The Beatles: UK Response to US Capitol versions?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by John Porcellino, May 18, 2016.

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  1. wildstar

    wildstar Senior Member

    Location:
    ontario, canada
    How did they "get it right"?

    They pulled four songs from the album for potential single releases, and added two random stray leftovers from their previous hatchet job as filler. You can't actually believe they had some grand design to remade Rubber Soul artistically.

    They pulled Nowhere Man/What Goes On (since Ringo was the most popular Beatle in the states) for a single that they could resell again a few months later on Yesterday & Today.

    They likely pulled Drive My Car and If I Needed Someone as a potential followup single as they were the next most hit potential tracks on the album - The Byrds were huge at the time (coming off two number one singles) and If I Needed Someone was by George's own admission a complete Byrds rip-off/homage.

    Also it always struck me as funny that people seem to give extra weight to the fact that - for a change - they kept the name Rubber Soul for this US hatchet job. I wonder if its supporters and those who think Capitol "got it right" would be quite as pleased with it if it weren't the "American Rubber Soul" and instead just called "Beatles 66" or "Re-Meet The Beatles" or something.
     
  2. wildstar

    wildstar Senior Member

    Location:
    ontario, canada
    They had no choice - they had no power to decline those terms - how could you not understand that? Or are you just being disengenuous?

    They had no power to make demands in the beginning. It was "sign what we put in front of you - this is the deal - take it or leave it. If you dont like the terms, well then dont let door hit you on the....."

    As soon as they had the bargaining power earned by their continued success to negotiate veto power into their contract - they did, so what does that tell you?
     
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  3. Sick Sick Phil

    Sick Sick Phil Forum Resident

    " You can't actually believe they had some grand design to remade Rubber Soul artistically."

    you don't think the original rubber soul was made by some grand design other than to make the album with their best songs.

    "
    They likely pulled Drive My Car and If I Needed Someone as a potential followup single as they were the next most hit potential tracks on the album" why would that be the reason? Capital had no problem with singles being on the albums
     
  4. wildstar

    wildstar Senior Member

    Location:
    ontario, canada
    But what they liked even more was to release a couple of songs as a non album single, and then add them to a later album so they can sell those same 2 songs again to the same people who already bought them months earlier on the single.

    PS - You REALLY need to learn how to use the quote function!
     
  5. Michael

    Michael I LOVE WIDE S-T-E-R-E-O!

    I can't imagine Nowhere Man anywhere else, but I see do your point.
     
  6. Sick Sick Phil

    Sick Sick Phil Forum Resident

    They had all the power they could have said "NO" There were no guns put to their heads. Would they have made a billion ? odds are no but nobody forced them to do anything

    "It was "sign what we put in front of you - this is the deal - take it or leave it." yes THEY COULD HAVE LEFT IT. Not only did the Beatles consent to certain terms THEY HAD IT IN WRITING
     
  7. qwerty

    qwerty A resident of the SH_Forums.

    The British editions of The Beatles cannon were released in my land. These are the versions I know, and how they were meant to be released. After being familiar with the UK sequencing, US versions just don't seem to have the same cohesiveness. Yes, great to have the singles on them, but it's still not quite right. Listening to the US versions (incl. the "Dexterized" mixes) has been good to see the context in the US, but it's the UK versions that get played on my system.

    Putting the singles as bonus tracks at the end of the UK CDs may have been an OK workaround to the arguement that the US albums contained the singles. The purist approach was taken, and I'm OK with The Beatles Rarities (Blue LP in the box set, not the US version) and the Black and White CDs filling those gaps. The Magical Mystery Tour LP was available here via the World Record Club, which was welcomed, and the Hey Jude compilation was also released here, which was a good way to obtain those tracks.
     
  8. wildstar

    wildstar Senior Member

    Location:
    ontario, canada
    So you are really saying that the Beatles as absolute nobodys should have turned down a record contract if they were to make a bunch of diva demands that the record company would probably have laughed at?

    I doubt the band even CARED what was in their first contract when they signed it. All they likely cared about was having the ability to record at all. I also doubt they gave much (if any) thought to albums which were barely even a thing in the UK in 1962. It was a singles game then.

    As an analogy - Does anyone really know what they want when they buy their first computer, for example. I'd say no - I certainly didnt, but over time the first computer I purchased definitely educated me on what I didnt want in a computer, and when it came time to purchase my second computer I put that knowledge/experience to good use in choosing the next one.
     
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  9. Sick Sick Phil

    Sick Sick Phil Forum Resident

    "I doubt the band even CARED what was in their first contract when they signed it. All they likely cared about was having the ability to record at all." well that is my point THEY DIDN'T CARE. And they DON'T CARE NOW. They sell the US albums and the Japanese on their web page. They have ads for the box sets on their youtube channel. Know what you don't see ? Videos of Paul and Ringo telling their fans not to buy these albums and box sets. Not only that they have allowed their songs to be cherry picked off the "albums" that they spent so much time conceiving. It reminds me of how Kurt Cobain said how he didn't want to be famous but would complain if mtv wasn't playing nirvana videos enough.
     
