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

---------------------------------------------------- 14 - Center of a Circle ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When the Beatles went into the studio to record what would become the Center Of A Circle Album, they had very little way of knowing this would be their last complete project with John Lennon alive. It may be considered a cruel twist of fate that the under-riding theme of this final project was different stages of life. This idea was something the Beatles had toyed with when the Sergeant Pepper sessions were initially going to be an album about their childhood. One can see this theme in songs like Lennon's "Beautiful Boy", Harrison's "I Don't Want To Do It", McCartney's "Young Boy", and most of the other songs on the album.

It's perhaps fitting that on Lennon's last album, his songs "Starting Over" and "Beautiful Boy" (both utilizing the same intro noises) were the clear standout tracks. Every Beatle, however, seems to deliver solid tracks, perhaps not the most innovative they had ever done, but enjoyable nonetheless. Since 1978's rockfest Somewhere In Oz The Beatles had released 3 albums, none groundbreaking but all enjoyable, and one solid single, a collaboration with Stevie Wonder called "Ebony & Ivory" (released 1980). It seemed as if they could continue on this path forever, and perhaps they could have if fate had not intervened.

1. Any Road
2. The World Tonight
3. Just Like (Starting Over)
4. Follow Me
5. Forgive Me (My Little Flower Princess)
6. Cloud 9
7. Fading In, Fading Out
8. I Don't Wanna Face It
9. Young Boy
10. That's The Way It Goes
11. Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)
12. I Don't Wanna Do It
13. Weight Of The World
14. Golden Earth Girl

Help! I thought I'd loaded everything down last night, but when I checked my dropbox just now only 11 to 16 were there. What's happened to 1 to 10? Did I have to drag them onto my desktop or something?

So I'm restoring the folders I want and then deleting them when I'm done. Is that the proper plan of action?

And how do they sound? Everyone satisfied?

I don't have a clue! Never used dropbox before. I'm poking around gingerly, terrified of fucking it up for everyone. Sorry in advance, I'll try to leave it as I found it.

All you need to do is copy out of Dropbox and paste to your desktop (or anywhere really). So long as no-one cuts, everything should be fine. They were all still there a few minutes ago.

how does this work? i have a dropbox account.

I think the way it works is like this: when you're invited to join a shared folder you can do one of two things: you can either download directly from the Dropbox website, or you can sign-up, download and install the Dropbox software. If you do that, the shared folder, along with the default Dropbox folders, become integrated into Windows Explorer. Then you can just copy out of the shared folder and paste onto your desktop. If you've already signed up, any shared folders you join get added to the Dropbox folder in your Windows Explorer.

Just remember that any files in a shared folder can be seen and downloaded by everyone who shares that folder, so if you cut or delete files, everybody else will lose access to them so they'll have to be reuploaded.

Hope that makes sense!

I couldn't find an easy way to c&p other than by directly dragging files from the master folder, which I didn't realise until too late also deleted them for everyone else. I restored them all afterwards though.

I kind of love how totally nutso these thematic/narrative tracklists are! I mean, the chronology is just bonkers but presumably the idea is to group material that fits together thematically or sonically? Or something? But it's really hard to make heads or tails out of the entire project. I guess thumbs up to whoever the creator is. There is something to be said for the whole recontextualization thing. I suspect that your average Ringo single, which feels rather slight sitting out on its own in the market, sounds pretty great as a "Ringo's lighthearted contribution to the album" type song.

(Note, I say this as someone who listens to Ringo's 1970s greatest hits record probably more often than most of the Beatles group catalog at this point. You get what I mean.)

here we go, i knew ILX had done this at some point! Construct a worthy follow-up to Abbey Road by using solo material from ex-Beatles.

Doctor Casino otm, but hey, at the very least this has me listening to way more Beatles solo stuff than I ever would.

I am a huuuuge solo Macca fan and sort of know the first couple Lennon records, but not really familiar with all their ins and outs...I should check this out.

I've heard quite a bit of Lennon's solo stuff and I have All Things Must Pass and the 2-disc Wingspan thing, but thats it.

Ram is really good on its own. A few of the solo records are solid.

mccartney ii is sick

interesting project, perhaps moreso because it divorces the material from the actual chronology (was Cheer Down even written in 1978, for ex?)

personally my hypothetical Beatles-in-the-70s scenario would be a good deal nastier and the material would reflect that. None of their contemporaries - the Stones, the Beach Boys, the Kinks, etc. - made it through the 70s with their lineups intact and the Beatles probably would have been no exception. There would have been outside collaborations and guest musicians galore (Clapton, Yoko, Nilsson, Badfinger etc) and the albums would have gotten really messy and unwieldy in all likelihood. Plus they probably would have resumed touring and making stupid movies... it's kind of inconceivable to me to envision the Beatles in the 70s without the attendant excesses.

that being said, there is loads of good stuff on all the members' respective solo albums

Yeah, as noted above, the chronology is all twisted with these, I mean a project that ends in 1981 shouldn't have "Got My Mind Set On You" anywhere near it, but its included.

Would've loved to have seen the Beatles cover that fit in with these:

http://www.bestweekever.tv/bwe/images/2010/08/ELP-Love-Beach.jpg http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_p-E9PrNygBo/SGFVTIR4lgI/AAAAAAAAIVI/YPSPY00Li3I/s400/crosbystillsnash-csn.jpg

well John did pilot a boat through the Bermuda Triangle sometime in 1979 iirc

Yeah, really, their legacy was secured for them by the fact of their breaking up - it's easy to write off any failings in the solo material as "well, that doesn't count" - but if they had remained the Beatles you'd have a bunch of real dreck albums and the Beatles would be one of those bands you have to read up on before going to the record store, because the dollar bin is full of albums looking like pplains's images there and you Just Don't Know which ones actually have some gems, etc etc.

