The Beatles - Capitol Albums Vol 1 & 2 v The US albums box sets.

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by sunspot, Jul 14, 2017.

  1. Archtop

    Archtop Soft Dead Crimson Cow

    Location:
    Greater Boston, MA
    What, and miss out on those plastic trays and random bits of cardboard?
     
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  2. Price.pittsburgh

    Price.pittsburgh Forum Resident

    Location:
    Florida
    I have the Japanese long box of vol I (has a book written in Japanese) and they imported to my iTunes and synced to my iPod with no issues.
    Of course I've never attempted to burn them to other blank cds.
     
  3. Sidewinder43

    Sidewinder43 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Lavaca County, TX
    Got it. I was trying to get him the unique sounds.
     
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  4. Sidewinder43

    Sidewinder43 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Lavaca County, TX
    I would be very happy with a disc(s) that contained only the U.S. variants.
     
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  5. People coming late to this should be aware that most copies floating around have the mono fold-down mistake. The error was only caught after most of the first and possibly second pressings were sent to retailers and were in the hands of fans. I'd bet good money that more than 70% of existing copies have the mistake.
     
  6. AppleCorp3

    AppleCorp3 Forum Resident

    Seconded!!!
     
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  7. Stan94

    Stan94 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Paris, France
    I think vol. 2 is the only place to get the original fake stereo mixes of Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You on CD.
     
  8. Jose Jones

    Jose Jones Outstanding Forum Member

    Location:
    Detroit, Michigan
    And if you missed that very limited opportunity years ago....you're out of luck now. Gotta buy a whole new set to get the correct mono Rubber Soul.
     
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  9. Jose Jones

    Jose Jones Outstanding Forum Member

    Location:
    Detroit, Michigan
    They are louder than the 2009 remasters. Don't kid yourself that these are flat transfers; they are not. Ted Jensen did some EQing and limiting.
     
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  10. Jose Jones

    Jose Jones Outstanding Forum Member

    Location:
    Detroit, Michigan
    Maybe even third or fourth generation tapes in some instances.

    Parlophone sent over copies of the mono singles and stereo album tracks for the most part. The mono singles were turned into fake stereo, (another generation down), the stereo album tracks were folded down for the Capitol mono albums (same thing, another generation down) and then Dave Dexter added reverb to some tracks (another generation down).

    It's surprising that they sound as good as they do. But if you play them back to back with the 2009 remasters, they sound a little boosted and harsh in comparison, not as smooth.
     
  11. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

    I listened to much of Volume II last night. Three out of the four CD's.

    Including some mono, that sounded surprisingly good, given that I'm not a big mono fan.

    There's not brick-walling.

    There's spaciousness.

    Very good dynamics.

    And very good "tangible" presence.

    Even better and "truer to life" sound and "bounce" than I remembered.

    I'm not hearing "boosted and harsh".

    That's what I've come to associate with Apple these days.

    Certainly boosted and loud in Apple's most recent products.

    Volume II last night sounded as good as I've ever heard any CD's sound.

    As close to Analog as I've heard CD's sound.

    I started wondering...how did they do it?
     
  12. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

    I actually was quoting another poster ("the Beave") from a thread that's no longer open.

    I remember having Introducing The Beatles. In the early 70's. I'm wondering, as far as sales, if Introducing The Beatles had most of its sales in the early Seventies rather than when it first came out?

    In the early Sixties, I remember Meet the Beatles, Something New, and A Hard Day's Night. Along with the Capitol Singles with the swirl. I just don't remember Introducing the Beatles. (And actually didn't even hear The Beatles Second Album...all the way through, until 1974. Hearing some Beatles songs I never had even HEARD before, talk about a great discovery...)

    Capitol certainly was the dominating factor in the early Beatles record success when they first came to America, for the first few years. My first single was the Capitol "I Want To Hold Your Hand"/"I Saw Her Standing There" (my favorite song at the time).

    [​IMG]
    [​IMG]
     
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  13. bluemooze

    bluemooze Senior Member

    Location:
    Frenchtown NJ USA
    IMO the US Albums box contains nothing from the Capitol Years boxes. :)
     
  14. Vinyl Fan 1973

    Vinyl Fan 1973 "They're like soup, they're like....nothing bad"

    I believe the mistake was in pressings of both versions, and if I'm not mistaken, there was no way to tell by the outer packaging, which version you got. I got lucky and received the corrected version.
     
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  15. Vinyl Fan 1973

    Vinyl Fan 1973 "They're like soup, they're like....nothing bad"

    IMO, these sets sound great, alive, energetic, electric! People talk about them being louder, EQ'd compared to the 2009, but trust me, it does not take away from the enjoyment of these sets. I've never directly compared them to my 2009 set, and I don't care to. I just want to listen for the historical value these sets offer. To have the mono and stereo on one CD is great.

    Also there was a site that detailed all the aspects of the sound of these sets, and put to rest some untrue statements regarding the sources and supposed futzing of the sound. I'll try to find it again and repost.

    Personally a fan should have this in the collection, it's a fun listen, period.
     
  16. Sidewinder43

    Sidewinder43 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Lavaca County, TX
    I think that most of the Introducing The Beatles albums in the '70s were fakes.
     
  17. JamieC

    JamieC Senior Member

    Location:
    Detroit Mi USA
    My very first Beatle album was Introducing the morning of my eighth birthday March of 64. My older brother came by later after work and gave me Meet The Beatles. In fact they sold millions of Introducing and the VJ records were right in there on the charts with Capitol at the time. Their rarity is a combination of people just not parting with them much, cache and plain old attrition. People wore them out and beat them up.

