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

didn’t mean to sound all mean there lol

I'd love to conduct a blind test to see how many people can actually detect the differences between vinyl, streaming, CD, etc.

I'll tell you what's a worthwhile Revolver mix to hear: the one of Got to Get You into My Life from early 70s Apple issue in the US
Wow, that's the copy I bought for $5 in the mid-90s and I never knew it sounded any different. I just played it compared to whatever's on Spotify now and he's right.

I’ve always been a bit 50/50 on that song but I think it’s tipped me over

This is kinda cool too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VE5P7hMkGI

streaming is a much less reliable and more mutable archive than any physical media that came before it, and you're at the mercy of what a record company has provided and what catalogs said streaming service are subscribed to.

right, and my point was that, given these circumstances, when will it become feasible to be the kind of listener who scrutinizes competing remasters while engaging primarily with streaming? i mean, it sounds like it's already happening. i was just sort of noting that this is a shift and that it hadn't occurred to me to engage with streaming in this way.

i should really be specifying spotify, though, since there are many labels on bandcamp that offer releases for streaming with great liner notes that encourage you to engage with *this particular* transfer / remaster / version of a recording. i do think there's something about spotify's interface that discourages that kind of engagement, on purpose, which is why i wouldn't recommend it for somebody who needs to hear, like, the mono mixes of whatever record.

well you can sometimes, it just depends on what the label has available on streaming, which usually isn't exhaustive. a lot of the 60s canon does have mono mixes available on streaming, the beatles have just taken a particularly baffling approach having never made their mono mixes available for digital download or streaming, except for sgt. pepper's which was included on the super deluxe a few years back

idk that i've ever encountered the problem you have where you run into something purporting to be what you want but it's actually a bootleg or something, brad otm about all that

the only people i'm aware of who are reflexively distrustful of streaming live on this website

― flamenco drop (BradNelson)

wait, you can stream live on this website? shit, i didn't know you could livestream on ilx!

(kidding, that was a joke, i was deliberately misreading what you said for the sake of a joke)

New mix of take 1 of Tomorrow Never Knows now streaming. Haven’t A-B listened to it with the Anthology one but it does sound pretty monumental.

sounds a little more centred but barely any meaningful difference

The central crashing tape loop sounds much more prominent to me.

Just misread that as "central casting."

yeah this is not appreciably different on first listen.

Love this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVyRGThtTzA

Yeah, a very different song hidden in there all these years

a+

never thought abt it but makes sense the verse is John and chorus is Paul

crazy hearing the Paperback Writer riff recycled in Got To Get You Into My Life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr10YnGM6Gs

Love this version. Man oh man.

Ray Davies reviews "Revolver" in Disc & Music Echo, July 30, 1966. pic.twitter.com/wsJQsBFRhG

— The Paul McCartney Project (@mccartneyproj) October 23, 2022

I love stuff from the time like this, especially if it's from someone like Ray Davies.

Of course he likes I'm Only Sleeping and Good Day Sunshine - they both sound like songs he might have written himself. Funny how wrong he gets George Martin in the Tomorrow Never Knows bit. And when he said he didn't think the fans liked the "newer electronic stuff" what do you think he's referring to? Interested what "electronic" meant to someone like him in July 1966.

Ray was never particularly interested in "electronic stuff," nor seemingly the least bit curious about it. While McCartney was digging Stockhausen, and while Townshend was giving lectures at art colleges about tape manipulation (a young Brian Eno attended one and decided, "That's just crazy enough to work!"), Davies really couldn't be bothered. The backwards piano at the end of "Autumn Almanac" (a year after Revolver) and the sped-up voices on "Wonderboy" (supposedly a favorite of Lennon's) and "Phenomenal Cat" are the extent of anything remotely approaching any kind of sonic experimentation or risk-taking of that sort in the Kinks' katalog.

But what do you think the Beatles’ “electronic stuff” was for him at this stage?

Tomorrow Never Knows iirc

And the backwards tapes on "Rain" and "I'm Only Sleeping," and bits like the vaguely musique-concrete intro to "Taxman."

Also, Davies owns the "Carnival of Light" acetate.

What is going on in the Kinks’ “Lazy Old Sun”? Something feels “electronic” about that.

Sounds like a Mellotron with the pitch knob being turned. Though I don't think I've heard a Mellotron in such a low register anywhere else.

Funny how wrong he gets George Martin in the Tomorrow Never Knows bit.

but he gets the 1990s dead right with "It’ll be popular in discotheques"

man "Got to Get You Into My Life" is probably my favorite song of theirs & that take is good stuff.

also strongly prefigures Getting Better, with that chop-chop-chop-chop guitar riff that pops up periodically. almost like they found another direction for this song, but were still looking for a venue for that arrangement.

yeah that hammering guitar mantra is one of my favourite Beatles riffs ever

love this

The new stereo mix is pretty great. I just read a BBC interview with Giles where they mention "that the idea is to preserve their songs for a new generation who primarily listen on headphones, where the original hard-panned version of 'Taxman' is awkward and disorientating." Go back and forth between the original stereo mix and the new mix, and the new mixes definitely sound like they're a thousand times more thought-out.

