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

but yeah you're right it takes the fckng p-ss doesn't it?

latest word is that magical mystery tour is coming out on dvd with all sorts of extra stuff. as if the actual movie isn't like 1 big 'extra' already.

What isn't, really?

OK, why is it Paul's fault?

maybe it's a question of who's up to the job, george martin sure as heck isn't. god don't let them get ELO=guy in again.

meanwhile, this ere beatles 10-dvd anthology unofficial bootleg edition can be yours for $150 :

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Original-BEATLES-Anthology-Directors-Cut-Real-10-DVDs_W0QQitemZ6430061859QQcategoryZ617QQssPageNameZWD2VQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

must say i'm tempted

That said, Macca, Ono, the Harrison family, and Da Ringosta can take their time settling this. I plan to finally digitize and sell off the CDs while I can get 'em for at least $4+ each back.

http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,70658-0.html?tw=rss.index

But it's not wrong to continue to sell them on cd?

Agree re Past Masters/Anthology but they're such cash cows that they're not going to do it.

Ah yes, the Beatles. I say buy the albums.

It would be nice if they released the red and blue anthologies so that they were in modern slimline 2CD cases rather than the FUCKING MASSIVE and HORRIBLE ones that they are in now.

Are the people not interested in paying for pricey new editions of things really the target market for remastered versions of CDs that are available in droves in used CD stores the world over?

Seriously, I don't see what's so much better (and less cash-cow-ish) about retaining Past Masters and Anthology. OK, so it's kind of cool to have all the singles in one place, but it also robs them of context AND presents a somewhat confusing picture for buyers, who can't figure out which album it is that has "I Want To Hold Your Hand" on it. The PM sets are also really oddly-balanced, anyway - not quite a greatest hits, not quite an odds-and-sods. The Anthologies are just plain obnoxious, especially the first one with all the talky-talky bits.

I guess I'm just coming from a perspective where, if they just remaster the CDs I'll take a pass because I have the LPs already. But if they sweeten the deal I just might think it over, at least for a couple, assuming they went ahead and added more outtake/live stuff. Granted, they would still be kind of weirdly-sequenced albums with one or two singles at the front followed by a bunch of obscurities.... okay, maybe keep Past Masters after all. But I REALLY think it makes more sense to get the unreleased and live material wedded on to the appropriate albums - if nothing else, it means getting MORE of it, right?

What is an example where he has ever done this?

Secondly, Paul has little need to turn himself up anyway. He took a lot of care, recording his bass lines on a single track and spent ages getting the sound right. Why not? It's his friggin songs for fuxake!

anthology 2 is the best, what with the stoned cracking-up version of and your bird can sing and the gorgeous demos of strawberry fields. 3 is good for the white album stuff, and 1 is probably the only time any americans (me included) will ever hear any morecambe and wise.

Well, they are getting slightly more plentiful. In fact, I got most of my collection used. But, then again, I've been lucky. The worst thing about used Beatle cds is that stores priced higher than average (i.e. in the US 10-12 dollars vs. 7-9). Shopping around helps, and the prices have leveled off (and no doubt will continue)

I will concur regarding the Anthologies and the BBC, but--to cite my earlier post--alot of the people who bought them probably realized that they didn't listen to them as much as the regular LPs.

Neil Aspinall is probably the one to blame.

Anyway, seems like some good news is finally coming up.

While I agree that they need remastering, I don't neccessarily agree with your version of what they sounded like. The first four, sure, but the rest, particularly from "Sgt. Pepper" onwards, used state of the art remastering technology at the time, and sounded really impressive back then.

Only this is 20 years ago and a lot has happened since then.

I think the Anthologies are a pretty good distillation of the best stuff that makes up the two major bootleg series (ultra rare trax and, uh, whatever the other one is called; they have most of the same stuff on them). I could do w/out the talking on the first cd.

xpost

i mean it does take the piss doesn't it?

lo-lo-lo-looooots of piss, sir! :(

I bought Help for £1 in a charity shop the other week. It was cheap because the cover was ripped (and taped up again) and the vinyl's a bit crackly, but it's not scratched at all. Even with the crackles it sounds great - a lot better than the CD versions, The Night Before especially gaining an awful lot of character and energy. I too am amazed there's no proper CD remaster, I guess because people are still buying the current shonky versions.

This footage
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=compleat+beatles
of 'The Compleat Beatles' (snappy 1984 cheaply-made proto-ANTHOLOGY movie, shot on film and narrated by Malcolm Mcdowell) is
making me anticipate this happening all the more.

It will happen before or since, but apparently at still takes time.

