to live with for a long, long time. It’s nice to rediscover them in this new package, with just that little bit more definition and detail, and know that they’re songs that I’ll be able to count on for a long, long time to come.

I think the same can be said about the rest of the Beatles remasters, and I promise I’ll get to them with some sense of urgency.

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Further Impressions

Some brief impressions as I continue to rediscover the Beatles. I know I’m a bit slow in all of this, but I’m doing what I can. Today, I’ll talk about With The Beatles and A Hard Day’s Night.

With The Beatles was always, to me, the worst-sounding Beatles album of the lot. The quality of the recordings was probably the worst of the lot. Instruments bleeding into one another, cracking vocals, and a certain degree of noise that made the recordings really hard to listen to. And yet some of my favourite Beatles songs are on this album, so I was really glad to find that they had somehow managed to rescue With The Beatles.

It’s not obvious right off the bat. At least, it wasn’t to me. Something seemed different, but it wasn’t a night-and-day difference for sure. It was less noisy and more well-balanced, for one thing. The differences were clearer a bit more into the album. The clarity of the guitar in Till There Was You, for instance, was a joy to behold. The drums sounded more full-bodied in Please Mister Postman, and were accompanied with a much cleaner bassline. Most of all, it didn’t sound like I was trying to imagine things out of a 50-year old bootleg. I could actually hear things clearly.

I think the most slap-in-the-face obvious thing for me was on Money, where there were guitar notes in it that up to that point I didn’t know existed. (And I still can’t find it on the mono remaster.)

A Hard Day’s Night works out pretty much the same way, with everything sounding just that bit cleaner. If I Fell, for instance, starts out with more than John’s voice. I hadn’t realised that, but it’s very obvious in the stereo remaster. It doesn’t always work for the best, though. Much has been said about the warmth of the mono versions and it’s true, and of the three albums I’ve written about so far, this is the one that I most prefer the mono version of. Nothing to worry about, though. Both versions are astounding bits of remastering, and in the end, I think it’s simply a matter of preference. Both versions are still excellent, though more different than I thought they’d be.

In all, it’s been a joy reliving all of this music. Some days, I want the excitingly creative Beatles, the risk-taking Beatles, the whimsical Beatles, the Beatles driven by the need to invent. And some days, I want the simpler, sweeter ballads, so bright, so positive and so breathtakingly youthful. So it’s no exaggeration when I say that I’m mightily pleased that the remasters turned out this good. Particularly With The Beatles, the rescue of which seems almost miraculous to me.

And as the song goes, I’ll be back.

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On Please Please Me

Please Please Me was never my favourite Beatles album. I think that if you checked my jukebox, you’ll probably find that this is the album that has the fewest number of average listens per song. I don’t know why that’s the case. I like most of the songs on the album, and there’s nothing quite like the music on this album to be found on all of the other Beatles albums.

I may be compelled to rectify that right now, however. The remaster is quite excellent and particularly revealing. It’s generally said that Please Please Me is an album that exhibits a brilliant raw side to the Beatles’ music, but it’s something that a rawness took on a new dimension for me in the remaster. The visceral intensity that perhaps set them apart from their peers of that era stings on this record. It’s pretty amazing to find myself going through all this again with a new sense of wonder and an appreciation for the clarity of the sound.

And what clarity it is. Unless you have aluminum foil for ears, the difference should be pretty obvious. It’s not as astounding as I would want to believe, I think, but there’s a definite sense of depth can’t be found in the ’87 remasters. The drums sound more fleshed out, the separate tracks don’t seem to muddy each other as much and there’s a three-dimensionality to it all. The voices are certainly much clearer. I could hear separate voices where I used to hear just one. The guitars have more definition and the drums don’t sound so harsh. Things just generally have more oomph to them. From the more nicely-balanced I Saw Her Standing There to the crackling vocals of Twist And Shout, it’s pretty clear that the remasters did a lot of good work. Speaking of which, you can even hear John’s voice cracking in Twist And Shout.

I think the mono version definitely sounds better. I don’t like the stereo separations, a complaint that I imagine I will be making a lot, and the mono version just seems to blend the separate tracks together so much better. Sometimes, the drums just sound removed from the other parts in the stereo version, for instance. It just doesn’t seem to come together in stretches.

That said, I think both versions sound excellent, and it’s a great start to what I’m pretty sure will be a lovely collection.

Wow, I should really think of better ways to round of my impressions.

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The Beatles Stereo Box I

So the Beatles have landed. I got my set on Wednesday, in a giant cardboard box that made me so happy. Taking out the sticky tape, I gleefully hacked at the CAUTION tape with a pen knife and removed the big black box from the cardboard. It looked great. I was happy. Then I opened it with much joy and happily counted my albums. They were all there. I realised, however, that a corner of my big black box was damaged, which was quite disappointing.

I was soon to find more defects, and my copy of A Hard Day’s Night was not properly pressed, so it couldn’t be played. Not knowing quite what to do with it, I squished it between two heavy books and hoped for the best.

So, first impressions, not too great. (I’ll take some pictures later.)

Still, nothing can quite match the sheer happiness of being reunited with the Fab Four. I tore of the shrink wrap very carefully and marvelled at the package for a bit. Then I proceeded to listen to a few selected tracks. Having heard most of the tracks on The Beatles In Mono, I came into this with some kind of a preconceived idea of what to expect, but I must say that I was quite surprised. The stereo remasters have so far sounded better in a number of tracks.

Case in point, I listened to Money and heard some guitar details that I’d never heard before. Then I listened to some tracks on A Hard Day’s Night (I borrowed my friend’s copy for the time being, but I suppose I’ll have to have it replaced eventually), and it felt as if the stereo was particularly revealing. The voices in If I Fell were much more clearly separated, for instance. And Magical Mystery Tour showed me why sometimes it’s no point sticking to mono. Hello Goodbye certainly sounded more alive to me in stereo than in mono, with a lot more volume (that is, dimensional volume and not loudness volume) to it.

That’s not to say that everything’s great in stereo, of course. I’m pretty sure I’ll complain about the left-right vocal separations when I get to them, and I’m pretty convinced that some songs will be better in mono still (my bet is on Sgt. Pepper’s). For now though, I’m very impressed.

And without comparing the two versions, Abbey Road rocks.

So, in the weeks to come, I think I’ll be going through them and writing some impressions. And they’ll be put up here, for whatever they’re worth. In the meantime, I should get the defective CD replaced…

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