George Harrison All Things Must Pass 50th Anniversary Edition - contents, outtakes & sound quality

yeah, the pricing on these releases is skewing toward absurdity. I railed endlessly about the ridiculous $70 retail for the Plastic Ono Band 2LP, and $150 for 5 CDs and a Blu-ray in slipcases is just stupid.

 

Neither is solo George Harrison

 

Maybe they thought we will not notice that no bigger book is included when placing the order ;-)

 

in my opinion, All Things Must Pass is at least as good if not better than most Beatles albums.

that said, I'd never spend $150 on 5 CDs and a Blu-ray.

 

Yes, it is deliberate marketing strategy and, sadly, a big step down (race to the bottom?) from things like the Collaboration box set of 2010. That wasn't a huge box or anything - 9 x 9 ins. - but it was beautifully produced with an elegant hardcover book and neatly packaged cd's. I'd be perfectly happy with something of comparable quality and size this time around, but I'm not optimistic.

 

But then the guests are not allowed to have kids that would kick it or make it dirty with their shoes ;-) Or they have to have a good insurance before entering the house...

 

To a certain extent it is in OUR hands to support this or not. I could afford all of these sets, but I am stubborn to support this and will go for the 3 CD and 3 LP version, because the prices of those are ok.

 

and speaking of books, I ended up buying the POB 2LP when the price came down to $45 and with a coupon it cost me $40. the "booklet" that some folks tried to cite as a reason for the $70 price tag is a joke unto itself.

 

I am very curious about the scrapbook and also the other book in the Uber, though I won't be buying either. I'm aware of the BE HERE NOW photo book, but I would be very interested, at some point, in getting an in-depth "Making of All Things Must Pass" book, with history, analysis and an extensive look at the time period, the personalities involved and quotes from George and others, something along the lines of the Lennon stand-alone Imagine and POB books, or like a Bruce Spizer-type book...

Is there such thing on the market or coming down the pike?

 

A 2 LP set should not be more than 40.

 

As a big fan of Gone Troppo I better start saving for an uber deluxe that comes with a cement mixer!

 

So long as the mix is good enough, it will still continue to have the same impact. Many of you here grew up with the Mono mixes of The Beatles and could talk for hours about how absolutely incredible it was, whereas I grew up with the Stereo mixes from the 2009 discs (and can't really stand the Mono mixes really, the sound is just too constricted for my taste). Regardless, the magic there was just as great as it was for you Mono folk. We've all ended up in the same place here, discussing our love for this incredible band.

Likewise, I've had friends get into The Beatles in the past year or two (for context, we're all in our early-mid 20s), and while I've seen them play a mix of news and 2009 remasters, whenever I've curated them playlists I've generally used the new mixes. It may be different from what you and I first listened to, but for them, the music hasn't been any less magical, I can tell you that.

 

Actually, yes, co-written by @Solaris.

All Things Must Pass Away (Harrison, Clapton) - new book!

 

Yeah exactly. And funnily enough, in the case of Sgt. Peppers, it actually made the Mono mix even more widely available because the Mono mix was uploaded to Spotify, Apple Music, etc through the Super Deluxe Edition.

 

I am not anti-remix at all, in fact, the remix of the White Album has probably become my preferred way to listen to that album, but I was not impressed by the teaser remix of “All Things Must Pass,” and I’m not impressed by the teaser remix of “Run of the Mill Take 36.” As maligned as the original mix of All Things Must Pass has been over the years, I think the original mix is better than what we’ve heard - so far - from this remix campaign.

 

Exactly. And we know "the industry" is able to manufacture everything in the recent Lennon set for $95 and still make a profit.

 

I don't think that one is a remix - just an alternate take. They did also release a remix of the album version of "Run of the Mill," and I'm not crazy about it.

 

Oh thank you!

 

How is exactly is “bigger product” a better bang for the buck? It’s just paper and cardboard which costs pennies. If the packaging was “bigger”, you can rest assured they would increase the price by far more than the cost of producing the bigger packaging.

Do you think that wood crate isn’t marked up by like 2000% over what it actually costs? That’s the worst bang for the buck - because it’s the biggest. It’s always that way.

I’d say smaller packaging is actually the better bang for the buck...

 

The few seconds of What Is Life in the Youtube video sounded great to me.

 

A shame they didn’t want to squeeze the well regarded 2010 mix (sorry, mastering) onto the blu ray. I wonder what they have against that one

 

Why so expensive?
The uber is absurdly expensive!
Not going to play-will get the hi res via Qubuz for£32.

 

There is no 2010 mix. Only a 2010 mastering.

 

I think we need to step back and look at the term "exclusive" based on how the record labels look at it.

It's my opinion, but I think they look at "exclusive" meaning, "you can only get this from us - the record label (not Amazon/B&N/Indie stores).” What people fail to realize is "the label" is a whole bunch of different online stores. For this release, I think we're talking shop.udiscovermusic.com (US), store.udiscover.com (UK), thesoundofvinyl.com, shop.abbeyroad.com, musicvaultz.com, recordstore.co.uk, georgeharrison.com and probably some EU affiliates I'm unaware of.

Same thing happened last year with McIII. B&N offered an "exclusive" blue vinyl, but so did a French site and perhaps others? The coke bottle exclusive was "exclusive" to PM.com, but also musicvaultz. And so forth. I don't know that "lies" is the proper term to describe this; "semantics" seems more appropriate to me.

 

Was the 2010 mix a “mix” or just a remastering? As I said above, I really fail to understand why the original mix was not included in hi-res on the Blu-Ray. Fine if you don’t want to put it on the CDs, but Blu Ray certainly has room to accommodate it, and anyone who shells out for the Blu-Ray probably is enough of a completist/obsessive to want a nice Blu Ray version of the original mix.

Dhani’s comments to Rolling Stone imply that estate wants to be rid of the original mix: “These mixes have to be able to stand up alongside contemporary music and with headphones. The original mixes sound flimsy on a playlist. These mixes will give this album so much more longevity with a younger generation. Now it will be easier to sit down and listen to it. This album now sounds like it was just recorded yesterday.”

Again, I’m not opposed to remixes per se, and have enjoyed a good deal of Giles Martin’s remixes of the Beatles catalog, but All Things Must Pass wasn’t in fact recorded yesterday, and it shouldn’t sound like it was. Obviously no one’s coming to my house to take away my copies of the original mix, but it sure seems like the remix will be pushed going forward.