  10. Sick Sick Phil

    Sick Sick Phil Forum Resident

    When you bought your first computer, YOU STILL GAVE CONSENT TO TAKE YOUR MONEY. Now it doesn't matter if you were happy or not with the computer. Or that when you bought your next computer you were more educated on the matter.
     
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  11. culabula

    culabula Unread author.

    Location:
    Belfast, Ireland

    Weren't Something New, Beatles 65 (and maybe more) given full releases in Germany ?
     
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  12. wildstar

    wildstar Senior Member

    Location:
    ontario, canada
    You're stretching here - consent to take money? Money is simply something we all agree has value and is therefore what we use to exchange for goods or services - plus if I give consent for a con man to take my money, without knowing he's ripping me off - am I then giving my consent to him ripping me off?

    WTF!
     
  13. wildstar

    wildstar Senior Member

    Location:
    ontario, canada
    But not in stores, right, nor (I'm assuming) online retailers like amazon etc? - so they clearly make a distinction. Not as much of a distinction as in 1987 when they firmly refused to allow anything but the UK versions to exist on CD, but still - a distinction.

    Plus the cherry picking songs you mentioned - if you mean itunes etc - well that just the way of the world today. Who isnt selling their music that way nowadays? What does the realities of today have to do with the realities of the non-internet 1960s? Plus you do know the 45rpm records used to be a thing, right, not to mention jukebox exclusive singles (and sometimes EPs) that cherry picked hit singles, or popular non-single album tracks (like Stairway To Heaven" to name one) existed. Not to mention playing a single individual album track on the radio was (and still is a thing) right? And "compilation albums" always existed to gather cherry picked hit singles and popular album tracks together.

    But none of these was ever intended to replace the artist's real albums, but the US Beatle albums were, since the UK versions were not made available (except as hard to find and prohibitively expensive imports).

    The US album are "of the 60s" and (for the most part) remain there in the past to be forgotten - or never known about at all by the vast majority of future listeners - as it should be...
     
  14. belushipower

    belushipower Forum Resident

    Here in Australia we never even saw the US versions unless you looked really hard. Import shops didn't come in until mid 70s. For some reason I bought the US Help! and wondered why it was only half an album!
     
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  15. belushipower

    belushipower Forum Resident

    We had the Collection Of Beatles Oldies if you wanted the singles on one LP.
     
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  16. qwerty

    qwerty A resident of the SH_Forums.

    I certainly knew what I wanted and many salespersons were surprised when I gave them the specifications. It was a 486-33DX, with scope for upgrading. Be careful with your analogies when you speak on behalf of everyone.

    But I do take your point that most musicians don't understand contacts and aren't interested in the business side. The trusting of their managers has been the ruin of many a good band.
     
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  17. qwerty

    qwerty A resident of the SH_Forums.

    Yes we did - I forgot about that one, thanks for the reminder. It was the only way we could get "Bad Boy", if my memory serves me correctly.
     
  18. belushipower

    belushipower Forum Resident

    Ah, Bad Boy. For some reason, my favourite Beatles song when I was a kid.
     
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  19. Skywheel

    Skywheel Forum Resident

    Location:
    southern USA
    Canon (Kan.en) --- a) An authoritative list of books accepted as Holy Scripture
    b) The authentic works of a writer
    c) An accepted or sanctioned body of related works

    Cannon (Kan.en) --- A) heavy cylindrical weapon what goes "boom".
     
  20. white wolf

    white wolf Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    You can't miss what you never had. I grew up with the US versions. I purchased them all, including the singles. Sometime during the 70's I discovered the UK versions, and I purchased the imports when I could find them. I never saw an import UK mono White Album and in fact never knew it existed until I got onto this forum. Sometimes I would listen to my US versions, and sometimes I would listen to my newer UK versions. I still do that today. I'm just not a purist. I am a fan of Beatles Music and that is all.
     
  21. ralph7109

    ralph7109 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Franklin, TN
    On the other hand, they pulled "What Goes On" from the album so....
     
  22. S. P. Honeybunch

    S. P. Honeybunch Presidente de Kokomo, Endless Mikelovemoney

    Nope, the Parlophone Revolver came after Yesterday and Today. The Parlophone Revolver actually should have had the butcher cover or the trunk cover on the rear of the LP jacket.
     
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  23. Jae

    Jae Senior Member

    First time I saw an American album was in 1989, while browsing the racks at the then recently opened Time Warp Records in Clarence St Sydney. Bought them all - they were the 1988 C1-9 reissues. They were costly though - $24.99 rather than the "normal" LP price of $17.99, which was a noticeable difference to a young'n just starting work.

    I thought they sounded much "dirtier" and "grungier" than the "clean" UK based-albums I was used to. But I enjoyed them as a novelty, and for a while I played them more than my Aussie Beatles albums.

    Still have them all too, in the same condition as when I bought them.
     
    Last edited: May 21, 2016
  24. qwerty

    qwerty A resident of the SH_Forums.

    As far as I'm concerned each Beatles LP was announce itself with a "boom" which reverberated for a long time.
     
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  25. NumberEight

    NumberEight Came too late and stayed too long

    Thanks for clarifying. I just assumed they were referring to Revolver.
     
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