27:57 Hey Bulldog has always been in stereo. Actually, the UK mono LP of Yellow Submarine was just a fold-down of the stereo mix, no dedicated mono mix was done for it. I think Sam is mixing it up with Only A Northern Song which was in fact only available in mono until the Yellow Submarine Songtrack mixed by Peter Cobbin came out
Songs that should have been added... No Reply, She's A Woman, I'm Down, Rain, She's Leaving Home, The Inner Light, Because, Free As A Bird & Real Love.
The real reason why Now and Then was added to this compilation is that it was routine to have a new track added on a compilation album. I miss that exercise! I was bummed out that "Once upon a Long Ago" wasn't included on the US version of Paul's "All the Best" album in '87. It was on the UK pressing of the album, though.
"I Need You" would have made perfect sense. Also from "Help" I wouldn't have minded "It's Only Love" I really love John's vocals on that one. Also, "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" "Help" is a way underrated Lp. The perfect pop Lp in the summer of 1965. I have no problem with "You Really Got A Hold On Me". I've always dug that track. "Please Mr Postman" would have also worked for me.
Here's my take on why they did new mixes for most of the Red and recycled a lot of the stuff for the Blue: The Blue has always been the better seller of the two. With so much previously released remixes, one can listen to the Blue and think either, "I'd like to get the other remixed album box sets" or "No, this isn't for me". For the Red, it was testing the waters to see if they should go back and remix the stuff from Rubber Soul and earlier. Take it or leave it.
Plus I HATE Ringo's drum sound on both (FAAB, especially). Ugh. Look up "plodding" in the dictionary and it says "Free As a Bird." The drum sound on "Now and Then" is 1000% better.
Excellent discussion, gentlemen! I first bought the Red Album at the age of 11, just after Christmas 1976, and it was a huge influence as I learned guitar. It was great to hear everybody's perspective on the new remixes!
35:12 Yup, that's because the original stereo mix was half-real and half-fake stereo. The live radio feed (which was King Lear by Shakespeare) was mixed directly onto the mono mix so there was no way to make a real stereo version of that part, so they had to do a fake stereo for that section. They took the mono mix and duplicated it sending each track to the left and right, one of them being set a little bit out of time to get that stereo effect on speakers, but it's truly awful
yo creo que este álbum fue hecho sólo para acompañar el lanzamiento de Now And Then y fue hecho a petición de Paul McCartney. creo además que los mixes nuevos fueron hechos a la rápida, excepto los mixes de Rubber Soul, y la razón por eso es que Rubber Soul era el álbum siguiente a lanzar, por lo que en esos mixes ya llevaban más tiempo trabajando...
On the question of which mixes are new, I'm pretty certain that if a track was on the Revolver, Abbey Road, White Album, Pepper or Let It Be remixes, they used that, while everything Rubber Soul and before, and everything from Yellow Submarine or late singles was newly done for 2023 - so it's about half and half.
Overall I feel the Red Album was mostly a success while Blue is still nice despite it barely having anything new. Most older remixes sound great and added new life and groove to them. I can only think of a couple tracks that felt like they went overboard with some element of the song, like Ringos drums being way too loud or something not sitting in the mix in the most ideal place. I’ll take most of those mixes over the 2009 remaster any day.
I believe it was Young Americans that David Bowie was playing for John and Paul in his apartment (the story is in May Pang's book?). But honestly, if you're a musician who grew up idolizing the Beatles, and if you had John Lennon and Paul McCartney sitting in a room listening to your new album, no amount of plays would be enough.
I've heard and sometimes been convinced by various arguments against the new remixes. Especially unnatural aspects of the vocals, but one thing is objectively certain: if you make an MDX stem from one of the new mixes, it's much easier to hear and transcribe. For example, I've yet to hear any two drum covers of I Saw Her Standing There that are close to each other in terms of the kick drum and even my MDX of the 2009 remaster is annoying, but this new red/blue remix, through MDX, makes the drums crystal clear. The new ones also seem impervious to the annoying MDX bug where sometimes the bass stem is blank and the bass is added to "other".
