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Remember when those first Beatles CDs came out, in 1987?  EMI (correctly) released the first four British albums in mono even way back then.  When I listened to them, my reaction was, Okay, but where’s the bottom?  Where’s the bass?  And why do the drums sound sort of like a UPS parcel falling off a low table, instead of sounding like drums?  But this was the Beatles, so we just bought the damn things.

Well here they are again, remastered, it says here, from the original analog tapes.  We care that they are in mono because that’s how the band meant them to be released.  Stereo was an afterthought in those days, and the stereo albums might be mixed haphazardly and often sounded rather different.  What the band mixed, what George Martin mixed, are these mono albums, which they knew would be mostly heard over the radio, the MONO AM radio (Phil Spector mixed for mono.  So did Brian Wilson.  All the cool guys did.)  And they really do sound great:  the sound is spacious, with no analog hiss that I could hear, and the bottom, the rhythm section, has at last made its formidable digital appearance.  That McCartney guy could play, and that Starkey guy too.  They were a real rhythm section, with punch when they needed it.

If you think about it, not too many of us ever heard these recordings the “right” way, since, if you are my age, you grew up on the Capitol versions, the American albums, which were sliced and diced and presented with different songs and in a different order from the British albums, plus – for better or worse – slathered with reverb, courtesy of Dave Dexter of Capitol Records.  Dexter changed forever the way American ears would hear the Beatles.  So, unless you owned the vinyl versions of the British albums (not very easy to find in 1964 and 1965), you never really heard what the group and George Martin intended.

Just a few comments:  Please Please Me, the first album, was recorded in about 12 hours of studio time in a single day and was basically the band’s live act at that time.  “One two three FOUR” shouts Paul at the beginning (McCartney once remarked that on “I Saw Her Standing There” he copied, pretty much note for note, the bass line from Chuck Berry’s “(I’m) Talking ‘Bout You,” and he wondered if that was legal.  Mr. Berry successfully sued Lennon/McCartney for “Come Together” but, to my knowledge, never sued on this one.).  The album certainly sounds fine.  

Anyone remember on which song the Beatles actually sang the words, “Bop Shoo-wop, Bop, Bop Shoo-wop”?  On “Twist and Shout” it sounds like Lennon has gargled with razor blades as he finishes his long day of recording with a glass of milk and one take, one take only, of the Isley Brothers’ hit record.  With the Beatles is the closest analog to the U.S. Meet the Beatles.  The song “Money” is one of my favorites, but alas, I am so in love with the Dexterized version that even this excellent remastered mono version can’t get me going.  Where’s the reverb?  (I know, I know, there WAS no reverb.)  The harmonies are terrific throughout these albums; you can pick out the individual voices.  It’s hard to believe that John, Paul and George were not cut from the same genetic cloth, like Brian, Dennis and Carl, or Phil and Don.  They sound that good.  And the records sound dark and dense and rich, a flavor no one else really had mastered at this point.

A Hard Day’s Night sounds good, too.  (Some reviewers think it benefits from stereo.)  “You Can’t Do That” hits like a punch.  On the other hand, a lot of the album sounds like adult MOR rock now.  I mean, “I’m Happy Just to Dance with You” is a cha-cha, right? 

And finally (for now), Beatles for Sale, which was a transitional album (the next one was Help) that sounds a lot better than I remembered.  “I’m A Loser,” which was thought of as Lennon’s “Bob Dylan song,” sounds like a real rock’n’roll song with the rhythm section front and center, and Lennon proves once and for all that he had one of the greatest voices in rock music by making something other than applesauce out of the misbegotten “Mr. Moonlight.”  Why on earth they left “Leave My Kitten Alone” off this album is a mystery.  It’s only 47 times better.  Harrison (who used to call himself Carl Harrison) and Starr shine on the Carl Perkins standards “Everybody’s Tryin’ To Be My Baby” and “Honey Don’t.”  They sound fabulous.

So that’s the first four – sonically superior, often in ways that make the music more enjoyable.  That said, it’s pretty crass of EMI not to sell the mono albums separately.  They are ONLY available in the pricy box set.  More later.

P.S.  I am not an audiophile.  I listened to all of these albums in a moving car on a good (Bose) car stereo.  This is rock and pop music, not Mahler.