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

The stereo remasters are all I could have hoped for. White Album is mind blowing.

the ones I found on the pirate bay have to be fake...they sound good but heavy in the left channel on every album?

Sooooo happy these are remasters and not remixes.

I was thinking just the opposite. I've heard these songs so often that I can't imagine remastering them will have any positive impact for me. We'll see.

I was thinking just the opposite. I've heard these songs so often that I can't imagine remastering them will have any positive impact for me. We'll see.

― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, September 5, 2009 11:15 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

I can't imagine you will be disappointed after hearing them--i felt the same way until i heard them. they are incredible, it really is like night and day, like removing centuries of grime from an old master painting or something. they are wild

like removing centuries of grime from an old master painting or something.

iago OTM. wasn't expecting much out of them besides some added clarity, maybe as good as Love. this is mind-numbing.

has the mono set leaked yet?

i'm buying these both anyway next week so for once I'm not really that jazzed about leaks, but still

I didn't want to buy these until I downloaded them and listened. Now I plan on buying most of them. I was sold after hearing the download. Can't wait to hear the mono mixes, then i'll decide which to get in stereo and which to get in mono. These truly are fantastic. Double OTM's to above accolades.

I'm not going to read through the whole thread to see if it's been mentioned already, but according to Amazon, they're going to make more than 10,000 copies of the mono set due to demand.

One of the songs that really benefits is "Birthday", which is one few Beatles songs that I've found skippable, at least until now. It's still been kind of ruined because I can't listen to it without visualizing a morning newscaster listing off famous people who have been born in the same day, but at least I have a newfound appreciation for the piano work in the song.

the mono box set is apparently limited and already scarce online for preorder, I think. not that I really believe anything beatles related is going to be a so limited emi can't sell a skidillion of them and make majillions of dollars.

The White Album sounds remarkable. Can't wait to listen to the rest of these.

i can't wait for the polls for most improved album, song, part--this is gonna go on a long time!

"Got to get you into my life" is just incredible in this new glorious mono.

Everything I'm reading so far says the White Album enjoys the most dramatic improvement, with Abbey Road close behind. Would have figured the remastering would have benefitted the earlier ones most, like Beatles for Sale. They sounded like total crap on the 87s.

i certainly dont think the white album sounds best. pepper, rubber soul, the 1963 stuff sounds better.

i agree with mr. frog, white album isn't knockin my socks off...so far, rubber soul is the revelation (for me)

I remember the rave reviews about the new-found clarity of 'Blackbird' back in 87. I'm going to take some convincing before parting with hard cash.

I unburied Paul.

Listening to these is making me sad. They are gorgeous and full of clarity, it's not that. But wishing all these old things were new reminds me that despite their being a center of mass attention again, they are old and the beauty died and all beauty dies and now I am going to sound ridiculous so let me just say again that they are making me sad and I cannot turn away.

I was going to make a sarcastic comment, but then i listened to Golden Slumbers and omg I know what you mean. These remasters are making me not hate Paul. That's how good they are.

still, I pity the guy who had to painstakingly remaster You Know My Name (Look Up The Number) and Maxwell's Silver Hammer over many years.

yeah I deserve snark for getting sappy but I've always kinda hated Rubber Soul and I don't anymore...the low end theory has worked wonders.

This is as good a job as the Dylan SACD's from a few years back, which i thought were the best 'remasters' i'd ever heard at the time. Similar thing with these of hearing new instruments in songs you've heard a thousand times.

Paul was always awesome, don't let his later product or occasional douchery ever make you forget that. And wasn't Maxwell's Silver Hammer a sly reference to playwright Joe Orton's murder, if true that makes the song kind of twisted and sick, a jolly novelty song about killing your lover with a hammer.

"even more twisted and sick,"

i really, really love 'you know my name'

it'd rather listen to it than, say, 'ive got a feeling' or 'savoy truffle' or some other uninspired rock thing

It's great that there's two versions now!

(Anthology!)

Rubber Soul is my vote for most improved upon. These leaks are going to spread the good word. I'm probably going to end up with many of these physical releases by the close of Holiday season this year....

yeah I deserve snark for getting sappy but I've always kinda hated Rubber Soul and I don't anymore...the low end theory has worked wonders.

