The Beatles: UK Response to US Capitol versions?

I'm one of those that loves having both the UK and US versions at my disposal.

Having grown up on the US versions, I accept that the UKs are "official", and what the band wanted, but I still get a kick out of the US records and enjoy listening to them. Songs like "Money", with the extra reverb, are so much more raunchy in their US mixes.

And I know it's heresy, but I've never quite accepted "Doctor Robert"'s appearance on Revolver. (To me it's the only unsurprising, non-forward looking song on the album, and sounds like a Rubber Soul outtake.)

As someone who's spent years daydreaming about The Beatles, the US albums are like a real life game of "What If."

 

I grew up in Canada, so I was familiar with the American albums. Here though we had the good fortune to have the second UK album released with a slightly different title but the same tracks. To this day With The Beatles sounds right to me and I wouldn't change a thing about it. I have heard Meet the Beatles but it didn't do much for me.
As for the singles being included on the albums, I didn't buy Yesterday and Today for the longest time because I already had more than half the album as singles. "What a rip off!" I thought then and still do now. And when I did buy it I was appalled by some of the stereo mixes of the singles.
Anyway I don't think much of the American albums but love the UK ones and I think it's right that they are considered the official canon, for what it's worth.

 

To be honest - I find the tracklistings bizarre and ridiculous. Revolver that omits three key tracks, that odds and sods Today and Yesterday. All very very wrong and all done to make more money. The covers are awful as well - the UK got iconic sleeves, the US ones look like some kid knocked them off during lunch.

The sleeves are fun - in the same way foreign sleeves are fun from anyway, Germany, Japan, but that's about it.

 

Having said that, I can understand if you were young in the sixties those US albums might be special to you. But don't try and justify their existence or try an rewrite history.

 

The US albums aren't official Beatles albums. Full stop.

 

The US albums are what a very large part of the Beatles' worldwide fans heard at the time; even after the split, a great many more grew up with them. Of course they count.

 

Why does the very existence of the US albums irritate so many people I wonder? I'm sure this has been discussed on other threads but do the US Stones albums elicit the same response? For both bands the existence of alternate albums created an abundance of riches, IMO.

 

Great Britain used to have a worldwide empire and lost a revolutionary war to the United States.

 

What Capital did was create an album with more of a folk-rock vibe, which was popular in late '65. I've Just Seen a Face and It's Only Love were perfect openers for each side.

 

"Capital" also got rid of "Nowhere Man", what with its pesky non–folk-rock vibe.

 

Yep...pretty much

Depends on my mood...sometimes I want Beatles For Sale, sometimes I want Beatles '65, and so on.

They're all just albums, guys. Funny, you never hear American fans calling the British albums "sacrilege" or "an abomination" or any of that pimply hyperbole

 

Those aren't the only two options. You proved it when you said "13 official albums".

 

...and what are you proving by ignoring the fact that what I actually said was:

"there's 13 IIRC authentic/official Beatles albums (the UK albums)"

 

The fact that there are not only two options.

 

Seen a sealed The Beatles Capitol albums Japan cd box for $33.00 is this mastered good ?

 

I listened to the U.S. albums up to the point when I found out they weren't the "real" Beatles albums.

For me they were ok at the time. But it was like reading a different version of a history book. Once I learned the real history, I couldn't go back.

Or like Hollywood movies in China that have certain scenes edited out. Yeah, it's still the "movie," but it's NOT the real WHOLE movie.

 

I didn't know about the US albums until the early '80s. I happened to come across a number of imported Beatles LPs in a large branch of HMV at some point (can't remember where), and I was very surprised to see Beatles albums I never knew existed, and to find they weren't on the Parlophone label. I became quite fascinated by them, and I did acquire some of them over the next few years. As a keen Beatles fan I appreciated them as novelty items, but I did feel that American fans had been (mostly) badly served by Capitol (though some of the albums are better than others). The US was the largest market for The Beatles, and yet American fans were often sold an inferior product (in terms of fidelity and value for money - fewer songs and, I've learned more recently, being charged more for stereo). I know many US fans are very attatched to these albums and have their own, often valid, reasons for defending them, but I tend to be ambivalent about them.

 

Capitol albums box.
Sonik kicks?
Don't know how it good the Japan cd mastering is. But. Robert Christgau went bananas for it and gave VOL1
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️.

 

Its good but uses the unique Capitol mixes.

 

60s, 70s and 80s they were the official U.S. versions.
What we lost by having less songs per album was easily made up for by having the best possible songs on the LPs.
We usually got the singles on LPs instead of having to only have them as 45s or wait for a best of to come out.
Plus the U.S. on vinyl was a 10 track per album culture regardless, not just with The Beatles.

 

The Beatles tend to bring out for some listeners obsessive/compulsive tendencies or, even worse, some kind of perverse maternal instinct. It's funny that this subculture is still worried about the US albums in the age of playlists and shuffle play. The playing order of the songs is irrelevant. They are stand-alone compositions, and they either work on their own terms, or they don't.

 

Capitol Albums Volume 1 or Volume 2? Both have the same mastering worldwide. For the Japan boxes, I remember there may have been some type of CD copy protection on Volume 1, but it shouldn't be a problem. The packaging is better, with the Volume 1 mini-lp covers being slightly larger than the US versions, and the Volume 2 covers being even slightly larger still, and being the same size as the covers in the 2009 mono and 2014 US Albums boxes.

 

Vol 1.
The thing is there is official ( German) obi styled versions as well. Though this one looks the real mccoy ( I think ).

 

When I first heard (of) them, I just thought they were a quirky novelty. Just an example of how much of a cottage industry the record industry was in those days. It's only when you realise that, due to the size of the market, they outsold their UK counterparts that, actually, these albums are pretty important... And, of course, to many millions of people, they're as much a part of your life as the UK editions are to mine. And I think we all should be respectful of that when passing comment on them. I was especially mindful of that when discussing the U.S. Albums box a few years ago. It's tough to offer an opinion without appearing to stomp all over others' feelings on them.