It’s been more than a year since Apple Corps (not to be confused with Apple—as in iPhones) released an entirely remastered Beatles discography. I’m very, very late in reviewing this release, but I waited until now in the interest of my own personal safety because I, unlike most reviewers—including notoriously negative Pitchfork Media—was disappointed in this latest incarnation.
Let me preface this by saying that the 2009 remasters were far superior to the CD versions released in 1987. I don’t think there is any debate about that. The ‘80s versions were flat and boring and stupid compared to the vinyl versions and the versions that came out last year, which were supposed to recapture that vinyl sound. I should also note that I’m only referring to the stereo remasters. I’ve only heard the mono version of Sgt. Pepper, and I don’t think it’s appropriate to include it in this review.
Mostly, my disappointed stems from the fact that whoever remastered these tracks could have done a lot more to clean up the audio and make it sound amazing.
George Martin was able to capture sounds in the 1960s that just couldn’t be found in releases by other groups during the same era. Of course The Beatles had a ridiculous amount of money to spend diddling around in Abbey Road Studios, and that no doubt had some influence on the level of sound quality they could put on vinyl. Nevertheless, Martin and the group pushed the limits of the technology available in the 1960s like nobody else around (with the possible exception of Brian Wilson).
From the early days, Martin and the crowd felt compelled to experiment with cutting-edge technologies, from syncing four-track tape recorders to accommodate for eight tracks of sound and using tape delays to simulate double-tracked vocals to slowing down John Lennon’s vocals so that it was in the same key as the orchestra on “Strawberry Fields Forever.” Without getting into too many technical details, these guys were way into their sounds—beyond just laying down a few far-out licks and three-part harmonies.
So when I heard that George Martin and his son Giles were releasing a “reinterpretation” of Beatles music for Ciique du Soleil a few years ago, I was pretty curious. Previously, Paul McCartney managed to assemble a few producer friends to assemble and release Let it Be Naked. While kind of a weird interpretation that surgically removed most of the Phil Spector glitz from the original, marginal 1970 finale, the songs just seemed to pop in a way that made it clear that the entire Beatles collection could benefit from a serious remix/remaster.
Granted, the Naked version suffers from its own share of inadequacies (“The Long and Winding Road is still pretty boring), but “Across the Universe,” slowed down to its original recording speed and separated from weird vocal effects and background chorus singers—or whatever the hell that noise was—absolutely saturates the speakers. It’s almost like when you see pictures of dust bowl immigrants in high school, and then discover the same photos in color several years later, or something. There’s just so much more life in the Naked version. You can hear the imperfections in Lennon’s voice; you can make out the pick striking the guitar strings. Of course a lot is due to the absence of that annoying flange effect or whatever, but much is due to the going back and using modern equipment to clean up the original sounds.
Love simply sounds great. It really pops. The kick drum on “The End” that leads into “Get Back” just thuds with power, and “Back in the USSR” sounds way edgier than I could have imagined. These aren’t re-recordings; all the sounds are on the lackluster 2009 release and downright crappy 1980s versions. It’s like somebody actually listened to the master tapes and thought about how they could be improved instead of just trying to duplicate whatever got released in the 1960s. That is what I was hoping for in the remastered discography—a new, improved Beatles sound. And I don’t think I was crazy in my thinking, because nearly 15 years ago, another band from the same era did something similar.
And God damn! The stereo remaster of The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds sounds amazing! That album came out in 1966—the same year The Beatles recorded Revolver. I dare you to listen to the two—the 2009 remaster of Revolver and the 1997 Pet Sounds remaster—and tell me which one got the better treatment. When they remastered Pet Sounds, the engineers couldn’t find some of the original vocal tracks, but they released it anyway, and it sounds fantastic. The point here is that the Pet Sounds remaster wasn’t just a way to reproduce the 1960s sound (Brian Wilson didn’t even try to mix a stereo version of Pet Sounds) but to take the original recording and make something new and wonderful.
This is my disappointment in the Beatles remasters. They sound fine. But that’s it—fine, adequate. They aren’t that remarkable; they’re simply a replacement for the crappy versions that came out in the 1980s. Maybe Apple Records will come out with a reinterpretation of the Beatles catatlogue—presumably one album at a time—in five years or so, but it will only serve to keep Beatles in the news and push more sales for the record industry.
I understand the intent of this release was to deliver a digital version of the albums that sounded as close to the vinyl masters as possible. But the stereo versions weren't even considered definitive at the time. George Martin and the gang spent way more time on the mono versions because they knew those were the records people would be listening to. Most people in the 60s didn't have stereo equipment, and the stereo mixes, especially on earlier albums, weren't really taken seriously by the band. The Beatles weren't even present for most of the stereo mixing sessions, which is why the mono version of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" sounds so much different than the stereo version.
My question is why the these versions have to be the definitive versions, when they weren't in the first place. It seems to me that the producers could have taken the same approach as the Beach Boys did with the stereo re-release of Pet Sounds—clean up the mono versions and make them sound just like the originals, and then release cool new stereo versions that sound great. Maybe in five years.
This is the great irony of the Beatles franchise. Fourty-some years ago, the band pioneered new recording methods and transcended the rock-n-roll genre by relentlessly pumping out music every year and indulging in sounds the Western world had scarcely heard, melding it with new studio techniques. In turn, they inspired generations of tinkerers, audiophiles and dreamers. In the last two decades, that influence has been co-opted by a few greedy jerks intent on finding some gimmick to keep the public just shy of satisfied and anxious for the next marketing ploy, which Apple Records cleverly camouflages as some revolution in sound engineering technology; when in reality, it’s just some small change to the same formula designed to get people to shell out ridiculous amounts of money for basically the same sounds that have been around for more than 40 years. Ok, maybe I'm going a little overboard.
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