Why the Beatles?

mjp

mjp

Founding member
I took delivery of a box set on Friday that I just added to my online records database: Day By Day, The Complete "Get Back" Sessions.

Well, it's actually a 3 box set. 76 discs. It's supposedly every inch of tape recorded for Get Back, which was eventually released as Let It Be.

Ridiculous? Yes.
Excessive? Oh yeah, absolutely.
Fascinating? Hell yeah! Depending on your mental state, I suppose.

If you have to ask, "Why The Beatles?," this set isn't going to make any god damned sense.

It barely makes sense even if you love The Beatles...

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Pogue Mahone

Pogue Mahone

Officials say drugs may have played a part
I've never purchased any Beatles collectibles, but compared to a lot of crap you see for around the same price, a near fine signed copy of A Spaniard in the Works for $7,500 doesn't seem like a bad deal to me. Am I crazy?
 
Pogue Mahone

Pogue Mahone

Officials say drugs may have played a part
But books are cool, right? That's a big reason we're all here. I know he wasn't a "book" writer, but to me that's what makes it unique. And he's not like all those other rockers who decided to do paintings and poems later in their careers. This is 1965 -- when the Beatles are in the heart of it. A cancelled check, a limited edition Lennon print signed by Yoko, a fan magazine with three of the Beatles signatures -- that just feels like trash to me. We'll, not trash, but in no way... legitimate... what's the correct word?
 
Purple Stickpin

Purple Stickpin

That's a very cool book and much cooler than the somewhat random items you mentioned. I've never actually seen the original cover of this one; rather clever, innit?
 
Purple Stickpin

Purple Stickpin

"Parnes and Fury agreed to sign Lennon’s band, which had taken the name Long John and the Silver Beatles just before the audition, on the condition that it replace Sutcliffe, whose bass playing was rudimentary."

Let's make something nice and sparklingly clear: Sutcliffe's bass playing wasn't rudimentary, it simply wasn't.
 
mjp

mjp

Founding member
He was not their first manager, though he was probably their first professional manager.
 
PhillyDave

PhillyDave

“The essential doesn't change.” Beckett
So I look forward to the re-ish but I bet if I looked enough I could find boots of most of the outtakes.
 
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mjp

mjp

Founding member
I didn't read past the video so I didn't see that there was a reissue in the works. "Remixed," no thanks. "34 previously unreleased recordings," I don't know whether to say thanks or no thanks...

There isn't much Sgt. Pepper stuff on the bootlegs that I've heard, so it might be something. But at what point is it overkill? (Don't ask Bob Dylan that question.)
 
Purple Stickpin

Purple Stickpin

I just picked up the 6-disc Pepper box at Newbury comics. So far, so good. I have little interest in remixes although I'll eventually give them a listen. I'm listening to the unreleased (*partial cough*) tracks on CD 3 and so far so good. What amazes me is how pedestrian some of the work is and how it eventually became so much more dynamic in the final releases. Martin surely had something to do with that, but it's more than that. There's a certain vitality in the vocals on the released takes/mixes that goes beyond the ordinary.

Good instrumental version of Getting Better spinning now...
 
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Purple Stickpin

Purple Stickpin

OK, I'm just going to go ahead and sound like a total idiot: Listening now to CD #2 of the Pepper box and I have to admit, I'm strangely fascinated by tracks 13 and 14 which are, respectively, hummed and multi-piano takes on the final chord of A Day in the Life. Track 12 is a keeper too, as it's just the orchestral rush that leads up to the final chord with a bit of Lennon vocal due to mic bleed.
 
Bukfan

Bukfan

"The law is wrong; I am right"
The 2-CD set of the Sgt. Pepper remix is already on Spotify (free version). Some of the outtakes/alternate takes are interesting, I think. And on The Beatles Facebook page there's a 24 min. video interview with Giles Martin about the remix which is not too bad (the interview, not the remix).
 
Purple Stickpin

Purple Stickpin

Mixed opinions but plenty of complaining over on the Steve Hoffmann forums about the remix. If you like reading words or phrases such as "brickwalled" or "loudness wars" by all means, head on over. I like the outtakes very much but the new remix didn't strike me (I only listened to a portion). It is on the loud side to my ears, but not terrible.
 
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mjp

mjp

Founding member
If disc 4 is the same mono versions that we've had for years now, it seems like the cost of disc 2 and 3 is $150, which is a bit hard to swallow for me. I don't know if I can bring myself to put $150 into the remaining Beatles+Yoko's pocket for this. I'll wait a few months (or years) and buy a used copy for $30 somewhere and throw discs 1, 5 and 6 into the recycling bin where they belong.

I can geek out on the studio outtakes with the best of them. I bought that ridiculous 76 disc "Get Back Sessions" monster after all. But the rest of this release is bullshit. I mean, I guess I'm glad people are enjoying the LOUD modern remix and "high res" 5.1 surround mix, and the stickers and ringtones and Beatles energy drinks or whatever else is in that big package.

But it's all a bit like colorizing The Grapes of Wrath, isn't it. Like painting big hoop earrings and a tattoo on the Mona Lisa. "This is what it would sound like if it was recorded today." Oh, okay, well, great. Except it was recorded 50 fucking years ago, so get over it. It sounded like it sounded. How about appreciating that?

Ziggy Marley is releasing a 40th anniversary version of Bob's Exodus with the same remix bullshit. The tracks that I've heard aren't horrible. Ziggy seems to have used a light touch and brought the vocals more to the front. But the record was already finished. 40 years ago. The way the people who made it wanted it to be. Why do we keep pissing on their graves?

Rhetorical question. We all know the answer. Old people like "classic rock" like The Beatles, and they listened to Bob Marley when they were in college, and old people have all the money.
 
Purple Stickpin

Purple Stickpin

It is too expensive and discs 2 and 3 are what I'm most interested in (others are calling them a complete waste of time and garbage, but such is the mentality of many). At least I got it for $125 at Newbury Comics (they had the audacity to set the list price at $160 and told me I was saving $35 when I wasn't really necessarily saving anything if I had bought it at Amazon). I like that they are a music store that operates like they used to, more or less, so I patronize them. Literally and figuratively.
 
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