nice piece on the Beatles re-issue

Subject: nice piece on the Beatles re-issue
From: Peter T.
Date: 09 Apr 09 - 09:22 AM

You wouldn't have thought there was much more to say about the Beatles and their impact, but ol' Klinkenborg nails a lot about the experience in only a few lovely sentences --


From: The New York Times (Opinion)
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
Published: April 8, 2009
To me, growing up with the Beatles meant buying each 45 r.p.m. single as it was released. My parents saw that as less of a commitment than buying a long-playing vinyl album. They were wrong. The 45 may not look like a white-hot medium, but in 1964 it was. And how did it all sound? I owned a cheap portable record player with a volume knob, a single tone control and a primitive needle. But when you hear "Ticket to Ride" for the first time, all the fidelity you need is between your ears.

I think about this now because, like most people who love the Beatles, I've been waiting a very long time for a properly remastered edition of their music. According to Apple Corps, the Beatles' company, and EMI Music, it will be released, at last, on Sept. 9 — the whole catalogue, more or less, revitalized for the first time since 1987, when it was converted, disastrously, for the CD format. What we're all hoping to hear is what George Martin and the band heard when the tracks were first mastered, before they were squeezed and contorted to fit the various formats in which they were eventually sold.

I remember those couple of weeks after a new single had been released, when the novelty and strangeness of the first listening had faded but the songs had not yet been fully tattooed onto my brain. That's the moment I'd like to be returned to. After all these years, I no longer see the photographic distortion in the cover of "Rubber Soul." Even the name of the album has shed its playfulness.

So what I will be listening for when September comes is something that has never faded. Call it the assurance of this music. That's what I heard in the first 45 I purchased: "I Want to Hold Your Hand" backed with "I Saw Her Standing There." There was no pose to it. It was straight-ahead playing and singing, brash and tuneful. I measured it by the way it made my nerves jump and the fact that I didn't even want to think that my parents might be overhearing it. It was for me alone, for some part of me that didn't even exist before I heard that music. Perhaps there is no recovering those emotions. But getting even closer to those voices and instruments, and the room in which they were recorded, will be a wonderful thing.

Subject: RE: nice piece on the Beatles re-issue
From: Eve Goldberg
Date: 09 Apr 09 - 11:18 AM

Hey Peter,

Do you know anything more about what they are issuing? Is it going to be a boxed set? Or a series of releases? In what kind of order/sequence?

Looking forward to hearing more!

Subject: RE: nice piece on the Beatles re-issue
From: Big Mick
Date: 09 Apr 09 - 01:33 PM

Wow!!! Great bit of wordsmithing. It took me right back to the sunny days and sitting in my room with the same phonograph. There were the Beatles, then came everyone else.

Mick

Subject: RE: nice piece on the Beatles re-issue
From: Wesley S
Date: 09 Apr 09 - 01:42 PM

I thought I heard that this would be a digital release for those of you that download such things.

Subject: RE: nice piece on the Beatles re-issue
From: Rifleman (inactive)
Date: 09 Apr 09 - 01:56 PM

Other than making yet more money from the punters...what's the point?

Subject: RE: nice piece on the Beatles re-issue
From: Thomas Stern
Date: 09 Apr 09 - 01:57 PM

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/08/arts/music/08beat.html?fta=y

Subject: RE: nice piece on the Beatles re-issue
From: Peter T.
Date: 09 Apr 09 - 02:27 PM

They're going to release a remastered set of the 12 British albums (plus Yellow S.) on Sept 9 (9/09/09 -- Number nine, number nine). It appears they are going to do the usual trickery, stereophonizing some monos, and keeping the originals (the details are still sketchy), plus some bloated box sets (little documentary films, and such).

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: nice piece on the Beatles re-issue
From: Peter the Squeezer
Date: 09 Apr 09 - 02:46 PM

Is the day after this "One after 909"?

Sorry

Peter