Can't Buy Me Box Sets

[John Carvill]

NP, really, but this (p)review of the forthcoming Beatles Remasters,
by Alan Kozinn, is very much worth reading.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/arts/music/06alla.html?_r=1&ref=television&pagewanted=all

Requires NYT registration so I'll quote the text here. Apologies for
wasting space, for those who aren't Beatles fans. Or should that be,
those who aren't Beatles fans, apologise....



September 6, 2009
Long and Winding Road, Newly Repaved

By ALLAN KOZINN
THE newly remastered CDs of the Beatles’ original albums and singles,
which EMI and Apple Corps, the Beatles’ company, are releasing on
Wednesday, have less of a gee-whiz factor than The Beatles: Rock Band,
which hits stores on the same day. But for those of us for whom the
music is paramount — and who will forever refer to Rock Band as “the
toy” — the game is a plastic tail wagging a cartoonish dog. And though
the compact disc, as a format, may be on its deathbed, these
remastered CDs are really the main event.

The complete catalog, in mono and stereo, has been given a careful
digital upgrade. These are straightforward transfers of the albums as
they were released in Britain, rather than the American versions,
which were reconfigured by Capitol Records (to the Beatles’ chagrin).
Do not look for bonus tracks: the only extras are making-of
documentaries on each of the stereo discs. And although the stereo and
mono mixes could have fit together on single CDs, in most cases EMI is
selling them separately.

The up side: In most cases this music has dimension and detail that it
never had before, and the new packaging reflects each album’s musical
and cultural importance. Over all, the new discs sound substantially
better than the Beatles’ original CDs, which EMI issued in 1987. The
most striking and consistent improvements are a heftier, rounded,
three-dimensional bass sound, and drums that now sound like drums,
rather than something in the distance being hit. But because each
album has its own sonic character, due partly to developments in
recording technology during the Beatles’ career, and partly to the
growing complexity of their work, some discs are improved more
radically than others, and some are hardly improved at all.

Probably the most revelatory of the new transfers is the stereo White
Album. From the opening jet engine effects on “Back in the U.S.S.R” to
the final orchestral chord on “Good Night,” this album now leaps from
the speakers. Gentler songs like “Julia” and “I Will” have a lovely
transparency, and hard rockers like “Yer Blues” and “Helter Skelter” —
as well as John Lennon’s quirky vision of dystopia, “Revolution 9” —
have a power and fullness unheard until now.

“Abbey Road” also benefits considerably. The clearer instrumental
profiles serve this rich-textured album beautifully: “Sun King” and
“Here Comes the Sun” are unusually supple; the vocal on “You Never
Give Me Your Money” no longer has a shrill edge, and Lennon’s
proto-Minimalist “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)” has never sounded more
mesmerizing. Nor has the group’s valedictory jam in “The End.”

And if you are cherry-picking among these reissues, the two-CD singles
compilation “Past Masters” should be near the top of your list. The
stereo mixes of these songs are often less hard hitting than the mono
singles were, but the remastered versions, with their enriched bass,
palpable drum sound and improved sense of vocal presence, no longer
sound anemic. You find yourself discovering textural details (the
percussion overlay in “She’s a Woman” is one such surprise) that show
how imaginative the Beatles’ arrangements are.

It’s about time. In 1987 the elation of finally getting the group’s
classic recordings on CD, four years after the format was introduced,
quickly gave way to disappointment with the discs’ sound quality and
presentation. Like many early CDs, several (though not all) of the
Beatles’ discs had a harsh upper range. And except for “Sgt. Pepper’s
Lonely Hearts Club Band,” which was put in a deluxe package with liner
essays and archival photos, the 1987 CDs came with minimal, slapdash
artwork.

Collectors who had long prized both the mono and stereo mixes of the
group’s albums, which have different attractions (and sometimes
different vocal takes and instrumental details), and had hoped that
EMI would find a way to release both mixes on CD, were upset that the
1987 series offered the first four albums only in mono and the rest
only in stereo. In one sense all of the group’s music had made the
transfer; in another, about half the catalog was missing.

In a way it still is: the stereo recordings are available either
individually for $18.98; $24.98 for double albums, or boxed (as “The
Beatles”) for $259.98. But the mono albums can be had only in a
13-disc boxed set, “The Beatles in Mono,” for $298.98, which covers up
to the White Album (the last album the group mixed in mono) and
includes a mono version of the “Past Masters” singles compilation that
includes previously unissued mono mixes of “Across the Universe” and
songs from the “Yellow Submarine” soundtrack.

