If you want to experience crappy sound, give this baby a spin. Cool factor: Yes! Sound factor: No! There is hardly any bass whatsoever on this, compressed and tinny is the best way to describe it. But it has Love Me Do
Actually that's not true - they could have released the UK albums, and the success would have happened without a doubt...the fact that Capitol chopped up, bastardised and exploited their recordings was not the reason the Beatles were successful. Altering covers and track listing is bad enough but mucking around with the tapes is something NO other country did. Period. No one would accept that today and just because it happened 'back in the 60's' doesn't make in right. I do get that was the way it was, I just disagree it's right or acceptable, and only happened because the artist had no power. Secondly, The Beatles ungrateful bunch? I see, a band disagrees with a record company bastardising their work and that makes you ungrateful. That's quite the leap.
Not to steer my own thread off-topic, but: UK Mono Rubber Soul? Awesome. Just blasted through Side 1 and now onto RINGO!!
The mono Beatles 2nd Album is canon as far as I'm concerned. The mono has less reverb than the stereo, and the music never lets up.
All points correct. Yet it was these albums that conquered America and sold incredible numbers of copies. Detest or not they are part of history. For many Americans, it wasn't till the '87 CDs that the UK versions were even heard.
I do not agree with anything you've said...were you there in 1964 at the beginning of Beatlemania? just curious as you really don't grasp the importance of the Capitol Albums...BECAUSE, IMO they are not close to you.... you are spewing the same junk about the Capitol albums that the people that were not close to them...prove me wrong, please. : ) they were essential in the Beatles success in the US...period.
batdude98 said: ↑ 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". that's another reason I detest the 2009 CDs...They took it all those quirks away we know and love...and narrowed the stereo...Damn!
I totally get some Americans love them - and respect that those albums are anchored in the US experience of the Beatles time from 1964-66. I'm simply stating that the reasons they exist were detestable - pure and simple exploitation at a time when records companies could get away with it as they had the power. By 1967 The Beatles had to power back and told Capitol to get back in line, as it should be. God knows what Capitol would have done with The White Album.
What happened with the Beatles & all their Capitol product was simply no different from what the entire world of Rock 'n Roll artists, AND their fans, were going through. Remember; up until the era of Monterey Pop, Sgt. Pepper and such, a lot of the 50's & 60's chartmakers that catered to teenagers were largely ripped off, talked down to, exploited for the bucks, and to no surprise in the 50's, the black artists were given second-rate lodging and had to be served meals from the back doors of restaurants in the segregated south. The entire phony "Payola" scandal in 1959 was nothing more than an attempted coup by the Mitch Millers in the industry that claimed that Rock 'n Roll was responsible for every rotten thing they could dream up. A swath of Elvis's 1956 shows were filmed by police squads hoping to charge him with obscenity. Nat King Cole was even beaten in one famous story. The Beatles were no exception to this prejudiced garbage, and it's pretty much well known by now how much Epstein & George Martin both had to twist arms whenever they had to in order to get certain dunderheads in the US to listen to something well worth their time for one damned minute. Thus the Capitols are a case of "It is what it is. The damage is done". Believe me...if there were a time machine......
The US albums are not so bad in terms of tracklisting, it's the sound quality and the number of tracks per album that are wrong. I mean MTB works well, so does Second Album... The songs were good, no matter how they were sequenced. Perhaps the Beatles objected to the way Capitol handled their material but they benefited from Capitol's expertise, no doubt.
Recently spun and enjoyed. The childhood listening memories return quickly once the needle drops. Yeah, cool.
We Yanks also had 45 singles that were never released as singles in the UK... all came with cool Picture Sleeves. There are two or three of these that are worth mucho bucks if both the single and, especially, the sleeves, are in great shape. Anyone in the know care to chime in with which U.S. 45's / Pic Sleeves are the big bucks bombers?
It is why for the most part I do like the US Albums stereo version of Second Album being close to the mono in that regard and it just seems odd why the original stereo version alone was subject to such a high degree of echo.
Most people in the US were introduced to the Beatles with Meet the Beatles. Side 1 of that album is as good as any debut album side 1 Rock history. Six tracks, all originals, and the best they had at the time. Shrewdest marketing move ever. I Want to Hold Your Hand I Saw Her Standing There This Boy It Won’t Be Long All I’ve Got to Do All My Loving
It made them look like songwriting geniuses right out of the gate, in the US. Here they are, the fully formed... Beatles.
Prefer the US track listing for Meet The Beatles, Beatles 2nd Album, Rubber Soul and Yesterday & Today to comparable UK releases. Prefer the duophonic / reverb laden sound on at least duoohonic I Want To Hold Your Hand and everything on stereo Beatles 2nd Album to the sound of mono or stereo UK releases of that material.
Anyone else curious as to how VeeJay (a small Blues and Jazz label in Chicago, IIRC) was able to use the same "Rainbow" label that Capitol, a big time company that had Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Nancy Wilson etc., used? There had to be some sort of copyright issue with a label design, wasn't there? Hey Lawyers
In 1964, the sequencing and choice of cuts for the LPs, I feel, did make a difference for the US market because Capitol was so damn backlogged with the material they were all of a sudden so interested in pushing -- In early 1964, Capitol had two LPs and some singles and EPs worth of material to frantically blast into the market. That said, the duophonic mixes, the added reverb, the fake mono, and the rest of that crap? None of that had anything to do with the success of the Beatles -- that was just recorded company execs being a bit lazy to get all this material that they felt had a shelf life of a few months out into the market ASAP. Every thread that that opens up about the Capitol LPs is usually defended by baby boomers based on nostalgia -- "it was the first way we heard it. man... it blew our minds!" -- there is never a solid defense of these LPs presented from an artistic view. Yes, the Beatles Second Album" has all this "power" and the US "Rubber Soul" is a "folk-rock statement" and all that... but it's so retroactive based on the joy that these LPs provided young folks at the time release... most folks are attaching their own "mania" to these LPs more so than an artistic eye. I'm a second-gen US fan but I still feel an LP called "Rubber Soul" opening with a track like "Drive My Car" makes more sense... In addition, it's telling that no original US fan steps up and defends the 11-track US "Revolver" over the UK edition.
If you want to hear the music, get the remasters. If you want to hear Beatlemania, get the Capitol albums.
1964 US Beatlemania, that is. If you want to hear 1963-64 Beatlemania, get the Parlophone (or Odeon, etc.) versions.
