I’m a Beatles admirer but not a fan per se. When I was nine I bought the Sgt. Pepper’s 20th anniversary edition coloured vinyl and A Hard Day’s Night on video (Beta, no less!), and then a few years ago I bought the blue album, but that’s about the extent of my Beatles collection. (Unless you count All the Best! by Paul McCartney and the two Traveling Wilburys albums…)
So, I’d like to rectify this situation with the new remasters. Like I said, I’m not a Beatles fan, but I am a music fan and purist in general. I mean, I bought the triple-disc Piper at the Gates of Dawn just to get both mixes and the singles.
So are the Beatles mono mixes substantially different from the stereo mixes? Given that the stereo albums such as Let It Be won’t be included, will I be able to complete the collection by buying those albums separately?
In essence, why should I buy the mono box over the stereo box?
The original mono mixes are full of things like John singing the wrong verse (“Please Please Me”), background chatter, Paul coming in a beat early (I forget which song) and things like that. I prefer the Beatles the way I first heard them, not polished up and “fixed.”
I just checked, and the mono box set is sold out at Amazon.com and only available as an expensive import from Buy.com or Best Buy. Is it that limited in quantity?
I’ve not heard anything about the stereo version being “re-mixed” or any mistakes being repaired. I wish they’d remix them, going back to the original tapes and doing a proper stereo mix of the older albums. No, from what I understand, they cleaned up the stereo master tapes and compressed them to make them “louder” and sound like all the other over-compressed crap out there and have it be loud enough to blast your eardrums when you’re listening to an iPod via earbuds on a subway train.
The mono versions had different takes of some vocals and were the mix that the Beatles themselves actually sat in on. Stereo was considered a gimmick at the time and they didn’t bother doing the mix themselves, leaving George Martin and Geoff Emerick to do whatever they pleased. Also, the mono mixes have not been compressed for iPod listening, and will have greater dynamic range.
Get the mono version if the following is true:
[ul]
[li]You want to hear what the Beatles originally heard.[/li][li]You plan to listen to this on a home system.[/li][li]You prefer music with dynamic range.[/li][/ul]