Exactly what I thought about Capitol’s Revolver. I thought it was cool how John closed out each side with outstanding songs.
That is true. I grew up with the US Revolver and it always sounded great to me. Now that I'm familiar with the UK version, Revolver is even more amazing. But when I put it on to listen, it's the UK Revolver for ever and ever. I have no use for the truncated version, there's no nostalgia attached to it. However, I don't feel that way toward Rubber Soul. No matter how many times I hear the UK version, my head and heart still want the album to begin with I've Just Seen A Face. Because of course Drive My Car kicks off Yesterday & Today. And even though that album is full of odds and ends there's plenty of nostalgia attached to it. I can't pretend it doesn't exist.
Musically Y and T is one of the most uneven albums I’ve ever heard…but there’s a very strong sense of nostalgia for me with it. For one thing I always loved the cover… this was years before I even knew of a butcher cover. I just thought they looked very cool on it. The first time I heard anything from it was in Times Square Department Store sometime in the very early 70’s. Drive My Car came on and as it did, I was staring at the cover. That’s my earliest memory of the album which I bought very soon after and it comes back to me each and every time I pull it out.
Can't go wrong with the '78 purples. Relatively cheap and great sound and pressings. I'm only missing three (RS, MMT and YS). Waiting for the next record show as I don't trust the sellers on eBay or Discogs.
same here- I inherited a decent collection a few years back including a lot of Beatles. They are all mint. Looked like they never have been played. Even so I still ended up buying the newer reissues in various formats. They may be not the best sounding..who knows. But kinda cool to have them I think.
Pretty good? They're F~~KIN' FANTASTIC! It's THE BEATLES! SHUT UP*! * I don't mean to actually shut up, I mean it in the way Little Richard says it.
Grew up with the US albums and still prefer the US versions of Rubber Soul and Revolver. Rubber Soul is splendid in the US version
Is it that you don’t like “the three John songs” that Capitol stole from Revolver or you just prefer the way you remember it from “all those years ago?” Just axin’…….
BTW the US albums are not the only ones that were different. I acquainted myself with their catalogue via my local libraries, at least one had some Buchclub (book club) copies which had slightly different covers and a different running order. I have not yet searched for more info but ...
I detest the Capitol albums. They were purely created to milk the Beatles by creating more album and sales. This was purely a product of the early music industry where the record companies held the power to exploit artists with low royalties for new artists and this sort of commercial manipulation. I get this is what US fans grew up with - but you're accepting this exploitation in the name of nostalgia. We could all make up resequenced version of the albums and think they're great. I just see these albums as a bi product of corporate greed over The Beatles wishes. They expressed their distaste at the time and fortunately within 3 years they had enough clout to tell Capitol to cut it out. You don't see other countries going on and open about the French, German, Italian, Japanese South African etc releases . Seems a very US centric view of things.
They already did. In 2014 they released all the US albums individually. All of the CD's contain both stereo and mono versions of the original album ( 22 tracks total ) and all based on the 2009 remasters. With the exception of "Meet The Beatles," I managed to find all of them on Amazon for around ten bucks a piece.
I don't think it was quite as devious as all that. At some labels, probably. But in the early 60s, U.S. and British record labels just operated under different standard practices. Putting a single on an album was considered "cheating" in the U.K. because if you had the single, getting the album made you buy the same song twice. It was standard practice in the U.S. The singles, in the U.S., were incentives to get you to buy the album. Stereo, at least until the mid-sixties, was considered unnecessary for pop music in the U.K., at least at EMI. In their thinking, stereo was only needed for classical recordings--pop music wasn't complicated enough to need stereo. And albums usually didn't have more than 12 tracks in the U.S.
After endless tinkering over the course of I dunno how long, I recently completed mostly stereo playlists of The Beatles' work comprehensive of singles and album tracks - actually using unique mixes from the US releases when available - as an alternate to my preferred usual listening (mono UK albums, and Mono Masters, plus the stereo-only releases) and yeah I think they'e great and I'm more interested in those than the Capitol albums. One day, I may even listen to them! Ever since I was kid and got my first Beatles book and realized what the actual albums they made were, it seemed obvious those were the real deal and better. That being said, I did mention one Italian comp above as a fine listen - but that is actually almost exclusively non-LP tracks, and would be much better if the one album track were replaced with another b-side. And I'm glad that ages ago the Magical Mystery Tour LP became de facto official part of main discography, as it's top five Beatles album in my book. The question as posed in title of this thread of course sets a low bar. Surely they're at least "pretty good" — thanks to the contents, that's inevitably an understatement. The US Revolver though is an abomination!! And The Early Beatles is equally without anything to offer over the actual album it corresponds to, other than nostalgia for whoever is used to the track sequence, and for that matter is clearly inferior to the second version of Vee-Jay's Introducing... The Beatles and Capitol Canada's Twist and Shout.
