Will remixing the Beatles’ catalogue keep their music relevant in the coming years?

I'm saying tack-on Paperback Writer and Rain at the end of Revolver. They don't need to throw Yellow Submarine and Doctor Robert off the album and replace it with those songs (man would that be an improvement).

 

YES.

I'm living this right now. Like a good Bealeaudiophile I've got my 7 year old completely hooked on the Beatles. When he takes his iPad and says "Hey Siri, play Hey Jude" on it comes. From the Blue Album. Which leads him to think a) the Beatles made an album called The Blue Album and b) that Hey Jude wasn't recorded with and a part of an epic work of art called The White Album. As a result, he'll never hear Mother Nature's Son, I Will, or Rocky Raccoon all of which he would enjoy, unless his Modern Dad came to the rescue and directed him in that manner.

The problem with the Beatles top songs linking-back to their greatest hits compilations is that they aren't sending young listeners to the original LP canon. That's the problem that needs to be solved to "keep their music relevant". It's not about remixes. It's about putting the singles with the albums they supported and/or were recorded with. To get 7 year olds in 2040 to discover Rubber Soul, Day Tripper and We Can Work It Out need to be put on there.

 

+1,000,000, well said

 

Well that's terrible word usage on your part. I wouldn't consider that a "re-sequence". More like a bonus track.

 

Why would Hey Jude ever link to the white album? It wasn't on there (as you well know), it was released as a single. Of course it's going to link to a hits compilation, that's the only way it's available. Also, it wouldn't say "The Blue Album," it would say "1967-1970" because that's the name of the album. You really think people won't be able to figure out that an album titled for a span of 4 years is a compilation?

Saying that a 7 year old searching for Hey Jude and having the Blue Album pop up as evidence of the Beatles' albums being lost to the sands of time is specious. If they like the Beatles, they'll discover the albums as they age, like we all did.

 

Kids that hear it from older folks (insert your name here), will like what they hear and it will stay relevant. Partridge Family, maybe not!

 

Yes, apologies if I wasn't clear. Bonus track, tack-on, whatever you wish to call it, IMO the Beatles management needs to consider how the top songs link back to the albums/sessions they correspond to on the streaming services or they are headed for the Sinatra zone- remembered for a lot of hits but realizing the album tracks are being disregarded because of too many compilations, remasters, remixes, and greatest hits repackages.

Case in point, I ask Apple Music to play the song "It Was A Very Good Year" and it offers it to me from a compilation called Sinatra: Nothing But The Best. It's a terrific hits package, but the album the song came from, "September Of My Years" is one of the best albums of the last century and it would be nice if that album art and track list appeared there.

 

Respectfully disagree. There are just too many artists and songs on Streaming, too much choice and to hard to navigate through. Smart speakers, wireless earbuds, in-car systems....as we move forward more and more listeners will lose connection with the albums that the hits came from. It's really something that needs addressing.

Hey Jude wasn't on an album, but it was the hit single that supported the White Album, recorded 4 days after While My Guitar Gently Weeps and 7 days before Mother Nature's Son.

 

...wait...so you really *are* a Beatle fan???

 

It didn't "support" the white album, because it wasn't on it. Beatles singles often did not support the albums they were recorded with.

 

Wouldn't have worked. An updated 80s version of a classic like that?

 

On my terms, yes.

 

You (and others) are commingling foresight and the present in your analysis.

We have NO idea how music will be consumed in 20 years. It’s simply folly to pontificate about how the Beatles’ (or anybody’s) music catalog should be presented in the future in the quaint context of smartphones, streaming services and wireless headphones.

 

As a vinyl diehard, I think you're spot on with adding the singles to the albums on streaming platforms. We Can Work It Out on Rubber Soul and I Feel Fine on Beatles For Sale etc will hardly ruin them. Even in the CD era it never seemed right that these incredibly popular songs were only on flawed compilations. For five years they were only on the functional but unsatisfying Past Masters compilations.

I don't think vinyl will die out in as little as 20 years time. This has been said since the mid 80s. It will be a significant niche, for at least as long as any of us are around. It's one of those things, like books, that for all it's flaws, inconvenience, taking up room, people just like to have. Records in some form have been around for over 100 years. People have always liked them at least to some extent. It won't ever be more than a niche interest though.

 

No offense, but this is more of the same backward looking analysis masquerading as foresight.

The next time vinyl goes through a 90’s like pullback, there almost certainly won’t be another renaissance for a variety of reasons.

 

Probably true, but it won't disappear completely. It didn't in the 90s and most people weren't buying it then. I'm not too bothered though. I'm almost certain it'll be around and relevant for the rest of my life and it won't bother me if it isn't. I loved it when hardly anyone was interested. Loads of great cheap records everywhere. If I have to go to streaming at some point I will.

You're right about it being unpredictable how technology will move on in the next 20 years, it's astonishing how things have progressed in the last 20.

 

If they are unable to discover Rubber Soul how the hell did they find Day Tripper and We Can Work It Out in the first place?

 

Because they don't need to discover Rubber Soul to find those songs.

 

I just read through this whole thread and one item needs to be clarified - the main reason to remix classic Beatles albums is that, while they were recorded very well, they had to be bounced down. And as the Beatles work predated both Dolby A and DBX each one of those generations introduced noise, tape saturation and an analog softening.

When they did all the work for Love, they went back to the original master tapes and resynchronized them all to create modern multi-tracks. The new mixes they created were all essentially 2nd generation as opposed to 3rd or 4th generation as on the original master tapes.

 

"Hey Siri, play the Beatles greatest hits."

"Okay, now playing the Red Album by the Beatles."

 

Whoa.

Is that true of the recent remixes too? Pepper, White, Abbey? Are they 2nd, 3rd, or 4th generations?

 

Those are great points from a technical standpoint. The problem is that bouncing down or not, many "purists" simply feel that these recordings should be left alone. And just as many seem to prefer the original mixes "no matter what". I love the *idea* of the original mixes more than some of the mixes themselves. By "idea" I refer to the fact that these are the original records sounding the way they sounded when the artists originally created them; in a very strong way, this is one way of saying that while the original mixes are indisposable, the remixes *are* as they don't represent history. But this doesn't mean they still can't be great, offering an alternate listening (and often, better)experience than the originals.

 

All of the classic mixes had bounce down. There was no other way to do what George and the Beatles wanted.

The new mixes (which I believe were created using ProTools) and every track is a digital copy of the original analog master tape.

 

As I said, I read through the whole thread, and several people mentioned how they basically never heard Paul's bass - both due to technical limitations of the time, and the production style of the time.

Myself, if given the choice between hearing what they were capable of producing at the time, and hearing what they actually played and sang more clearly, I'm going to go with the latter.

 

So how does a 7 year old discover Day Tripper and We Can Work It Out then?
Anyway he's 7 if he likes the beatles enough he can find out the albums when he's a teenager, for now just let him enjoy the music.