Alaska Employment Law

Now that I have spent some more time with this really expensive box set, I have some more thoughts.  First of all, for the Beatles, mono rules; it really does.  If I were trying to take the best from this latest set of Beatles releases, I would buy In Mono and then add the stereo White Album (which has some completely different takes than the mono version, and so is interesting in its own right), Abbey Road and Let It Be.  Like AR and LIB, Yellow Submarine was only issued in stereo, so you need that too, though it’s much less essential.

Getting back to the first half dozen albums by the band:  listening to these same tracks in stereo, even 2009 upgraded stereo, is weird, mostly because of the extreme stereo separation on the aural “soundstage.”  Fact is, in real life your ears don’t hear stereo the way most of the Beatles’ early stereo recordings sound, with instruments and vocals sometimes coming out of opposite speakers.  We accepted it then (when we heard it on the American stereo versions of those albums).  Now it sounds really odd, even distracting – to my ears at least.

I remember, in 1987, when the first four British albums came out as mono CDs, many listeners were not happy and looked for better sounding albums.  In response, by 1989 bootleg labels like BEAT and Red Robin had digitized the (vinyl) stereo releases and put them out on compact disc.  These were vastly better.  At about the same time, very high quality stereo tapes of outtakes also fell into the hands of bootleggers like Yellow Dog (with its Unsurpassed Masters series) and Swingin’ Pig (the Ultra Rare Trax albums).  The sound on all these recordings was so much better – trust me, it was astoundingly better – than on the official releases that it was embarrassing to EMI.  However, those bootleg recordings didn’t sound better because they were in stereo; they sounded better because they had way better dynamic range, particularly on the bottom end, where bass and drums could be heard in a powerful way not heard on the official EMI releases – which, while mono (as they should have been), sounded pathetic.

And so, 22 years later, EMI has released excellent sounding mono – better, at long last, than the bootlegged versions.  The great sounding mono has as much bottom as the old bootleg recordings, but avoids the problems of stereo:  the excessive separation, as well as the use of different tracks, not always for the better.  For example, the stereo version of the hit “Please Please Me” has a clear vocal mistake due to bad splicing; and the stereo version of the song “Help” is a completely different, and I think inferior, take.  On the mono take Lennon really nails “Help” – he sounds wretched.  The take that EMI mixed for stereo (without the Beatles’ involvement, remember) is a less convincing recording:  maybe he needs help, but maybe not.

So are we happy now?  No, we are mad now.  Because EMI has, thus far, made the separate mono recordings available only in the expensive limited edition box set.  It dawns on me that part of the cost of this set is due to the wonderful presentation.  The original album jackets and inserts are faithfully and lovingly reproduced, something the Japanese market excels at but is less common in the rest of the world.  That care and attention alone adds considerably to the cost.  But can you buy a mono version of just With the Beatles and not the other albums?  A mono version of Rubber Soul?  Nope.  You need to spend all your money on the mono box set.  Even though EMI obviously knows which are the “right” recordings, the recordings the Beatles themselves put together and approved, it has made the stereo recordings the retail standard.  I can’t decide if they are stupid, or greedy.  All right: both.  And remember, most of the Beatles albums were pretty short.  Stereo and mono would have fit on one compact disc in many cases.  Oops – that’s less money for EMI, isn’t it?

If you have the swag, though, get In Mono.  It’s the real deal.