    From the VJ story by Mike Callahan
    The Vee-Jay Story
    In late 1963, Capitol Records began a huge promotional campaign on the Beatles, and a new release, "I Want To Hold Your Hand"/"l Saw Her Standing There." The latter song was one already in possession of Vee Jay, since it was on the album nearly released the previous summer. The new Vee Jay management team took a closer look at the contract arrangements, and were soon convinced that the label had not released the group the previous summer. Consequently, they took the album out and sent it to the pressing plants and prepared for some sales. They also dusted off "Please Please Me" and "From Me To You" and paired them on a new single, Vee Jay 581. Capitol was not amused, and on January 15, 1964, hit Vee Jay with an injunction against manufacturing, distributing, advertising, or otherwise disposing of records by the Beatles. And the legal chase began:

    Calvin Carter: "We put the album out, and EMI, through Capitol, sued us to cease and desist. They got an injunction against us seemingly every week. They would get an injunction against us on Monday, and we would get it off on Friday, then we'd press over the weekend and ship on Monday; we were smooth, we had everybody alerted, and we were pressing records all the time on the weekends."

    Capitol contended in the suit that Vee Jay's rights to the Beatles had been canceled on August 8, 1963, for nonpayment of royalties.

    Calvin Carter: "They were trying to get us on something really minor like failure to declare royalties on 500 records we shipped in 1963. But that was not true at all."

    A second injunction was granted against Vee Jay concerning the publishing rights on "Love Me Do" and "P.S., I Love You," two of the tunes on the album. By mid-February, Vee Jay had won the first round with Capitol, whereby they were allowed to press and distribute the Beatles single. The block remained against the album, so Vee Jay took off the two cuts in question and substituted "Please Please Me" and "Ask Me Why" instead. The album was now legally clear, and Vee Jay shipped enormous quantities of it in a very short time. By April, it was #2 on the LP charts. The legal battle between Vee Jay and Capitol was finally settled out of court on April 9, 1964, where "Vee Jay accepts a licence from Capitol to sell its product, with Vee Jay paying Capitol royalties, including substantial payment for the Beatles royalties to date and a licensing fee for the future. Neither side conceded the position of the other was right.

    Calvin Carter: "We finally made something out of the court settlement, because we just couldn't afford to fight that big a company. We kept what we had, and they had all future product. We were selling so many Beatles records, we just couldn't afford to fight for the five-year rights. At that point, we had even got a ten-year moratorium from our creditors on our outstanding bills, that we'd just keep them coming. There was a lot of pressure on us. We sold in one month's time about 2.6 million Beatles singles on Vee Jay and Tollie. Those were fantastic times. And right in the middle of this, we moved from Chicago to California. What a mess, what a mess."
     
  18. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

    I hadn't heard that. They were bought at regular retail stores.

    And, if they were fake, I wonder if they STILL counted as sales of Introducing The Beatles. Since all kind of stores stocked them.

    It wasn't like we were getting them on the street corner or on the Internet, of course.
     
  19. DRM

    DRM Forum Resident

    Well said.
     
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  20. Vinyl Fan 1973

    Vinyl Fan 1973 "They're like soup, they're like....nothing bad"

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  21. bubba-ho-tep

    bubba-ho-tep Resident Ne'er-Do-Well

    Location:
    San Tan Valley, AZ
    The two Capitol boxes are my default for listening to the Capitol albums in stereo. The US Albums set, despite all of the criticism lobbed toward it, is the best source for the US albums in mono.
     
  22. Bingo Bongo

    Bingo Bongo Music gives me Eargasms

    Location:
    Ottawa, Canada
    Kind of reminds me of the original US album covers, doesn't it. That were not as shiny as their UK counterpart.

    To answer the OPs questions, I think the Capitol Vol 1 & 2 are the way to go, but if your a perfectionist, I would recommend buying the US set for the artwork and switch out the CDs and keep the Capitol CDs as your go-to music.
     
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  23. Doug Sulpy

    Doug Sulpy Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pennsylvania
    Hell, no. Why should the preferences of four guys fifty years ago (presuming you can even prove that) trump the cherished memories of MILLIONS of American fans who grew up with those albums?

    That the U.S. albums are somehow "wrong" is the company line since EMI issued the CDs in 1987. Of course, at that time, they also claimed the first four LPs should only be heard in mono, because they were never released in stereo in the first place. Just nonsense.
     
  24. Taxman

    Taxman Senior Member

    Location:
    Fayetteville, NY
    Someone commented that there was no way to tell from the packaging whether you were buying a corrected Capitol set. I joined SHF, a year before the 2004 issuance date. I recall reading here there was a tipoff that you were buying the corrected set. Something in the small numbers on the spine of the box. I know for sure that I checked for it before I bought. Anyone else remember that there was some number/ letter tipoff on the packaging? I am out of town so I can't check my own set but I do have the set in my Itunes and I have the correct mono version of I'm Looking Through You, without the false start. So I did something right. Thanks SHF!
     
  25. JamieC

    JamieC Senior Member

    Location:
    Detroit Mi USA
    Yes they were fakes, VJ stopped pressing them by 65. They were distributed by a cut out record distributor through rack jobbers. They can be spotted fairly easily if you know what to look for. A whole bunch of albums were being pirated around that time including man Who Sold The World on Mercury, Runt on Bearsville, Deep Purple on Tetragrammaton, and Yardbirds Live on Epic. All officially out of print at the time.

    Just to be clear, the mob was involved in ALL of this. People were threatened and hurt so you could buy a crappy pirate copy. Cripes there is even a skip pressed right into a track!
     
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