More thoughts on the Beatles reissues

People who follow my blog are probably wondering what I mean by "more." I posted my first thoughts on my Facebook profile as a note. But if I post through my blog, it also gets crossposted to Facebook. Sorry about the confusion.

In summary, when I first listened to the mono With The Beatles and Rubber Soul, I was disappointed. The only difference I found between the 1987 and 2009 mono With The Beatles CDs was that the bass line is more prominent. The overall sound was still muddy. On the way home on September 8 (my mono box set arrived a day early!) I heard some of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in mono; the sound quality was noticeably better, but still not great. But it was quite an experience, especially "A Day In The Life." Later that night, "Tomorrow Never Knows" on the mono Revolver literally left me speechless.

Having said that, I've been familiar with the mono stuff for quite some time. I own original pressings of the mono albums (both U.K. and U.S. versions, save Please Please Me -- I don't have $200 to spend on a gold-text Parlophone!) and have heard the Dr. Ebbetts "needle-drop" pirates, but the new release was a new experience for me. While I found the EQ to be lackluster (little to no treble -- way too much middle), the clarity is something to behold.

On 9/9/09, my wife and I bought the stereo Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road CDs. I wasn't expecting Sgt. Pepper's to be a huge improvement over the 1987 CD, as the 1987 CD actually has decent sound to it. Hoo, boy...I of little faith! My wife cued up "Lovely Rita," a song I never cared for and in fact usually skip. My involuntary reaction to hearing the intro was to yell "HOLY F**K!" So much brighter and livelier!

Yesterday on the way home from work I listened to a little bit of Abbey Road on my iPod. (Don't worry -- I ripped it using Apple Lossless Codec to insure I wouldn't get the lossy compression of MP3s.) Now...I had only recently become acquainted with the 1983 Toshiba CD release of said album, which the Blue Meanies very quickly forced out of production. I had never heard Abbey Road sound so good! The 1987 CD sounded muddy. The cassette version (which flip-flopped "Come Together" and "Here Comes The Sun," btw), which I received as a Christmas present in 1987, was very drab. I have the original vinyl, and I don't care what anybody says, unless you have a very high-end, four-digit-price turntable, vinyl isn't the end-all be-all. Even the Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab half-speed master (the one MFSL album I ever bought, which I spent $60 on about five or six years ago at Beatlefest) version sounds to me like a vinyl version of the CD -- same sound quality but with none of the surface noise you'd expect on vinyl. The Dr. Ebbetts pirate CD didn't impress me, either. It just drove me up the wall that the Beatles' best album wasn't available in decent sound quality. But the Toshiba CD...wow! That was it for me!

Now...back to my way home from work. I had both the Toshiba and 2009 official versions on my iPod. I did an A/B comparison of the two. The Toshiba has slightly better EQ in that there's more high-end, but unfortunately this means there's a lot more hiss and sibilance. The EQ on the 2009 CD is good enough to listen to, but there's no hiss, and the overall sound is the clearest I've ever heard. So I made an executive decision: the 2009 version is the canonical version, as far as I'm concerned. I later removed the Toshiba version from my iPod and iTunes and will eventually purge it from my CDs.

Next I listened to the mono Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band all the way through. Again, not the greatest EQ, but comparatively better than most of the rest of the mono box. And to tell you the truth, it confirmed what I always believed about the mono version: despite what George Martin and The Beatles have said for decades, the mono version is NOT the best way to hear it.

Except for "She's Leaving Home," which plays back slow on the stereo version, the album sounds slowed down a tad. (I have perfect pitch; trust me on this!) But I was reminded of all the mistakes on the mono versions of various Beatles albums that were fixed on the stereo versions. The audience effects on Sgt. Pepper's come in pretty abruptly, while on the stereo version they fade in and out nicely. The transition from "Good Morning, Good Morning" to the reprise of the title track is atrocious on the mono mix but smooth on the stereo. There's a cough in the mono version of "Norwegian Wood" that was fixed in stereo. There are double-tracking vocal flubs in "Matchbox" and "Slow Down" that are either fixed or lessened in the stereo versions but very obvious in the mono versions. The intro of "I Call Your Name" is very sloppy on the mono version (and to be honest with you not so hot on the stereo version of the U.S. album Something New) but fixed on the standard stereo version. "Don't Pass Me By" plays back too fast on the mono version, and the violinist screws up at the end; on the stereo version the playback is at normal speed and the violin part is flawless throughout. Don't get me wrong -- listening for these anomalies actually makes the experience very enjoyable for me; I love it...but why does the Beatles' producer insist that the versions with the mistakes are definitive? (Of course, I know of a few very famous exceptions to the rule -- "Please Please Me," "I Should Have Known Better," and "If I Fell" have some well-loved mistakes in stereo that are not present in mono.)