Surely Allen Klein and Allan Steckler weren't selecting all those "Rubber Soul" songs from a British perspective. I'd bet they had a pile of Capitol LPs in front of them, so were choosing from "Rubber Soul" AND "Yesterday And Today", when they picked all those "Rubber Soul" songs.
35:56 I'm with Sam, the Revolution mix is dreadful. It's the exact same panning as the 1973 mix which John Lennon called "a piece of ice-cream", bass and drums to the left, guitars to the right. The LOVE mix is far superior, John on the left, George on the right, bass and drums centered (although yeah, it's not 100% true to the original during the intro and outro because of the mixture between songs). Pretty strange considering Giles worked on both projects
Now as it was then the Red and Blue were targeted at a general audience. Someone who wanted to have some Beatles in their collections. It’s not meant for rabid Beatlemaniacs. However Beatlemaniacs are begrudgingly snapping it up. And why not? Of course what we really wanted was that Rubber Soul box set. I know I was disappointed at the Red and Blue announcement. So…do I like it? Yes and no. Certainly the Red album is a lot of fun. The Blue album maybe not as much. I do like most but not all of the remixes up to Rubber Soul. I want box sets of all their pre ‘66 albums and singles. Giles and Sam have obviously done the work. So it’s a matter time. In the end what we have here is…choice. And we gotta like that. Say what you will about the remixes, we can always listen to our ‘09 remasters or the mono box set. Thankfully. 🤘😳🤘
You guys need to listen to the RED & BLUE in Surround or even Atmos and your opinions would be different. Some of the songs you mentioned would change your opinion.
Have always disliked the dirgey 'Free As A Bird.' 'Real Love' is pretty, but little else. 'Now and Then' effected me emotionally in a way that those two didn't.
As a first-generation Beatles fan, I never owned the Red or Blue albums. I never saw the point. They struck me as a shameless record company money-grab. Then, and now. I might be interested in hearing the Dolby Atmos mixes. Overall, I dislike the Giles Martin remixes. Although I liked what he did to Abbey Rd. I enjoyed this podcast.
I think the Red and Blue were a nice guide as a Beatles fan who was born in the 90s, in addition to the Beatles 1 album, before I started listening to the all of the studio albums. I might have gone about it differently if I could redo it, but being a kid who had no knowledge of any of their music those were nice enough compilations to start with. Reissuing them now certainly does seem like a bit more of a record company money grab, but I suppose I can’t blame them when a lot of crazy Beatle fans will buy anything.
For me it was a mixed bag. A lot of the songs I was anticipating on the red album didn’t sound too different. I wish there had been more instrument separations. Then I am the walrus was completely messsd up and revolution was a flat mess. The Revolution Love mix is so superior compared with this mix. The I am the walrus remix for the blu ray release in 2008 was also so well done. I just don’t know how this was messed up so badly.
Hey !!!! ....This is what I've been thinking for about 8/10 years now : That they should release ( it can be done now ) all the individual instruments of each track and let the buying public remix them to their own fancy . The Fandom out there , with proper equipment and to the best of their ability , is already capturing and isolating individual drums , guitars etc. Yes , it would really really muddy up the original Beatle content , but .... well , the " cat may be out of the bag' by now .
I feel like they’re afraid they won’t be able to sell anything else if they do it that way. The way they’re doing it now, they can just keep releasing one more unknown outtake every year or so and force you to buy a whole new box set for it. (Assuming the public buys it and doesn’t just get it some other way)
If they did just officially release multitracks of each set of album sessions, they could sell another 10 albums’ worth or so, even if half of it is already bootlegged.
