The Beatles: UK Response to US Capitol versions?

Do you recognize this Capitol album cover? Do you recognize the CD track listing? Do you recognize the album's stereo mix?

It is puzzling.

'No 'revisionism' going on here, no, none. None at all. The Capitol album always had those tracks and sounded like that... yeah. And 2 + 2 = 5.'

 

The creation of a special, different product for the American market was not done because there was "something special" about America. It was done because the people in charge of the American market were willing to alter the product in ways no one else was, both to increase their profits and to "piss on it to make it theirs."

 

Revisionism or pure sloppiness. One wonders.

 

In this case - both!

 

That's what our forefathers were fighting for.

It was nothing to do with taxation, it was the U.S. version of Rubber Soul!

What foresight they had!

 

Thanks. They are "subjects of the queen" is what I thought it was. Anyway who would think there was a connections between the two countries? Didn't two of the biggest selling recording artists in history emigrate from one to the other?

 

Actually, as I've posted here before, I bought all the UK's from PPM through Revolver in 1974. I did need the UKs when I discovered they existed. Very much wanted is probably more accurate.

It's hard to push a revisionist argument when the information that the CD's were going to be issued in the original UK format was not only telegraphed all over the media, but, IIRC, in the store displays as well.

You can't always say the NYC doesn't engage in various forms of historical revisionism, but in the case of this 1987 article the paper gets the benefit of the doubt (my italics):

NOW ON CD'S, FIRST 4 BEATLES ALBUMS

''Please Please Me'' and ''With The Beatles,'' both issued in Britain in 1963, and ''A Hard Day's Night'' and ''Beatles for Sale,'' from 1964, will be released worldwide as compact disks with the song selections and packaging of their first British release, which differ from the first American Beatles albums. First Four Are Monaural".

Puzzling to me why you think they'd want to issue all the various and sundry comps from all over the world when all of the music would be contained in the official catalog...seems to me the issue for the surviving Beatles was to get control of their product, which they did.

But back to the statement about Apple being the biggest perpetrator of revisionism in the Beatles history, if that's true, one would necessarily have to ask why that would have been the case. Since McCartnety, Harrison and Starr were all still there and Ono there to represent Lennon, what would have prompted them to push the UK catalog and not the US? Asked, and answered: the US albums weren't what the band intended. They didn't like it and put a stop to it in 1987 when they couldn't through the 1960's, '70's and 80's. Whether that's 'stomping on the fans' wishes (who had been anxious in anticipation about finally getting The Beatles on CD) or honouring the artists' intent on how they wanted their music presented (originally, in this case) is of course debatable.

Trying to pin 'no more vinyl' on Apple seems bizzarre. I was in record stores all the time in '87, '88, '89 and by '89 vinyl records -- new, I mean -- were becoming damn hard to find. And that was in a good sized city (Seattle). Tower had squeezed it down to a few racks by then, like 5 percent of the store space. No one seemed interested in keeping vinyl available anymore (outside of vinyl fans like myself who were dwindling at a fantastic pace).

It all comes down to the words and what you think they mean, in this case 'revisionism', and the context in which it is used. You could be right here: Apple "revised" the catalog available in the US to conform with that of the UK, which, apparently, was considered the 'canon.' That was no historical revisionism -- unless (back to Rubber Soul again!) you're trying to argue a hugely clever, subterranean historical revisionist conspiracy on the part of Apple to defraud American fans of their rightful due by using US artwork on a UK track list CD.

Fiendishly clever, that.

Or just plain sloppy and unprofessional.

I think you know which side of the interpretation I'm on in that regard, especially considering all the dozens, even hundreds of examples we've seen over the decades with all kinds of reissues, not just The Beatles.

Historical revisionism is something altogether different -- trying to say that the US Rubber Soul slayed the world with its track list (simply because more copies sold in the US), for example -- in its attempt to assert something happened in the past that did not. That's something that gets me very excited and hostile, not so much because of this specific topic at hand but because I'm a student of propaganda and this is, for lack of a more precise term, a 'canonical' technique, and, as such, warrants intense scrutiny and sharply focussed critical analysis.

This thread has been really unparalleled, excellent practice and I've enjoyed the hell out of it so far. I think a lot of people have.

OK, off to work but you can be sure I'll be checking back later!

Bye!

 

The 1987 CD Stereo mix of Rubber Soul - along with its Capitol cover art for the UK track listing - is a clear case of historical revisionism.

But 2 + 2 = 5. Always has.

You should get a better grip on things, then, loosen up. We're just discussing the Beatles here.

The US RS album did have a great track listing that effected the way people reacted to it and enjoyed it and remember it. There's no doubt about that.

But the track-aspect is a separate matter than the 'slayed the world based on US sales' argument - which is really between you and the other poster who stated things along those lines.

The people who love the Capitol records are not monolithic group. They're Duophonic, at the very least.

 

This discussion is starting to remind me of something...


Can't we all just agree that Rubber Soul is a great f--king album regardless of whether it's the U.S., U.K. or bleedin' Djibouti version?

 

But the Capitol albums missed out Love Me Do (Ringo), Misery, There's a Place, Sie Leibt Dich, Can't Buy Me Love, I Should Have Known Better, A Hard Day's Night, I'm Down, Paperback Writer, Rain, Lady Madonna and The Inner Light. Not until Apple under Klein did the US get it's compilation album mojo back. Ironically, half those tracks were on Parlophone (UK) albums.

 

Djibouti imported the UK version from RSA.

 

Them Djibouti pressings are killer too! Killer on yer record needle, that is

 

That one was truly sorely missed. I remember it was on the same Parlophone album as The Inner Light, I'm Down, and Rain.

 

No, it isn't.

 

Yer new here. This discussion is simply the same old tired "U.S. vs U.K. Beatles albums" debate/argument that has been going on since 1964...and on this particular forum since its inception in 2001. Stick around here awhile, you'll get used to it

 

I think it's amusing. But I can see it becoming a bit boring after the first couple of years.

 

Poverty on both sides of the pond. What will we do.

 

It's not just the albums (or American discography) themselves as objects that emit music.

It's reaction vs. reaction vs reaction... ad infitum. Until there's no one left who really cares.

It is not a tired debate (you want to debate that?). It is merely an old one.

 

Well, the Djibouti version does contain that rare excerpt from Carnival Of Light.

At least that's what I heard...

 

Great post. The American albums were necessary to make the band acceptable to American audiences not only because the original ‘63 UK cadence attempted by Vee Jay and others failed but because Capitol had a better grasp on new music trends as they themselves were setting them with several other bands by ‘65.

The shuffled acoustic folk US Rubber Soul is a better presentation than the inconsistent UK version and far better positioned to gain the group much needed respect away from moptops and towards the serious ground that Bob Dylan, Mommas & Poppas, Peter Paul & Mary, Simon and Garfunkel, etc were in the process of creating.

The US Rubber Soul is as important a breakthrough for the Beatles second phase as I Want To Hold Yor Hand was for the first phase.

 

In America, Canada and Venezuela...

 

What about Djibouti, dammit?

 

Fallout shelter time...

 

Before the Beatles broke America they were toiling away for three weeks doing two shows a day at a movie theater and recording foreign language novelty records to try to make inroads in the huge market known as....France.

Seems like the rest of the world was indeed waiting on the approval of the US and it’s big role yet to come in the Beatles story.