The Beatles and their producer, George Martin, considered the mono
mixes definitive, and you don’t have to be a Beatles completist to see
why. “She’s Leaving Home,” which drags sappily on the stereo “Sgt.
Pepper,” is faster on the mono album, which also has a decidedly more
psychedelic sounding “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds,” a punchier “Good
Morning, Good Morning” and a sizzling reprise of the title song.
“Magical Mystery Tour” is far more solid and detailed in mono, and the
White Album is packed with details you don’t hear in the stereo mix.
But by making them available only in a collectors’ box, EMI has made
it impossible for many listeners to sample one or two.

To produce the new CDs, EMI returned to the mono and stereo masters
prepared for the group’s vinyl releases in the 1960s, which the label
says have remained in pristine condition. These are the same tapes EMI
used in 1987, but analog-to-digital technology has improved
considerably since then, making it possible to get a much more
fine-grained, high-resolution digital transfer. And where the 1987
transfers were done quickly, the new set was assembled over four
years, with different teams working on the mono and stereo recordings.

As in 1987 there are two exceptions to the “’60s masters only” rule:
the stereo “Help!” and “Rubber Soul” discs use the remixes that Mr.
Martin made for the 1987 CDs. It may seem inconsistent to present
these remixes as the de facto standards, given that Allan Rouse, who
oversaw the project, has said that the goal was to produce a series of
CDs that sound as close as possible to the ’60s master tapes.

But Mr. Martin’s updates largely match the placements and balances of
the originals, and because they were made from the multitrack session
tapes, instruments and vocals sound strikingly fresher than in the
1965 versions (which are included in the mono box). Perhaps not
surprisingly, given their digital origins, the new “Help!” and “Rubber
Soul” CDs, though slightly louder than their 1987 counterparts — as
all the new discs are — are identical in matters of timbre and
definition. The group’s experimental “Revolver” and “Magical Mystery
Tour,” and its back-to-basics “Let It Be,” if not as lapel-grabbing as
the upgrades of the White Album and “Abbey Road,” nevertheless benefit
from the more distinct instrumental and vocal profiles of the new
transfers.

“Sgt. Pepper,” oddly, is a mixed bag. Instrumental textures are
crisper and cleaner, and the bass is firmer. And songs like “Getting
Better” have shed the piercing treble sound that afflicted the 1987
version. Yet several songs — “Fixing a Hole” and “She’s Leaving Home,”
among them — now sound flatter, or less dynamically fluid, than they
did on either the 1987 CD or a good British LP.

Among the early albums I have always loved the wide stereo separation
of “Please Please Me” and “With the Beatles” — despite its vigorous
condemnation by Mr. Martin (which is why they have not been available
on CD) — because it lets you hear exactly what’s happening in both the
instrumental and vocal arrangements. Those albums sound superb, as do
the better-balanced “Hard Day’s Night” and “Beatles for Sale.”

Few listeners are likely to replace their CDs for the sake of new
cover art, but it is a distinct attraction. The stereo discs come in
three-panel (four for the “White Album”) laminated sleeves, with
booklets that include the original liner notes and lyrics (if they
came with the LP), contemporaneous photos and new essays about what
the Beatles were up to when they made the album at hand and (more
cursorily) how the recordings were produced. The discs are pressed on
reproductions of the various Parlophone, Capitol and Apple labels on
which the albums first appeared.

The video documentaries, embedded as computer-playable QuickTime files
on the stereo CDs, draw largely on interviews recorded for “The
Beatles Anthology” (1995) and offer a few surprises. With the
exception of Mr. McCartney, for example, the group had an almost
perversely dismissive attitude toward “Sgt. Pepper.” Ringo Starr says
he preferred the group dynamic on the White Album (even though he quit
in frustration during the sessions) and “Let It Be” (when the band was
at its most fractious). The stereo box also includes a DVD compilation
of these video clips.

The mono discs lack the documentaries (and the DVD) and are packaged
as copies of the original albums. The covers are accurate down to the
quaint way EMI LP jackets were assembled in the ’60s (with glued-down
cardboard flaps on the back). Extras like the White Album poster and
portraits, and the “Sgt. Pepper” cutouts, are included too, as is a
44-page book of historical notes and pictures.

In the 22 years since the release of the original, mediocre CDs, just
about all of the Beatles’ great contemporaries — the Rolling Stones
and Bob Dylan among them — have had their catalogs upgraded as
technology has changed. Beatles fans have been begging EMI to do the
same, and although the wait has been long, the new transfers are so
good that this thrice-familiar music sounds fresher than ever.

Now EMI should consider moving the catalog to a truly high-definition
format, like Blue Ray DVD, adding newly remixed Surround versions like
those on “The Beatles Anthology.” With the 50th anniversary of the
Beatles’ first hit coming in 2012, there isn’t much time to waste.