No, I'm pretty sure the stereo versions of the first few records (the first four, I think?) were never on CD before this -- the original 80s CDs of those albums were mono. And in the case of the first two, at least, this was with good reason! The stereo versions sound ridiculous. I can't imagine why anyone would prefer them -- they were recorded on 2-track, so they're literally instruments on the left, vocals on the right...iamthecosmos wrote:Nah, absolute bollocks that. The stereo mixes were done at the time because their American distributors insisted on it. These were done either by George Martin, after The Beatles had been present for the mono mixing, or more commonly by just the engineers. The only stereo mixes that weren't available until now on CD (officially) are the '65 ones for Help and Rubber Soul.Aj wrote:Question I had... I read somewhere that the first few albums are presented in stereo for the first time. What's the story behind that? Who mixed them into stereo, and when? And why weren't they ever released until now? I know a fair bit of Beatles recording trivia, but that part slipped by me.
As a Beatles geek, it's cool to be able to isolate either the vox or instruments... but for regular listening? There is no good reason for the widely-available versions to be the stereo ones. I bet there will be some confused/freaked-out people who buy these.
Speaking of mono, I'm really excited that I found a copy of the mono box set... Had to do a whole lot of calling around to different stores before I finally found one who said they'd have it -- I showed up right when they opened yesterday, asked the girl behind the counter, and she said they'd only received ONE copy! I bought it. She congratulated me.
