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Beatles re-release under fire from ‘mono’ purists
We should listen to their music as they intended it to be heard, say hardcore fans
The re-release of the Beatles' entire back catalogue, 'remastered' from the original recordings, is set to be the music publishing event of the year. But amid the hoopla there are concerns among Beatles aficianados that potential purchasers are being ripped off.
That is because the only CDs being released individually - as opposed to coming in expensive boxed sets - are stereo mixes. Yet the huge majority of Beatles music was recorded in mono, before stereo became widely available, and that is how - according to experts, including members of the band itself - the music sounds best.
Mono mixes are available in today's worldwide launch - but only in a boxed set of 10 CDs retailing at a stunning £200-plus. As a result, say purists, literally millions of people are about to buy Beatles music remixed in stereo - at a more affordable £10 per CD - and not sounding as songwriters John Lennon and Paul McCartney intended.
McCartney admitted as much when the subject of stereo remixes came up in an interview for Goldmine magazine in 2002. "I'm with you," McCartney told journalist Sean Egan. "We made 'em in mono so I'm always happy to listen to 'em in mono."
It's hard to imagine now, but stereo was in its infancy in the early 1960s and didn't catch on until later in the decade. Which meant that the early Beatles albums like Please Please Me and Rubber Soul were recorded only in mono; not until Let it Be and Abbey Road did they move to stereo. (Please Please Me and With the Beatles were not even four- or eight-track recordings but two-track.)
The Beatles' continued affection for mono was partly because they didn't want their ordinary fans to have to buy expensive stereo equipment to enjoy their music. When their record label insisted on stereo mixes, the band only took an active interest in the mono mixes. Studio staff were left to oversee the stereo versions, yet it was these 'inferior' mixes that came to form the basis of the later reissues and remasters.
As Guardian music critic Alex Petridis puts it: "If you grew up in the 70s or later, you invariably heard [the albums] in that terrible early-60s brand of stereo, with the instruments bunged in one speaker and the vocals in the other, as if a blustery old man with a bowler hat had covertly crept into Abbey Road and attempted to sabotage the coming youth revolution by making its harbingers seem as pathetic as possible."
Which is why real Beatles buffs will be buying the remastered CDs in mono - if they can afford it. ·
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Sorry Andy Warp you are wrong and the article is (mainly) correct. Individual tracks for most instruments did not happen at Abbey Road until the 1970s (and even then they were often combined). EMI did not invent digital recording in the 50s. The Japanese did in the late 60s (Denon's was the first digital multitrack in 1972). EMI did not have digital in the 60s. Only 4 track. The Beatles started on 2 track analogue tape (backing instruments on one track, vocals and/or solos on the second). This was designed to allow some flexibility in the mixdown to mono. The article is right to highlight that mono masters were the main product and stereo an afterthought until about 1965 and the arrival of 4 track, which allowed allowed more of the same. Slaved 4 tracks were used for Sgt. Pepper in 1967 (a first). Abbey Road is indeed one of the finest studios anywhere, but did not embrace new tech as quickly as others (the BBC is similar in this respect). However does it matter when the original recordings are so good ?
Recorded in mono? in fact every instument and singers track was recorded on seperate tracks on a multi track recorder and they were only mixed down to mono.
The Abbey Road studio had some of the most advanced equipment in the world when the beetles were making even their earliest recordings there,they could have mixed them down to any format they wanted and still can so long as the original masters exist.
PS EMI developed digital recording in the late 50's and by the early 60's had it in their studios,so much for primative technology!