I have had it up to here waiting for the Beatles catalogue to be remastered

What's the Lewisohn book called? Amazon carries a lot of books by him, all with different but similar titles.

The one I'm reading is the Complete Beatles Chronicle. Though I guess there's a newer expanded edition than the one I'm reading now. He also wrote that complete recording sessions book which I want but don't have.

iirc the chronicle is the sessions book expanded and with extra stuff so chronicle is the one to get i believe. i don't think there's much missing, if anything from the sessions book that's not in the chronicle. someone will be able to tell us i'm sure.

At the store, the sessions book looks a lot thicker and more data-heavy than the Chronicles book I own. But maybe the Chronicle reissue combines everything into one mega-volume? I dunno...

Is that Lewisohn book available in both mono and stereo?

Hi Tim!

I DLed a PDF of the Sessions book with little effort. Have not read beyond the initial Paul interview yet. Maybe I will look for a file of the Chronicles one as well...

I think VegemiteGrrrl is pretty much spot on as far as songwriting goes. Obviously the competition, the chemistry, the input from the others, it made the songs better, and maybe also the arrangements.
But I still think it's wrong to say that it's much of a matter of the Beatles as instrumentalists. It's more a matter of their creative input as composers and arrangers. Paul McCartney did indeed work with better instrumentalists on those three albums he made with George Martin, and also the two Rockestra tracks on "Back To The Egg". And, yes, they also played better, and they had "feel" enough. But the songs would never get as strong anymore as they were at his best back in the Beatles day.

oh god rockestra hahahaha i forgot about that shit

Chronicles, plus Sessions, is out there, you just have to hunt for it. I love Sessions, haven't read Chronicles yet...

I didn't know about Rockestra... after checking out some YouTube vids, I'm wondering about Paul's competitive streak. Do you think that after the Beatles he was setting out to try and top them? And I don't mean it in a cynical way, but his work after the Beatles seemed to be really reaching for 'new heights'...'everyone will be amazed by this'. But as a counter,I wrestle with that idea, because there is the fact that Paul was creative, was big into arranging, so maybe it's just a logical progression of the creative urge that he would just keep mining new inspirations and idea. Ugh. Okay it doesn't sound like a question now that I've written it down. Grr.

Got Past Masters today. Nick was right...Disc 2 is great! Can't stop listening. On 'Hey Jude' I actually jumped a little when Paul started singing...it's like he's standing right THERE. So great to hear it again now so loud and crisp, and clean. Jesus. And 'Don't Let me Down' brings goosebumps now.

I should probably pick that up tomorrow.

Get thee to the buying place.

All I have left to pick up is Yellow Submarine. They should just rename that fucking thing "Here's 'Hey Bulldog' for 15 bucks". I'm deeply annoyed that those 4 songs weren't included on Past Masters.

So, come the day that the official downloads start, will "Hey Bulldog" get out-of-proportion sales?

I wouldn't be surprised. They should have just released a single w/Bulldog as the A side and It's All Too Much as the B side.

They were gonna put out an EP with the new songs but the record company wanted to sell the public on a full album. It would have been crazy awesome to have the White Album come out followed shortly by an EP!

Can the remastered Hey Bulldog compare to the remixed Hey Bulldog on the Songtrack?

Yeah, exactly. It's not like I'm buying the damn thing for George Martin's soundtrack.

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-bluebeat7-2009nov07,0,5668337.story

A federal court in Los Angeles this week issued a temporary restraining order against a music website that recently had been offering the entire Beatles catalog for downloading at 25 cents per song. The Santa Cruz-based BlueBeat earlier in the week was hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit by EMI's Capitol Records, the group's U.S. label.

The order set back a novel legal argument by BlueBeat that songs produced through digital regeneration are akin to songs performed by cover bands and therefore do not run afoul of copyright law. BlueBeat had argued in court filings that its downloads were legal because the company had created entirely new versions by computer through a process called "psychoacoustic simulations" that makes the re-created songs sound just like the original recordings.

"We analyze them and then synthesize new songs, just as you would read a book and write an article," said BlueBeat Chief Executive Hank Risan. The site's "intention is to create a live performance, as if you are there listening to the actual performers doing the work as opposed to a copy or a phonorecord or CD of the work."

But the court didn't buy it. On Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge John F. Walter sided with EMI. "Plaintiffs have . . . produced sufficient evidence demonstrating that (the) defendants copied protected elements of their recordings," the ruling said. "Indeed, screen shots from BlueBeat's website show track titles with the same names as the plaintiff's copyrighted works..."

god bless santa cruz.

finally got the Mono Box set for Christmas,after a day of listening to PPM, Revolver & the Beatles I have to say it was worth the wait.

will spend more time with it but the overall quality of the packaging and the remastering in general goes a long way to justify the price tag / blatant racketeering.

Including the original dust jackets but using plastic jackets for the CDs is a good example.

not sure I'd feel the same way about a plastic apple with a few lossless rips in it.

