The Beatles In Mono on vinyl

The genius of this entry goes back three weeks ago to September 8th at least in the UK as  that was when a rather special set of vinyl lp records was issued in both individual and boxed set form with the box set featuring a big book with a history of the records , pictures of tape boxes and naturally enough, the artists themselves.

It is also a follow one to November 2012's music special that was timed to do with the stereo vinyl re-issues and how that slotted into my collection started in my earlier life.

The first thing to say is in this set there are 11 albums, the first 9 UK titles, the American compiled but later adopted in the UK Magical Mystery Tour and the new Triple Mono Masters compilation.

I opted to buy them individually as with a bit of searching I could get the whole set for much less than I anticipated and it's not every day you can get a set of brand new mono albums made directly from the tapes, the way they did in the 60's with not one jolt of digital processing involved.

An indication of the attention to detail in this set is the label above being a copy of the one used on the very first copies of the Please Please Me album from March 1963, the other UK original albums through Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band have period Yellow and Black labels with the White Album (aka "The Beatles") and the new Mono Masters triple having dark green Granny Smith Apple designs.

This one being American in origin has a replica Capitol colourband rim design as original Capitol lps did back then. Originally the songs from the film were issued in the UK on two 7 inch singles in a book and the stereo lp was eventually issued in November 1976 for that territory.

The sleeve construction owning a few originals is the same although the way the glossy lamination is achieved is different.

The White Album has individual issue numbers stamped on the front to each copy and top opening slots for each record, the four pictures and poster just like the originals did.

I have just one of them left to arrive but overall these sound at least as good as in number of instances better than my originals such as of the UK Revolver or early 80's extremely limited edition mono issues (the so-called '81's) like my copy of With The Beatles while I've never owned the White Album and Magical Mystery Tour in their mono  forms.

It seems using the tapes directly and altering the sound slightly per track while making the lacquers used to make the records has given them a transparency that has never been on any previous lps and in comparison with the Beatles in mono cd box set  is lacking from that.

While not  much processing  to the tone was done on the cd box set, it's obvious some tidying up like editing and click removing  was done digitally when you compare the actual records to the cds but it doesn't undermine the value of the cd set for those who prefer that media.

Why mono? Because for much of 60's the final mix was done first to mono, the one speaker systems most people had taking a lot of care with the impact and critically with the Beatles they were present during that process.

In the UK All the singles from Love Me Do to Get Back were only released in mono so the original mixes were the mono ones although from 1970's many compilation albums featured only stereo mixes done later.

In so far as original studio albums go the stereo mixes were done later usually by engineers in a half hour or so with no input from the Beatles so these mono mixes were more what they wanted their fans to hear and there are a good number of significant differences  between them with Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club band sounding more finished, nay arresting as a listening experience compared to the stereo.

It's important to note the first two UK albums were not recorded with any aim of making a stereo record so much as using two tracks to fine tune the balance between vocals and instruments later on which why in 'stereo' you have that odd backing in one speaker, vocals on the other effect. 

The final album in this series, Mono Masters is a triple album that has those singles with flip sides and other tracks not originally  released in the UK on album form from the original single mix of Love Me Do to You Know My Name from the b side of the Let It Be via such singles as I Want To Hold Your Hand, I Feel Fine, Day Tripper, Hey Jude and the last UK mono single Get Back.

It also has the entire Long Tall Sally EP plus dedicated mixes made a projected EP of songs from the Yellow Submarine that were never issued given a separate lp side meaning if you don't need the stereo versions, the Yellow Submarine album isn't really needed as there were only two other songs that are on it by the Beatles and they were issued on previous albums anyway.

Like most people who bought it, I feel compared to the 7 inch singles the sound is that much fuller for having more vinyl space to accommodate the full range of loud and soft passages and low notes in this unique compilation. It also is more convenient too than flipping 45's every two and half to three minutes with the 6 sides covering fairly well defined eras in the group.

The records:
Please Please Me
With The Beatles *
A Hard Day's Night
Beatles For Sale
Help!
Rubber Soul
Revolver
Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band
Magical Mystery Tour
The Beatles (better know as the "White Album"**
Mono Masters.
*= Known to Canadians as Beatlemania with the beatles, the first album issued in North America.
** not issued in mono in Canada and the States, ever.

