Mono White Album - Beatles' Involvement and Intent

It's not like the Mono/Stereo thing was just for the White Album. Mono and stereo copies were floating around concurrently for ‘Revolver’, ‘Yesterday and Today’, ‘Sgt. Pepper’, etc. So there were definitely differences that were apparent between the mixes. As far as the White Album, I guess we were lucky enough to have an import mono copy in our collection as well as a domestic stereo copy (which was our first copy). Imagine listening to the mono ‘Helter Skelter’ for the first time and not hearing that final burst of music and Ringo’s scream! What a let down!
:—)

 

Something that ZTT mastered to perfection.

 

I think George came over to make sure Capitol Records didn't f*** things up. It's not like they didn't have a track record of doing precisely that.

 

Credited of course to a 'John Lennon' on initial copies of the US (and French) Rarities.

 

"ZTT" ?

 

Decisions have always been driven by money, as it was the value system back then as well. It is called capitalism.
Just listen to many of the Beatles own words in the Anthology series - "How many times did they say something along the lines of "We'd do anything to get more money"? As in they said they didn't have problems going from leather and jeans to wearing suits if it was going to get them more money.

That said, I don't for one minute believe that they made the mono and stereo mixes so different because they thought people would buy both. Given the price of a double album back in the 1960's, many of us had to save up for a time in order to be able to buy just one double LP, and didn't get it for a few months after it came out.

 

Zang Tuum Tumb. 80s label, Frankie Goes To Hollywood et al.

'Hear any record you choose' in myriad variants...

 

Absolutely. It was out of the question. People were horrified by the price of say, Blonde on Blonde.

Full-price LPs were out of the reach of most -enter cut-price labels with less tracks such as Marble Arch, which made a lot of long-players affordable.

I remember the outrage when CBS U.K. launched its new 69xxx series in 1970 for its premium artists -Dylan's New Morning was the first and hurt a lot of wallets.

 

I get your point and you are definitely right. But you can't deny that times have changed and there is much more emphasis on money now in our society. To quote myself from a previous post in this thread:

My point is that we have become a much more cynical society today (perhaps justly) and it's wrong to impose those same values on decisions that were made fifty years ago. I see that happening a lot on these forums.

 

As a comment to your self quotation, I don’t know if I’d say that that 1997 article you mention is an indicator of the changing values of society, I’d say it has more to do with the roles/values of the news.

I wasn’t around in the 60s (or 70s or 80s but I digress), so I can’t say how things were then, but I know in this day and age, especially When dealing with pop culture, the news is never particularly discerning. It’s very rare in the US for a news outlet, unless it is specifically a review column, to report anything opinionated in any way about music/movies. They know that coverage of a topic/person brings in an audience, and they wouldn’t dare alienate that audience by being too positive or negative about the topic. They just report the cold hard facts (sales, records, etc), and with a record as old as Sgt Pepper was in 1997, what was left but the cold hard facts? And even more pop culture focused media generally skews towards universal positivity. So if iHeart or MTV or whoever praises an album to the moon, who cares? That’s what they say about every new release they talk about.

As another aside, I know the US might be unique in this aspect. When I first lived in Canada back in 2011, I watched the tail end of the Academy Awards and was shocked when the news came on afterwards and the anchors were openly criticizing certain movies and actors that won awards, even saying that others deserved it more! Minutes after the show closed! In the US, that’s the realm of the blogger or gossip columninst, and no news reporter would be caught dead doing that. They would recap a few winners and move on.

Edit: to sum it up I don’t think that people care more about money in art today than they used to, but I do think that the people talking about art care about keeping their money coming in and have gravitated towards a more neutral/commercially focused/dry coverage style.

 

Maybe if there had been more sleeve colors available than the stark white, then I'd buy that theory...but in this case, it's almost like a treasure hunt, y'know?

 

Haha.

 

You buy and mono copy, your friend buys a stereo copy, and you both throw a groovy white album listening party.

 

I think the mono needle was meant for 78's, assuming you still owned and played any. You wouldn't need a different needle to play a mono LP on a stereo system-- just as you noted, most people weren't doing so. It was like owning a color TV and watching only B&W shows.

I would still maintain that the current fascination with mono/stereo mix differences largely didn't exist in the '60s and '70s. By 1968 the mono albums weren't in the racks anymore, and before that I'd wager there were few people who saw a reason to buy the same album twice. If a song sounded different on the radio than it did at home, that was just something your ears accepted (except in extreme cases like "Penny Lane"-- the one case where I'd say people were well aware of a variation in a Beatles song).

 

Yes! I had that bootleg and that's what's running through my head as folks discuss this. Still makes me laugh. He should tell it like this today in his shows and just alternate between the Supremes, aretha franklin, nona hendryx, and tina turner... but these are different times.... when legend outstrips the truth, print the legend!

 

At 14? I hardly think so.

As I’ve said in several posts, few of us were aware that mono and stereo even existed, never mind being afford same or even knowing what we or buying, or why. There was no talk and little comprehension of such matters or such differences at the time.

 

I don't remember ever having to switch a needle to play a mono record, but my dad had plenty of old mono records that we listened to on the stereo. Although stereo was the preference for new material.

I do remember that we had to change needle to play the 78s, though.

 

Right you are. I misremembered that. But I also seem to remember that there was some kind of incompatibility between either mono needles and stereo records or stereo needles and mono records that could actually cause damage to the record. Am I wrong about that? Did that also just apply to 78s?

 

I think that was more the other way around-- by 1968 all the stereo records were made to be "compatible with mono equipment." Of course that sounded awful.

 

Which apparently, they did.

As I recall, George H. made them take off some compression/limiting and redo the masters.

See this mis-named thread:
George Harrison remixed The White Album in 1968 in America

 

Now, this is a case where I think perhaps Sir Paul is embellishing a bit.

 

Embellishing what?

 

That "Blackbird" was written as a civil rights song.

 

Bah Ahaha! I thought I was the only one who didn’t believe that pile of crap

 

Someone corrected me though. Apparently it’s on some studio chatter from 1968....it’s still hard to believe though. Lol