I expected they'd at least do "Sgt. Pepper" in June this year to coincide with its 40th anniversary, but they did't.

But at least, with the current trend for remasters, the ultimate edition will be better. I hope they will do like The Bee Gees and Monkees remasters, and put out 2CDs with the stereo version + bonus tracks in stereo on one and the mono version + bonus tracks in mono on the other one.

xxpost even some of the earlier Beatles albums had some great drum sounds. That opening CRACK! on “Any Time At All” comes to mind

but yeah, what Tarfumes said
60’s were awash with awesome drum sounds and Hal Blaine would def like a word

Definitely true that some of their early records had great drum sounds -- the drums on Please Please Me sound incredible (especially "Boys").

Y'all are right, of course. I just get vexed that there are a bunch of songs from that era that I love (e.g. "Substitute") that are let down by really ineptly-recorded drums. That rarely seems to have happened any more after 1970. (Back on theme, I particularly like the sound they got for Ringo's kit on "Come Together".)

maybe its just your hearing

i swear lately on ilm there's this weird hoffman board thing where anything that doesn't sound like rumours is considered bad sounding or lo fi. so many 60s records have amazing sounding drums.

80s gated drum sound was an overcorrection to recapture presence and atmosphere or something

i swear lately on ilm there's this weird hoffman board thing where anything that doesn't sound like rumours is considered bad sounding or lo fi. so many 60s records have amazing sounding drums.

which is why we should use drum machines if Ringo isn't available

maybe its just your hearing

No, it's an opinion, and mine is as valid as yours

I can still eat corn if you mash it into a fine paste

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG3VUXBcyt0

The rumors are true!

And now,

Your hosts for the evening,

Two monkeys fucking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2Pq2cCVLpQ

While I think '80s gated drums came first - Phil Collins/"Abacab" was one of the first to really push drums to the fore - they definitely cohabitated with increasingly bigger sounding reverbed-out everything as the decade progressed. The huge marshmallow snares would sound so small with everything else overinflated.

I just get vexed that there are a bunch of songs from that era that I love (e.g. "Substitute") that are let down by really ineptly-recorded drums.

And “Substitute” is far from the worst of them. The drums on A Quick One and The Who Sell Out (with an exception or two) are abominably recorded. It sounds like there may have been a single mic within no less than 20 feet of the drums.

Shel Talmy, absolutely terrible engineer/producer, same with the early Kinks stuff that sounds like shite.

Maybe you guys should tell him so on Facepalm.

Talmy was great. His Kinks records had far more bite and presence than most of the ‘64-‘65 Beatles or Stones records, and his Who records — the My Generation album and the two singles that preceded it, all engineered by Glyn Johns — were heavier than anything previously heard.

Have to disagree, those first few Kinks records and My Generation have always sounded bad to me.

i swear lately on ilm there's this weird hoffman board thing where you leave the beatles thread for three days and there's like 400 new posts

400 posts
And it’s the same philosophy

i mean if the Kinks & My Generation “sound bad” what is yr idea of “good sounding” records

I'm going to side with those that think the early Who and Kinks records sound great. I mean not from the standpoint of technical proficiency, but their sloppiness and roughness is part of their appeal. I wouldn't want them to have glossy '70s studio polish.

exactly! the garagey sound is the bonus byproduct and what makes this stuff cool.

I always thought The Stones "I wanna be your man" sounded like an insane carcrash of sound, especially for its time

Not as much as She Said Yeah, but yeah

yeah, loved this.

What I’m saying is…. 70s drums actually sound bad

Dear lord this take is as bad as saying Paul's beard is ugly

THANK YOU

my response to that was going to be "have you heard a single r&b record from the '70s"

I was being facetious, it’s just funny that they did all this stuff to tame the drums and make them behave or whatever

Ok I have to retract myself. Mccartney beard is a thing of beauty.

I haven’t dug into Get Back yet; waiting for a day when HD Jr & I can binge it together.

In the meantime I’ve been bingeing a podcast called One Sweet Dream - their series on the breakup. It’s very long and VERY repetitive and sometimes EXTREMELY infuriating in SO many ways … but it also gets a lot right and it has rewired my thinking about the ‘68-69 period. I feel like it’s a really valuable addition to the story even though sometimes I want to leap through the speakers and shake the hosts violently.

The basic methodology is to look at the Beatles through the lens of Paul & John’s relationship - a “marriage,” as both of them characterized it many times - and observe their actions & re-listen to their words & try to understand how each of them felt & how their emotional entanglement would have driven behaviours & events. Lots to pick apart in there - both good & bad analysis - and a couple of Beatle-nerd pals & I have been enjoying kicking their ideas around, trying to tease the pepper out from the flyshit.