― Houston (Euler), Sunday, September 6, 2009 4:22 PM (2 hours ago)

No you don't, I know just how you feel--these remasters hit you right in that happy-sad sweet spot. maybe it's because everything those songs epitomized now feels like ancient history

I think I understand what your getting at. Not to get too histrionic, but The Beatles symbolize one of those overarching pop events that unify a culture, we'll never have those again. It's a different world and those moments are no longer possible.

For me it's more that the Beatles themselves are gone, and yet we have these ghosts that sound so young and beautiful.

They're still pretty magical for children. I think the Aimee Mann thing in the NY Times may have been disturbingly on-point: give Sgt. Pepper to anyone under 10 years old and it's an amazing experience. After that...I'm afraid things have changed a lot since the 60's. I'm having fun singing "Yellow Submarine" with my two-year-old, but these remaster leaks aren't doing much for me.

PLEASE PLEASE ME = amazing! fluffed vocals and dodgy guitar on a number 1 smash!

this whole remasters campaign proves that if you do it *right* it will get people jazzed. that's the beatles for you i guess.

So do I need the mono stuff if I already have the stereo?

Totally feeling what Houston's feeling. Everyone's voices so assured but still... SO youthful. You can't front on this music, really. If I have one qualm right now is that the high end on RS and Revolver can verge on the harsh when guitars, hats and tamborines are going @ it all at once.

"Till There Was You" is revelatory.

looking forward to downloading the mono one.

― The Sorrows of Young Jeezy (jim), Tuesday, July 7, 2009 10:26 PM (2 months ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

otm. one of the worst-managed catalogues of all time.

In a way, yes. Not sure what I consider worst. Overkill a la Boney M, Elvis Presley, CCR and The Police or the opposite extreme a la The Beatles and Prince.

Also, overdubbing old tracks to make new tracks. Happened twice with the Beatles, happened loads with Bob Marley, for instance.

so help and rubber soul sound alright then? how are the mixes on those? they retained the "87 rebalancing" whatever that meant. Is the dgital reverb from the 87 cds gone? the mono box has the original mixes of those albums along with the mono.

i want mono early ones and stereo late ones and maybe both for SPLHCB. don't want to spend £200 for some old records too much. have been forced to burgularize them via the internet.

god knows which im going to buy but tempted to get at least a few of these.

Oh, probably none of them!

I was thinking of getting Abbey Road, as it's the only one I haven't got on CD, but then I've got it on LP, and olde cassette formats...

Pepperland sounds fucking amazing!

No but yeah but...

One thing re: these "remasters" - the bit in Eleanor Rigby where the voice switches channels mid-word would count as a technical cock-up, no? Because it is still on this remaster (leaked mp3s). I thought they had cleared up technical non-performance faults, so why not this? Or am I listening to some prank version?

Obviously I am a total cloth ears, but the only differences I think I have heard so far are louder/clearer drums and percussion/handclaps, possibly clearer voices, and... just about everything on Strawberry Fields, which could just be me never having listened properly before to what is basically The Magic Roundabout soundtrack (in my head).

Not that I really give a toss whether the Beatles ever reach the iTunes Store or not, but can anyone make sense of McCartney's comments quoted here:

So what's been the hold-up all this time? McCartney tells Observer Music Monthly: "We've been keen to do this for a while. I met Guy Hands on a plane once. His crew bought EMI. I refer to them as Terracotta but I believe it's Terra Firma. I said: 'What is the problem? I want to do it, we all want to do it.' And he explained that in the deal that we want, they feel exposed.

"If [digitised Beatles music] gets out, if one employee decides to take it home and wap it on to the internet, we would have the right to say, 'Now you recompense us for that.' And they're scared of that." We'll see …

Does he think the entire Beatles catlogue is somehow not on the internet already? What would this hypothetical employee leak?

CARNIVAL OF LIGHT!!!

Yeah, but they're talking about the existing catalogue, right?

Maybe McCartney finally ran out of memory.

LOL