Having said all that, I think the stereo version of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is definitive. The Beatles went from clean-shaven, gray-suited moptops to mustachioed (thanks to Paul McCartney's wipe-out on a motorcycle), colorful musical innovators almost overnight. Seriously, the transition from 1966 Beatles to 1967 Beatles is like the transition of The Wizard of Oz from sepiatone to color. It only makes sense to admire The Beatles' new masterpiece in that newfangled stereo, especially with the panning effects used on "Good Morning, Good Morning" and "A Day In The Life." (The exception to my sentiments: "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds," which has some marvelous flanging effects in mono but not in stereo; the flanging was done manually and live during the mono mixing; the folks at EMI didn't want to deal with that hassle when they went back and did the stereo mix! The stereo remix on Yellow Submarine Songtrack brings the flanging back, though, and is very faithful to the mono version.) And the sound on the new stereo CD just seals the deal.

Today on the way to work I listened to the mono Revolver. While the overall sound isn't as good as I'd expect (again, too much middle and hardly any high -- setting the iPod EQ to "Treble Booster" does help, though), the music itself is more enjoyable. The artificial double-tracking on the vocals is much more noticeable in mono than on the stereo version, on which the two vocal tracks are panned across the stereo. (Exception: "Got To Get You Into My Life;" the ADT is barely audible.) The bass line is much more discernible -- trust me, you haven't heard nothin' if you haven't heard the bass in mono yet! Many of the guitar solos also have ADT on them, missing from the stereo version.

After Revolver finished, I cued up the mono Magical Mystery Tour. Of the mono CDs I've heard (I haven't listened to Please Please Me, A Hard Day's Night, Beatles For Sale or Help! yet), this is so far the best-sounding, even better than Sgt. Pepper's. Nothing notable to report in terms of mixing besides the good EQ, except that "Flying" seems to have a much longer fade-out than I'm used to, and "Blue Jay Way" sounds incredible. That's as far as I've gotten so far.

Overall, with what I've heard and seen from the mono box and the two stereo CDs I've purchased, my thoughts are as follows:

- I've read two, maybe three, not-so-excited reviews of the reissues. One said that the only "improvement" is that the new CDs are louder than the old. From the A/B'ing I've done with both the actual CDs and my iPod, this doesn't seem to be the case at all. I have a good set of ears, and I detected very little (if any) difference in volume.

- For the most part, the enjoyment of the mono stuff depends on the playback equipment. On an iPod and in my car stereo, it didn't sound great, but setting the EQ to "Treble Booster" improves things. Interestingly, With The Beatles, which sounds dull and muddy on pretty much everything, sounds a lot better on the tinny speakers in my MacBook.

- Just the packaging alone and the attention to detail makes the $200+ a bargain for the mono box.

- While the EQ isn't great on the mono box, the clarity is incredible.

- The stereo CDs are where you'll hear the biggest improvement. In the Chicago Tribune I mentioned in my previous note, the agreement of the four listeners was that Abbey Road was the worst-sounding. Heh...if that's the worst-sounding, then I'm dying to hear what the BEST-sounding is! The improvement on Abbey Road was astonishing for me. And seriously, when you hear the new stereo Sgt. Pepper's CD for the first time, make sure you're not driving -- you probably will drive off the road and hit a tree. I almost did -- and this was on Lake Shore Drive, where there are NO TREES. Yes, it was THAT GOOD that I almost hit a tree on a treeless road!!