those Capitol Beatles albums made the Beatles worldwide MEGA stars and millions upon millions of dollars...without the USA they would have been nowhere near as famous as they were...man. They should have gotten down on their knees and praised Capitol for the incredible promo they gave those ungrateful bunch...and if you were there in 1964 us youngster had no idea about the UK albums as they were ILLEGAL to purchase in the USA during Beatlemania...and they didn't give any of the millions back to Capitol as well...
I see where you're coming from -- I think the reason I don't seek out other international variants like The Beatles In Italy, No. 5, Hottest Hits, Os Beatles or Por Siempre is because they feel like more standard compilations to me (albeit with limited knowledge and experience) because they are (correct me if I'm wrong) just the EMI tapes resequenced, as you express above. The Capitol LPs have processing done to them to set them apart at the mixing and mastering stages. Also, I love the UK albums; Please Please Me rips, AHDN and Beatles For Sale are gorgeous, I just listened to Help! yesterday and it's really quite good, underrated. I'm also really, really glad they renegotiated their contract in 1967 -- can you imagine a Capitol Abbey Road?? It boggles the mind... I'm glad things got rectified historically, and I'm glad to have both discographies. Less exploitation plus access to nostalgia with historical hindsight as to why the situation changed seems ideal to me, in the grand scheme of all things Beatle. In this vein, it would have been cool if Apple had done a "Beatles Worldwide!" campaign in 2014 with all known major variations sold exclusively to their home countries in boxes as in the US and Japan. Sorry if this is too passionate or intricate a response -- kind of new here...
The only group that didn't get their albums hacked up by a US label was The Kinks. Yes the covers were altered, sometimes changed but (in most cases) the track listings stayed the same. The DC5 albums had 10 songs, The Hollies albums were mutilated in both packaging and sound (I'm waiting for a Hollies "Hollies Imperial Albums...Actually Pretty Good??!" thread) by both Imperial and Epic, the Animals MGM albums, The Yardbirds on Epic. Yes you're correct sir. At least The Searchers albums were in true stereo since Kapp considered itself as a audiophile label and refused any fake stereo masters from what it says in the notes in "the Searchers Anthology". All or most of the British Invasion bands were exploited big time.
For those who want a deep dive into Dave Dexter and the Beatles' American sound, this is an awesome article. Dave Dexter, The Beatles, and Capitol Records | Folkrocks
A popular theory is that since the Byrds and the whole folk-rock thing were big at the time, Capitol decided to make the US Rubber Soul a folk-rock album. Either way, I loved the results from Day 1 (not knowing when I first heard it in early '66 that the UK album had a different track list).
The UK album has a whole other atmosphere…it’s basically an album of mature, solid Pop songs which don’t have one overriding textural commonality..even though not all the songs on the Capitol album are of an acoustic nature, it had enough of them-and sequenced accordingly-to give it an overall acoustic guitar ambience. In some ways it feels more like “an album” while the UK version is more of a collection of songs (albeit great ones),
I'm also noting how the Capitol box sets retain the original quirks edited out in 2009, like lip smacks in "You Won't See Me". I had these on old needledrops, but am only noticing them really right now. Like the "know/no, I wouldn't" backing vocals, too!
As an aside, love your avatar! Would love to chat Frank with you. Man, I want that 8-track! One can dream...
Forgot to mention that all the discs duplicated the original album covers exactly, even extending to the inner sleeves that advertised all the other Capitol artist's albums at the time. Yesterday and Today even came with a choice of stick-0n Butcher cover in case you preferred that over the Beatles-in-a- trunk cover most of us were used to. The CD itself duplicated the original Capitol black label with the rainbow trim. In other words, a perfect miniature replica of the original Capitol albums. So how cool is that for 1960's nostalgia buffs!
Wow, I must have more than a few lyrics wrong...it's "mind's opaque" in "Think For Yourself", not "mind's OK"...