I reckon Lennon would have been subsumed into New Wave somehow, or even better Downtown NY art music, collabs with Glass/Meredith Monk/Talking Heads/Arthur Russell/Ginsberg/John Cale

I wonder if living in NYC during the whole CBGB/54/Summer of Sam era had any effect on him or if he was just listening to the B-52s on the beach the whole time.

Oh, he heard "Rock Lobster", I know that much. I think that informed "Walking on Thin Ice" for Yoko...

Right. Wonder what else he heard.

There's a great anecdote in the recent oral history book on the making of Double Fantasy about the day that Jack Douglas booked the members of Cheap Trick to come in and track "I'm Losing You" with John (which, if you've heard it on the Lennon box set or other outtakes, is terrific). Yoko had no idea who they were and accused them of trying to ride John's coattails to success. You know, after they'd had three platinum albums and John hadn't recorded in five years.

Anyway, George came fairly close to those ELP/CSN covers:

http://www.jpgr.co.uk/k9237341_a.jpg

This is fairly close..

http://www.bootlegzone.com/beatleg/discs/scans/pc-60.jpg

That Cheap Trick story is pretty good.

It was weird reading that Rolling Stone interview last year taken from the unreleased parts of Lennon's final interview. Him talking about Bruce Springsteen and president-elect Ronald Reagan. It'd be like hearing Elvis talk about Pat Benatar or something.,

the day that Jack Douglas booked the members of Cheap Trick to come in and track "I'm Losing You" with John

WTF?! never heard of this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im3AUiCGqnk

Enjoying this far more than I thought I would. It's all silly fun, of course, but the best part is that I'm giving real attention to a load of songs of which I was only dimly aware, e.g. 'Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)'.

itunes didn't remove the gaps between tracks for some reason. Could be to do with the vbr encoding, I dunno.

Is the Dropbox option still available? If so, I would like a listen (pjmiller68atgmaildotcom). But don't go to any trouble, it's only beacuse I'm TOO LAZY for FLACS. Kthx please and thank you.

I have a Dropbox "thingy" - used it once.

seems like the vinyl reissues are never coming out :(

*cries*

let me give you all a steer.

picture if you will, April 2012: EMI release two Talk Talk albums as deluxe vinyl remasters featuring a DVD of 24bit Wav files.

The music press go nuts and everyone talks about vinyl revival and increasing market for HD download tracks.

EMI realises that this combo hits both the analog purists and the digital stereophiles and maximises the amount you can charge for something that can be picked up on CD for about £5.

EMI begin to wonder if they have any other 'classic' albums that can be reissued on vinyl with 24bit digital files included and charge £20 for the package.

somone coughs and points to the big money spitting pipe in their office labelled "The Beatles revenue".

seriously, if those Talk Talk reissues are not testing the water for something bigger, I will be severely disappointed in The Man's greed and my personal weakness in the face of deluxe reissues.

hope you're right....just seems like such a no brainer

i mean look at prices for mono original presses on discogs for revolver:

http://www.discogs.com/sell/list?q=revolver+beatles&format=Vinyl&year=1966

yeah and original White Album in mono is crazy highly priced in our neck of the woods. you're looking at £80-£100 if you even want a Very Good copy let alone a mint one.

I guess news is that Yellow Submarine will see a Blu-Ray release and remastering and the Soundtrack album will come out again and all. Which is cool, but MMT and Let it Be continue to collect dust.

and "Give my regards to Broadway" continues to collect grit and rain and (etc)

gag flubbed due to lack of street cred

Surely there aren't any Ringo haters anymore?

Why hate on him? He was a perfectly competent drummer who happened to be lucky enough to be in a band with three of the biggest musical geniuses ever. He's not up there with the three others, but few others are. And he is perfectly fine otherwise, even if his solo albums are largely irrelevant (the new one actually possibly being his best since "Ringo")

He's more than a competent drummer, Geir, but I don't expect you to understand that at all.

He's a fantastic drummer.

"Ticket to Ride" came on the radio yesterday, and all I could think about was that awesome drum beat that drives the thing.

What's great is that most people consider "Rain" to be Ringo's crowning moment of glory as a drummer, without considering that the tape on that was slowed down to change the key from A to G, and that he therefore played all those fills faster than we think he did.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48OPy9CmXA4

Woahh - never heard that track before. Fabulous.

I first heard that sped up version here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7f7D2_jUkqA

This guy's got the bassline nailed perfectly but it really just makes you appreciated how awesome Paul is.

He really is. I'd love to listen to their catalogue with the bass mixed way up like that - I can never hear him properly. I only ever really pick him up on tracks like A Day In The Life or Mr Kite, which are amazing but I know there are so many treasures there.

(that guy's got a lovely tone btw)

i thought the remasters really brought the bass out tremendously compared to previous masters

Agreed he did a great job on "Rain". Also "Strawberry Fields Forever". I like Ringo's drumming, but even somebody as great as Jeff Porcaro, Phil Collins, Keith Moon, Bill Bruford, Lars Ulrich or Charlie Watts would still have been overshadowed by the other Fab Three. Because they were Fab'er than most anything else.

It's hard to imagine the Beatles with other drummers like some of those guys. I've mentioned it before, but that take of "Please Please Me" with the session drummer (ostensibly a good player) on Anthology 1 is the best proof that the Beatles would have been very different without Ringo and, in fact, may very well have not ended up being successful at all.