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Section: Arts
Meet the Beatles, Again
By Anthony Chabala
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Abbey Road, remastered.
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About 234 years ago, Paul Revere rode his horse screaming, “The British are coming!” Over the centuries, they’ve kept coming, including the four lads from Liverpool who arrived on our shores in 1963. And even though the Beatles split up in 1969, in the hearts and minds of most Americans, they are here to stay.
The surviving band members and the widows of the deceased members, along with Apple/EMI, who own the Beatles catalogue, have a flawless strategy. Every year, just before Christmas, they put out an item that simply must be had by Beatlemaniacs young and old. Getting someone a Fab Four gift is as safe as a gift card; just about everyone loves them.
In past years we’ve been showered with DVDs, puzzles, board games, books, collectors’ mugs, men’s neckwear and even elaborate blankets. This year stands to make Yoko Ono, Paul McCartney, Olivia Harrison and Ringo Starr even more rich: everything the Beatles have ever recorded has been re-mastered and re-released.
While most master tapes created in studios are later stored in a cardboard box in one of the band member’s closets, the Beatles’ master tapes are stored in a vault even Daniel Ocean and crew could not plunder.
A team of the music industry’s finest engineers gathered at Abbey Road Studios, and equipped with the finest vintage and state-of-the-art digital equipment, spent four years recording, transferring, tweaking and otherwise perfecting all of the Beatles albums.
The final product? The greatest sounding Beatles recordings possible. There are two mixes available for most of the recordings: mono and stereo. The mono mixes are only available in a very costly box set that sold out immediately (only 10,000 numbered copies were initially printed), and the stereo mixes are available in both a box set and sold individually.
After listening to both box sets, I found that although the mono mixes were glorious, they lacked that extra character that the stereo mixes offered. I know, I know — this is sort of the point. The mono mixes were meant to represent exactly how the record was meant to be released and recorded. So for nostalgia purposes, they are perfect. But they really don’t bring anything new and exciting to albums that I have listened to hundreds of times each.
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The mono box set; images courtesy of EMI and Apple Corps Ltd., 2009.
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The stereo mixes, however, allow even the most avid Beatle-listener to discover new and mind-blowing sounds in songs they could easily replay, note for note, in their own heads.
If there is one Beatles record that you know well, pick up a copy of the stereo remaster. For me, The Beatles (better known as The White Album) has always been my drink of choice. There are subtle, yet glaring, alterations made to two of my favorite songs on this album that put a smile on my face.
The opening to the George Harrison/Eric Clapton masterpiece “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” has a sharper piano intro, and the sound of the hi-hat now has the effect of a full drum kit. My favorite Beatles tune, “Helter Skelter,” now has a muddy/distorted bass-line that makes a dark song feel even darker.
These remasters bring buried details to the front of the mix: backwards guitar in “Tomorrow Never Knows,” a clearer vocal for “Yesterday,” and the second half of Abbey Road pours out of the speakers as if the band was in the room.
All these recordings sound better through a great pair of headphones, where you can really sense the different mixes coming from the left and right, but one can easily notice a difference through any speakers or system.
Although the box sets initially sold out, the individual stereo remasters can be purchased easily. They include new artwork and liner notes, and are an amazing gift for any fan of music, 1960s British and beyond.
After the grandkids tire of Beatles Rock Band, play them these releases — and urge them to pick up a real guitar.
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