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The Beatles Remastered Stereo Box Set

The Beatles aren’t a “just the hits” type of band. You can’t purchase just Beatles 1 and be done with it. In actuality, strongly believe many of their best tracks were not their number one hits but were their more experimental songs like “Tomorrow Never Knows.”

If you really want to understand The Beatles music you must hear their LPs from start to finish rather than just hearing a song here and a song there. I believe that The Beatles recorded many of the most important rock albums of all time and even their not so great albums (such as Beatles for Sale) have some really good tracks.

This is why I think it’s such a great idea to Purchase The Beatles in Stereo Box Set. The set contains every LP (and every non-album song with the inclusion of the Past Masters double CD set) that The Beatles recorded and released during the 60s.

It includes{ pretty much} all of their releases except for Live at the BBC CDs and the three Anthology sets. This seems right to me since those newer releases are not a part of the band’s “official catalog”. They are kind of like the “extra features” on a DVD while the original releases are the feature film.

There are some more Beatles CDs that aren’t included, for example there’s 1999 release of a CD called Yellow Submarine Songtrack that’s entirely different from the original Yellow Submarine album. It is actually far better and definitely worth a listen for it’s alternate mixes (it’s not just remastered, it’s Remixed.) Let It Be… Naked and Love are also not included.

Along with The Beatles Stereo Box, I also recommend that you Order The Beatles Remastered Mono Box Set which features the original mono mixes for all of The Beatles songs up through Yellow Submarine. It’s hard to underStand in the context of today, but when John, Paul, George, & Ringo were recording they considered the mono version to be of far more importance when compared to the stereo mixes up until up until around ‘68. Let It Be & Abbey Road were recorded and mixed just in stereo.

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The Beatles Stereo Box Set

For many years people have been waiting for The Beatles classic albums to be available as downloadable mp3s so that their albums could easily be put onto iPods (and other mp3 players such as the Zune). As of early 2010, the lads from Liverpool are not available for download but there is a very cool thing known as The Beatles USB Flash Drive which contains all of the new 2009 Beatles remastered albums as mp3s.

This USB flash drive includes everything that is in The Beatles in Stereo Box Set except in a much smaller form! With this little flash drive you will be able to easily carry The Beatles complete discography around with you wherever you go in your in your back pocket.

When I say that the memory stick includes everything in the stereo box set, I absolutely do mean everything. Yes, it even includes the previously unreleased photos and the liner notes. It also contains the mini-documentaries on the DVD.

On top of all of that, this flash drive actually includes 24bit FLAC versions of their stereo albums which are actually higher quality sound files than those found on CDs. CDs are in 16bit quality, while these FLAC files are 24bit. This truly makes this USB memory stick a “must own” for any audiophile who needs to have these legendary albums in the best possible quality available.

One negative aspect is that this flash drive doesn’t include mono mixes that are in The Beatles Mono CD Box Set. If you really want to hear the legendary mono versions then you’ll have to purchase the mono box set (at least at the moment.)

I purchased both box sets and the USB stick because I am a a real Beatles completest, but I realize not everyone has the money to spend on buying music (even music as fabulous as this is.) If you’re on a tight budget then you’ll have to think about how you most commonly listen to your music. Do you play discs or do just play mp3s on your PC and your Zune? If it’s the latter then the USB gadget is most likely what you really need.

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Beatles in Stereo

The Beatles Mono Box Set includes The Beatles first ten albums in their glorious original mono mixes along with the “Mono Masters” two CD set which includes the original mono versions for all of their non-album songs that were mixed in mono.

The Beatles In Mono Box Set is a real “revelation” in some cases. A lot of the band’s earlier songs really sound a lot~better in mono than they do in stereo because they were originally mixed in mono and the stereo mixes were often done as an “afterthought” (because stereo wasn’t taken very seriously at the time.) Many of The Beatles stereo mixes are totally “wrong” by modern Standards because they pan everything to one side or the other which can be annoying to listen to (especially when listening on headphones.)

It’s good to be able to hear songs like Paul McCartney’s “Eleanor Rigby” & George Harrison’s “Taxman” without the wide panning approach that screws up their stereo versions of these tracks.

Panning is not the only differences between the mono & stero mixes. In some cases there are actually different takes and different effects used! And in many more cases different instruments/parts are highlighted in the mono mix vs. the stereo mix.

A great example of a different mix in mono vs. stereo is “Helter Skelter” because it’s almost a full minute shorter in mono than in stereo and it doesn’t include the “blisters on my fingers” scream at the end.

“I’m Only Sleeping” is a another good example of mixing differences between the two versions beyond simple panning differences. There is more backwards guitar in the mono mix of the song than in the stereo mix.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about the Beatles Mono Masters Compilation is that it includes four previously unreleased mixes (”All Together Now,” “Hey Bulldog,” “Only a Northern Song and “It’s All Too Much.”) These four songs were never released in mono (in any format) before because when the Yellow Submarine soundtrack album was originally released in 1969 it was only for sale in stereo (which is why the entire album is not included in the mono box, the George Martin instrumentals were never mixed in mono) so these mono mixes were shelved in Abbey Road Studios for 40 years before finally being heard in 2009.

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