Looking forward to Rubber Soul which should be inevitable. Both the stereo mix and the 1987 remix are virtually twin-track style mixes - would be great to finally hear a complete set of proper stereo mixes for that album (as well anything they released in 1963).

always listen to beatles in mono, good news if there's finally a decent stereo mix!

yeah I didn't know how, in 45 odd years, I never noticed that guitar riff in GTGYIML is straight from Paperback Writer; I guess because it's only played once in the final released version, it's more overt when you hear it over and over.

Had the same thought. Agreed, it just feels like a little bit of improvised texture in the released version.

Ray was never particularly interested in "electronic stuff"

Though he did get inspiration for new melodies by playing tapes of some of his old songs backwards.

yeah I didn't know how, in 45 odd years, I never noticed that guitar riff in GTGYIML is straight from Paperback Writer; I guess because it's only played once in the final released version, it's more overt when you hear it over and over.

I thought the finished track was a great example of George's impeccable taste - i.e. how to serve the songs - but now that we know the riff was played/recorded through the whole thing, I wonder how the decision was made to limit that part to only the end?

Though he did get inspiration for new melodies by playing tapes of some of his old songs backwards.

Eventually even that became too much work, and he just played the tapes forwards.

was paperback writer written and recorded prior to this song? or were they roughly the same time? possibly they just had that riff and it went into whichever song got 'finished' first

GTGYIML was started on April 7, but it was that meh version with the organ on Anthology 2, devoid of riffage. "Paperback Writer" was recorded a week later, April 13 and 14. Presumably between April 7 and April 13 the riff was tried for "Got," then because they needed a single right away, repurposed for "Paperback."

I totally forgot that three Revolver tracks were actually released early in the U.S. - I think the only time that happened with any album tracks from the Beatles' UK albums? - because Capitol needed more material to fill out one of their butchered releases. I guess they rush mixed those songs due to Capitol's deadline, then mixed them better and properly for the UK version of Revolver.

I completely love the organ version on Anth 2 so so so much

I love that that GTGYIML is about THE SKANK

Listened to the new remix of Taxman vs the original mix, and the new one absolutely slays. I guess I’m going to have to get this one, after successfully resisting the Sgt Pepper to Abbey Road run.

Of all the interviews he's been doing for this set, I kind of like Giles's answers here the best:

Q: Do you know if there was any concern from the record label, from management, whatever, that the Beatles might be committing career suicide putting out a record like Revolver in 1966?

Giles Martin: Well, I think the Beatles had a couple of advantages. First of all, they were the Beatles! (laughs) And second, their singles weren't on their albums. So, their albums were kind of treated like different things. People have this idea that the Beatles sort of turned their backs on wanting to be successful. Of course, that's not the case. They continued to be successful, but they pushed their albums harder, and then they would go, “OK, ‘Paperback Writer’ is the single.” That was the way they did things. They had the buffer of having these really successful songs that weren't on the albums, and then thought, “We can do whatever the hell we want on our albums. And this is what we're going to do.”

I mean, the Beatles didn't happen by accident. If you get to know Paul McCartney, he is a really intelligent man. These guys were all super-bright and knew what they were doing. They know what their market is, if you can be so crass say that. And I think that they went, “OK, we've been the best pop band, we've been the toppermost of the poppermost, and we've been the most successful live band” — which they were, the first stadium band — “and now we're going to be the biggest recording band in the world.” And Revolver is what they did in order to achieve that and push boundaries. As my dad used to say, they never made Jaws 2. If they’d done it once, they didn’t have to do it again. And Revolver is the ultimate example of that, in that it sounds like seven or eight different bands.

That’s a great interview, and all the interviews I’ve read with Giles show that he’s the perfect person for the job: an insider from the beginning who is nonetheless a massive fan, but not obsessive in a way that might cloud his judgment.

Except

When my dad signed the Beatles,

George not up to speed with the film world either, it seems.

I think the quote means, "the Beatles never made the album equivalent of Jaws 2".

I think Giles is great - the LOVE album is absolutely incredible - and he's a great face for the Beatles, but there have been times when I wish he, or someone on his team, had been a bit more "obsessive". This *will* sound silly, but the removal of the "pleh" at the end of I'm So Tired for example. I know it's nothing new for Apple to remove little noises (John chewing gum), repair drop-outs (Day Tripper) or smooth out edits (She Loves You), but to actually shave off an ending of a song and remove something nice and weird - something Paul or Ringo won't notice when approving the mix, but fans will - is a shame. I don't think cutting an element out of Beatles track is decision anyone has the authority to make, even if it is about half a second long.

*I also don't think he's right about A Day in the Life's "AAAH" being John. I feel strongly that it is most likely Paul. It makes me sound pompous - why wouldn't he know - but then, how would he know for sure?*

The removal of pleh was stupid. Best ambiguous sound on any album ever (I like the theory it was Julian)