I got the mono box for Christmas too! Absolutely OTM about it being worth the wait, and the packaging...putting them out as little mini albums was a very cool touch. An added bonus for me was playing some of the cds for my in-laws on Christmas day, my mother-in-law dancing around the kitchen to Twist N Shout, reminiscing with her husband about dancing to the song on their first date (they're both in their 70's). This is a woman who has trouble walking without a cane, and just the look of sheer happiness on her face as she reminisced over the old songs was SO great.

Good to hear there's someone else to get excited about it with me, a good 3 months after the rest of the world.

I decided that it had to be the stereo box set for my mum, because she was a big fan (even saw them in '63) but hasn't even heard a lot of the later albums. I'd love to join in with your tales of joy - but she, uh, hasn't even taken the cellophane off yet

oh man :/

Ha, it's not as bad as it sounds - I softened the blow by unleashing Beatles Rock Band on everyone in the evening, which is just about the most fun any of us have ever had!

Good to hear there's someone else to get excited about it with me, a good 3 months after the rest of the world.
i'm thinking (hoping) i'm getting this for my b-day in a couple weeks, so I'll be excited along with you. I'll start some new polls.

Count me in - I'm another Mono Box Set Xms recipient - blasted my way through the albums up to Rubber Soul and the first Masters disc yesterday - too much joy. Will be listening a bit obsessively over the next while, obv.

Hey, Tyler, my birthday's in a few weeks, too. What are we getting each other?

If you're going stereo, go for the usb hard drive. The 24 bit flac files are as good as it gets, or at least as good as they've given us so far.

http://www.amazon.com/Beatles-USB/dp/B002VH7P4O/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1261940590&sr=8-1

better than the CDs? man, i don't think I could spend over $200 on a USB drive ....

but it looks like the stem of an apple!

it sure does ...
I mean, I can see getting the drive if it was markedly cheaper than the CDs, but not more expensive ...

better than the CDs?

Slightly. The usb flac files are 44 khz sampling rate, 24 bit resolution. The cds are 44/16. (All cds are 44/16.)

The master digital files that they use in the studio, though, are 96/24, so they still ain't giving all they got. They'd need to put it out on blu ray for 96/24.

I only have the usb apple, not the stereo cd remasters, so I can't do a direct comparison. But those flac files kick like crazy.

haha, so the blu ray is probably imminent? mono & stereo box sets?

I think I was wrong above about the sampling rate used in the studio -- I think it was 192 khz.

Neil went blu ray. I haven't heard anything about the Beatles going that route. They are talking about vinyl though. (The big controversy: Will they use the digital masters or go back to the analog tapes?)

Cue a million people to tell me you can't hear the difference.

I think generally all the remasters kick like crazy.

I remember an audio lecturer of mine showing that at 24bit, the difference between bits is so small it can be created by a difference in temperature in the A>D converter.

not dissing the USB stick but just saying......

For those of you about to receive the box sets, I would recommend going through all of the anthology documentary on youtube.

the guy with the complete set is called excessaccess I think.

there is relatively little full performances so you still jones' for the songs but can put everything in context.

it does drum into you how playing for 6+ hours in Hamburg for weeks on end will forge an amazing rock'n'roll band, which you then can hear on the early remasters.

It might have been on this thread, WAY upthread...someone said comparitively, the Beatles achieved their entire output in the equivalent of 2000 to 2010. I mean, I know the sixties knocks the time analogy for a loop, but still. It blows me away everytime I think about it that way.

Also: my Beatlemania had gone into a more settled down mode after the early mania of the stereo remasters. the mono box has it back with a vengeance.

the early mania of the stereo remasters = ILM Beatlemania

now their appeal is more selective.

"They are talking about vinyl though. (The big controversy: Will they use the digital masters or go back to the analog tapes?)"

I have seen a bunch of vinyl reissues lately. Are they not remasters?

as far a i know, the remasters haven't come out on vinyl yet.

Vinyl remasters are coming in 2010, I have March/April in my head, but that may not be right.

Wow a lot of people are paying $29.99+ for vinyl reissues of the old masters. Hah.

lol...it's funny now, but who knows what they'll charge for the vinyl remasters... we could all be laughing on the other side of our wallets next year.

have worked my way through the mono box up to Pepper...holy wow. Lucy alone kind of spun my head a little bit. I think I might like the mono version more than the stereo. Well, right now at 6.30 on Tuesday night. That'll change tomorrow.

Does anyone know if the remasters are now standard for radio play? I've heard a good bit of Beatles on the air over the weekend, in particular one station playing the entirety of Abbey Road, and they sounded really good (and had many previously mono-in-US tracks in stereo).

I'd guess most radio DJs are all over this. It's not exactly going to be "under their radar".

I too have heard some massive-sounding Beatles tracks on the radio of late.

I remember radio started playing the CD versions of the old albums as soon as they appeared (mid-to-late 80s), so I am sure they have done this time around too. Mainly the stereo versions as they are the most "mainstream" ones these days.

radio changes the sound of things so much it's not really fair to judge them based on that.

I spent a 2 hour coach journey to the airport yesterday listening to mono-masters.

the first 5 tracks off disc 2 puts the album in the top 5% of all music.

McCartney's bass in rain possibly does that all by itself.

not going near Sgt. Pepper till Ive digested the other albums more thoroughly.

currently Hard Days Night is my toppermost of the poppermost.