The Beatles In Japan and on Extended Play

In two weeks time I shall be getting a small cd box set that has been issued in Japan to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the first Beatles discs being issued in that country.

This is a good overview of the set showing the box with a slide out well holding the discs complete with a hundred page booklet about how they fitted in with Beatlemania in mid nineteen sixties Japan and a pack of the OBI's that hold Japanese information about discs which any album over there has, replicating the feel.

Printed on the back of the box is a breakdown of the albums included and pictured underneath is the OBI for this set in all its glory.

Moving on to the discs themselves they are held in high quality card covers that replicate in full the original lp jackets with front and rear printing plus printed spins to find the item with the actual discs in protective inner sleeves and a resealable see through cover over each.

Three of these albums, Meet The Beatles, Second Album and No. 5 are unique to Japan compilations that were released originally in mono although two borrow titles and much of the front cover art from US ones.

The Japanese edition of Second Album unlike it's North American namesake has fourteen tracks rather than twelve and mixes tracks from the UK Please Please Me and With The Beatles albums complete with their latest single, Can't Buy Me Love.

While the first two albums were in mono, the third, the UK based A Hard Day's Night album that unlike United Artists release isn't a sound track was issued only in stereo with a very different cover to the photomontage of film cels used on the UK edition.

Interestingly the first time the whole album was released on compact disc in stereo was on September 9th 2009.

There was an album issued after that, a slightly different sleeved edition of the December ninety sixty four Beatles For Sale album but they didn't lead with that for this set.

Instead they lead with Help which is again unlike the US edition not the soundtrack but an album with a side of songs from the film and seven new recordings compiled in the UK which again was originally stereo only.

One interesting touch is unlike the UK edition, this is a gatefold which is reproduced exactly for this cd issue with a picture from the film set on the reverse.

It is also interesting to note this is the first intentional stand alone version of the British album on compact disc to feature the original nineteen sixty-five stereo mix rather than the nineteen eighties digital remix.

A few thousand Canadian discs did in the early nineties nineties sneak out with this mix but for most it first saw light of day as a stereo bonus on the Help album in the Beatles In Mono box set of two thousand nine.

 

Finally back to a Japan original that mixed songs from the nineteen sixty-four Long Tall Sally album with single B sides and material from the first two UK albums in a strange mixture.

From this point on Japan's beatles album matched the UK editions although in nineteen seventy six in a massive Beatles re-release some US albums complete with the three Japan only Beatles titles  were issued in the "EAS" series with British releases forming the core.

I bought this to go with a box of replica extended play discs that was originally issued in nineteen ninety-two.

Extended play (or E.P.'s) were a seven inch usually forty five  rpm discs that came in a glossy colour picture cover that were popular with youngster who couldn't afford albums because they were a half way house in an era where in the UK most singles came in generic record label bags rather than picture sleeves.

I remember buying this must of been 2007 but actually I had owed on vinyl a number of these titles such as Yesterday which I got in December 1979 and Extracts from the film "A Hard Day's Night" in March of 1980 as I loved the covers and the mono mixes.

Basically it comprises of the 13 original EP's re-issued on CD and the 1981 bonus disc from that years vinyl EP collection.

Because nearly all the EP's were only issued in mono that's how most of the EP's are presented.

For a variety of reasons including tape head misalignment, use of stereo tape equipment to play mono tapes and indifferent mastering, the 1987 CD versions of Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard day's Night and Beatles for Sale had very poor sounding mono sound (and no stereo).

This set contains 12 of the 14 tracks from the UK Please Please Me album including Misery and There's A Place in high quality mono.

From With The Beatles only Money and All My Loving are featured.

8 out of the 13 songs from A Hard Day's Night are featured on two dedicated CD's as are 8 of the 14 from Beatles For Sale.

In that way it provides for the lack of Beatles For Sale in this years Japanese box with the mono mixes sounding the best I've heard them on cd, to me even surpassing the Beatles in Mono box set which while more extensive is dearer.

While the stereo A Hard Day's Night is a very good mix, the mono has differences and sounds superb here.

This set is currently only one of two only official sources of Yesterday, Act Naturally, It's Only Love, You Like Me Too Much, Nowhere Man, Michelle and two other tracks from the UK Rubber soul and Help albums in mono (the other being the 2009 limited edition "The Beatles in Mono" box set which is a lot more expensive).

While a case can be made for the mono Help album for the versions of Help and Ticket To Ride that were released on the singles, that album is murky sounding in mono, but beautifully clean in stereo throughout.

The four tracks on the Yesterday EP are both different mixes and are better than much of that album in mono.

This EP set contains Magical Mystery Tour, which originally was only issued as a double EP set on vinyl in mono and stereo.

The stereo version has different mixes compared to the 1971 mix done for the German market which was issued in 1987 on CD all around the world.

I would have to say it sounds very good with lots of presence and is my "Go to" for those non singles songs

It has the original mono versions which prior to 2009 otherwise were not available and has the 24 page booklet which the CD issue dispensed with too.


The bonus stereo CD: The stereo version of She's A Woman has the “one, two three four” count in missed out on the version on the Past Masters 1 CD, This Boy sounds a lot fuller and Baby You're A Rich Man from Magical Mystery Tour album sounds much better.

I'd recommend this set to anybody looking for good mono sound and the best Magical Mystery Tour you can get.