This set slots nicely into my collection replacing a number of copies whose sound I wasn't so happy with and enabled me to remove a couple of albums whose contents are now totally replicated in better sound, generally tidying matters up.

Beatles on Hols

August 1978 was an eventful period for me as a fourteen year old boy as we'd gone on our hols and this year we were in Aberystwyth on the north west Wales coast which is a university town.

As a teen I already had an interest in music and spent part of a morning in record shop where apart from getting my first copy of one Beatles album I learned that students liked to have them sent home so actually the shop just kept the covers for display and sent an ordered copy to you!  

It was also the week All You Need is Cash starring The Rutles was shown on the BBC.

Their were a number of trusted budget labels which for popular music included EMI's Music For Pleasure and the Pickwick group and while in a branch of W H Smiths one morning that week I spotted this album.

In the early days of the Beatles they had been recorded mainly as a backing band to Tony Sheridan a popular singer who also performed in Hamburg in the then West Germany and one song, My Bonnie was the single requested by a few early fans that lead to Brian Epstein making inquiries into them and becoming their manager. 

This was while Pete Best was the drummer before being replaced by Ringo Starr.

Those recordings had been issued a number of times but were on Contour a budget label in the Pickwick Group that had recordings from the Polydor and Philips catalogue.

They had it in stock on record, eight track cartridge a tape format that was on the wain and cassette which was non dolby and had orange labels and it was that I bought playing on a sky blue portable Prinz shoe box recorder I'd had since early 1972.

Several years ago I did get the record edition as my tape had long disappeared as apart from these being the earliest studio recordings, they despite what it says on the label are true stereo and sound amazing.

The Best of George Harrison with a blast of Ringo Starr

This week we look at a couple of budget lps that I bought a short a while back.

This was always a favourite album of mine during the 70's and early 80's having gone through tape and record editions.

Here's a bit of time capsule:

In late 1967 the Beatles establish "Apple" a 'do anything we think is groovy' company and one of its' first divisions is records from late 1968 onward their releases are on their very own label. In time they add a variety of other artists usually people they encountered professionally and after the demise of the Beatles as a recording group, the individual beatles issue sole recordings all on Apple.

Fast forward to late 1975 and the Apple is winding down with most of the labels acts resigned to other more mainstream labels and the surviving Beatles have lost their interest in the label.

Ringo establishes his own label with its own distribution arrangements, John Lennon decided he wants to spend time outside music becoming a house-husband, George has established Dark Horse records and Paul has signed to Capitol/Parlophone directly.

In this closing down process Apple decided to issue compilations by John, George and Ringo around 1975 thru '76.

John and Ringo's were fairly straight forward collections of singles and the odd album track but George's was very different.

Maybe it was marketing getting cold feet but for this the Best of George Harrison issued in 1976 somebody decided they need a sides-worth of Beatle tracks to sell it, something ruffled George and his fans no end.

Be that is it may, what that side actually does is show the lyrical, philosophical and musical developmental of George who in the understandable fascination with Lennon and McCartney sometimes gets overlooked for his contributions.

In Something and If I Needed Someone he examines the depth of relationships, Think For Yourself is a rallying call for free thought and in While my Guitar Gently Weeps remains a classy blues number.

The second side may of been a disappointment quantity-wise, but it has some of my favourites 45's from the early 70's such as My Sweet Lord, Bangladesh-the band aid style single if its day - Give Me Love and What Is Life from the acclaimed All Things Must Pass triple album.

I used to own the Parlophone first issue lp as cut by NickW but recently picked up this later reissue with a different sleeve - the US sleeve showed a more 'Cosmic' George - cut by Harry Moss on one side (-3' HTM' side 1 -2 Side 2) that sounds much better.

This was Ringo's that also concentrates on that commercial successful 1970-74 period in the same series of Music For Pleasure re-issues that included studio albums by John Lennon.

For people like me who loved those singles as child in the early 70's this album with better new artwork but keeping the original mastering is just great for songs like It Don't Come Easy and Photograph.