The Beatles - Remasters Review
Posted by Paul Hollingsworth on 09.23.2009
An obscure British band whom your parents and grandparents listened to on big round platters somehow manages to get it's entire back catalogue remastered and re-released. What's the big deal anyway?
During a brief, eight year recording period, the band released 12 LP's, 13 EP's and 22 singles. They did not tour to support any of their albums after 1966. The band fractured into pieces in 1970 and lawsuits, bad blood and ill will kept their music from being reissued, except in scattered, uneven collections and an inferior CD catalogue release in the mid 80's. In spite (or maybe in part because) of these factors, the band is considered the most influential band of all time. The band, is, of course, The Beatles.
Nearly 40 years have passed since the Fab Four last played music together. 40 years is an eternity in pop culture and an eternity plus one in pop music. Trends, fashions, technology and styles emerge, fade and are forgotten. Pop music, by it's very definition, is meant to be ear-candy, a few minutes of bliss for the ears which is then forgotten as soon as the last note is heard. The Beatles, however, made more than ear-candy, more than just a few tunes to lose yourself in.
The band's music wasn't such an easy thing to find. Unless you had an older relative who had some good vinyl copies of the band's albums you probably only heard the occasional single on an oldies radio station or a snippet of a song used in a movie. Grainy videos of screaming girls as the band struggled to hear themselves in concert may be interesting as history, but as music, it's hard to see what the fuss (and screaming) was all about. The poorly engineered CDs released in the 80's were uneven at best, and did little to move the band from the dimly lit shadow of its own image. Thankfully, the recent re-release of the entire bands remastered catalogue is now available, and the technology has finally caught up with the band.
The entire catalogue, from 1963's Please Please Me to 1970's Let It Be is now available, both individually and as two slightly different box sets, one in mono, which is how the band recorded the majority of their albums, and one in stereo, which marks the first time the band's first four albums have been available in stereo in any form. The remastering process took four years, and the results are easy to see on each and every track. The Beatles haven't sounded this good, maybe ever.
On "Twist and Shout" which is the last track on Please Please Me, you can hear John Lennon throat-shredding, scratchy vocals as if he were singing in the next room. The reason why it's so scratchy? The band did the entire album in a single day, and "Twist and Shout" was the last song recorded. By the time you get to the era of Rubber Soul and Sgt. Peppers, you can hear all the little studio tricks and treats the band used on songs like "She's Leaving Home" and "In My Life." (This may be one of the few times when CDs really do sound better than vinyl. I'm not getting rid of my Revolver or Rubber Soul records, though.)
The 411: If you think The Beatles are old, uninteresting, overrated or just boring, you'd be doing yourself a favor by picking up a few of the new re-issues. I would suggest Please Please Me, Rubber Soul and Revolver for starters. For long time fans, the reissues are an answered prayer. Familiar songs sound as new and fresh as the day they were recorded and deeper album cuts reveal textures and depth which were almost inaudible previously. It's a shame it took so long, but it seems like the times (and technology) have finally caught up with The Beatles.