Their biggest flaw is the massive chip on their shoulder about Wenner & Lewisohn & the John stans; at least a quarter of each long episode is spent rehashing and tearing down the same tropes over and over rather than advancing their own arguments. Ultimately I wish someone would do a more rigourous job of pursuing their basic insights & building a nuanced and defensible narrative: that would be a real contribution to the scholarship.

Nonetheless.

"Check out this podcast that gets stuff wrong, is extremely repetitive and I want to kill the hosts."

B-b-but it’s about the lads!

XP That's like most podcasts tho.

A fun project would be to edit the series down to about 4 hours of REALLY REALLY useful and insightful conversation. If I was unemployed and didn’t need to sleep ever.

Their biggest flaw is the massive chip on their shoulder about Wenner & Lewisohn & the John stans; at least a quarter of each long episode is spent rehashing and tearing down the same tropes over and over rather than advancing their own arguments.
― war mice (hardcore dilettante), Sunday, December 5, 2021 5:05 PM (fifty-four minutes ago)

yeah, this seems to be the trend in beatles-talk these days. for a while i was reading this one beatles blog that i thought was smart and interesting, but finally bailed because it felt like every post was about this stuff and i felt i'd spent enough hours of my life reading about why the "lennon remembers" interview was wrong about everything.

it's a bitter interview coming from a bitter time, certainly. he gets several things factually wrong in it, but surprise, lennon wasn't some beatles obsessive like most freaks are 50 years later

i think Get Back does a better job than anything else of really humanizing these guys and their relationship. the breakup makes absolute sense after watching it and remembering how young they were (despite how old their facial hair made them look). the comment from paul about how they used to live together and now they don't...that's it in a nutshell. there is no massive mystery to be solved. people got older and that is that.

xpost: yeah, lennon was blowing off steam at a weird time in his life and said some absolutely absurd stuff that he probably forgot about ten minutes after the interview. it's unfortunate that it got published as a book (though it is fun to read), otherwise i assume it would be fairly obscure now.

What's the gripe with the Lennon stans for us not in the now?

Yes, exactly, what's up with that gripweed?

talking about podcasts and lennon, have you guys listened to song exploder's episode on lennon's "god"?

https://songexploder.net/john-lennon

it's pretty interesting to hear lennon talk about what kinds of songs he liked to write when he was in the beatles. it's pretty telling how he says the only songs he wrote from first-hand experience were "help" and "strawberry fields forever" and juxtaposes those with songs that were "phony"

the thing is, it seems like he rarely wanted to write very personal songs in the beatles. i'm not sure i would consider that a cop out or "selling out". the really personal stuff would fall under his "hangups", i assume, which is a shame, because more songs like "julia", "don't let me down" and "in my life" (none of which he mentions in the song exploder clip) would've probably been more interesting

anyways, i think some of that bumps heads with george's songwriting style, which would then make sense why he didn't like or at the very least didn't allow many george songs to be played in the beatles. which(!) would all makes sense, because he called "in my life" both his "first real major piece of work" and the most boring song he had written!

Lennon's apparent contempt for the whole enterprise was, in a sense, a mask. Because you can also see his obvious un-fakeable joy in a thousand places. Like all of us, he was large and contained multitudes.

No one will ever know which was the "true" Lennon, and we don't need to. He would mock us for wanting to know, because that is the essence of John-ness. I think he wanted to perplex us. To remain a mystery and confound our expectations for closure. That was his reaction to adulation.

Which was and is, of course, something he had the right to choose. It's both understandable and a little (dare I say) mean-spirited.

We also have the right to think he was kind of a dick. A gifted dick, but a dick nonetheless.

Dude was the definition of the saying "closing the barn door after the horse has bolted"
He just said shit to say shit, half the time it was either to amuse himself or because he just hated press interviews.

Most of the way through Part 1 and damn if Paul isn't being super condescending to George and Ringo. I've always wanted to defend Paul because if it weren't for his pushing we don't get Let it Be and Abbey Road. But it's interesting so far he hasn't really gone after John in the way he goes after the other two.

I wrapped it up last night, loved it even when it was repetitive, just so much fun to see that place and time with those guys. What a band. My two big takeaways were how universal Ringo's drum experience is — showing up, sitting behind the kit, waiting for the rest of the band to stop bickering and bullshitting and start playing something. And the harmonies — it's such an obvious thing, but they are the key to the whole sound, it's why the Beatles sound like the Beatles, and I just loved every time one of them was singing and the others joined in and it's just like someone flipped a switch. They sounded so good together.

<3