Strongly resisting the temptation to buy the remastered Beatles' back catalogue in HMV today I gave the nod to Simon to pop into Game to buy the Beatles Rock Band game!
It is fantastic, the graphics must have been a work of love and of course there is the genius of the Beatles music. We have already graduated from the Cavern to the Ed Sullivan show, with me on vocals, Si on drums and Tom on dribbles I've tried encouraging him to use one of his teething toys (he's not but seeing as he loves stuffing things in his mouth we got him some of the toys to nibble on) as a tambourine but he's more interested in sticking it in his mouth.
"Playing" the Beatles songs just make me want to go out and complete my collection but I don't want the fake stereo that they've put on some of the early LPs I want to enjoy it in the glorious Mono that it was meant to be heard it. And all they had in HMV was the stereo version. I'm also never quite sure about remastering as it's never quite about restoring an old master to it's newly printed freshness. There always seems to be a of unnecessary tinkling about on the edges so unless it sounds really muddy and murky there should not be any need to remaster it and George Martin was very good at what he did and I don't think my mono vinyl copy of With The Beatles sounds murky at all.
UFOs and SGU on John Oliver
22 hours ago
Some of the very earliest CD's to be released in the 80's were really quite dire. You had to produce a different master for every recording medium - tape, vinyl, or CD - to cater for their differing strengths and weaknesses. The Hurting, by Tears for Fears, was a victim of the then new technology and was an utterly diabolical CD master. None of The Beatles back catalogue were released on CD for years, until GM thought he could do the albums justice. Where digital remastering of 60's & 70's recordings really comes into their own is with concerts: Hendrix, Santana, and Led Zep to list a few. It's a pity The Beatles gave up live performances so early.
ReplyDeleteI still listen to John Mayall's Blues Breakers in the original mono though.