Yes .... later on in yalls video ..... that idea was set forth by you or the other guys .... and yes you are right .... the money aspect comes into play again and fandom suffers.... Thanks !!!@@GearThereEverywhere
yeah ..... what a treasure trove !!!!! and what joy for us guys and gals !!! ..... and / or ( if I am understanding you correctly ) just release an officially released early album and give ( say ) 12 tracks of drums , 12 tracks of guitar , some tracks of hand clapping , 12 tracks of vocals ( and backing vocals too ),etc. . Then you would have (say ) 7 to 10 or so albums of a single song . 12 tracks times 8 is 96 tracks . Witness the White Album Chronicles : 12 cds of a billion tracks . Oh the wonder of it all !!!!!@@GearThereEverywhere
Just to chime, in the CRIME committed in these two collections is the WALRUS remix…losing George’s great distorted rhythm! I mean WTF! I also hate the too loud handclaps on the early songs I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND especially . I hate handclaps used like that…its worse hear than the mono versions.
Hmm, could be a lot of different things, for me (Ryan speaking) a good indicator (although this alone doesn’t make someone an expert) is being able to recognize most Beatles songs within 0.5 seconds (and some within 0.1 seconds as can be seen on my channel) as well as being familiar with a lot of session photos and various gear used on Beatle records and studying/experimenting with how to recreate it. I know there are areas where others know way more than I do, so I’ve still got a lot to learn. What do you think a good metric for that is?
@@GearThereEverywhere Being able to recognize a song quickly is a rather dubious measurement, at least to me. It makes for a nice parlor trick to be sure, but I don't think it's all that impressive. I can name every song from memory, but I don't think that qualifies me as an expert. That's just another neat parlor trick. Knowing about them as individuals as pertains to their personal lives, while informative, is only helpful to a point, for as interesting as some might find that, the end product, the songs, the music is still more interesting. I think being alive when that all happened helps. But I guess it's hard to say. There are some things about them that are contradictory, at the same time, often both sides of a statement about them turn out to be true. Anyway, that being said, I don't think it would be that hard to become an "expert" on this, it's not rocket science after all. But if you talk to someone who knows music theory, it does start to sound like rocket science. Maybe the only true experts on the Beatles are themselves, who created more really good songs that seem humanly possible. I could say I'm an expert on a couple things, but it wasn't as easy as just absorbing something you were surrounded by when growing up. I don't know if this is a good answer, but it made me think, so thanks for your reply and have a good one. If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer.
27:57 Hey Bulldog has always been in stereo. Actually, the UK mono LP of Yellow Submarine was just a fold-down of the stereo mix, no dedicated mono mix was done for it. I think Sam is mixing it up with Only A Northern Song which was in fact only available in mono until the Yellow Submarine Songtrack mixed by Peter Cobbin came out
Songs that should have been added... No Reply, She's A Woman, I'm Down, Rain, She's Leaving Home, The Inner Light, Because, Free As A Bird & Real Love.
The real reason why Now and Then was added to this compilation is that it was routine to have a new track added on a compilation album. I miss that exercise!
I was bummed out that "Once upon a Long Ago" wasn't included on the US version of Paul's "All the Best" album in '87. It was on the UK pressing of the album, though.
"I Need You" would have made perfect sense. Also from "Help" I wouldn't have minded "It's Only Love" I really love John's vocals on that one. Also, "You're Gonna Lose That Girl" "Help" is a way underrated Lp.
The perfect pop Lp in the summer of 1965. I have no problem with "You Really Got A Hold On Me". I've always dug that track. "Please Mr Postman" would have also worked for me.
Drop Got To Get You Into My Life and add Rain!!
Here's my take on why they did new mixes for most of the Red and recycled a lot of the stuff for the Blue:
The Blue has always been the better seller of the two. With so much previously released remixes, one can listen to the Blue and think either, "I'd like to get the other remixed album box sets" or "No, this isn't for me". For the Red, it was testing the waters to see if they should go back and remix the stuff from Rubber Soul and earlier. Take it or leave it.
interesting take. I'm still shocked how the 2015 remixes were used, rather than remixing those too.
Most of the 1962-1966 songs hadn't been remixed before that either, right? So I can see why that whole compilation was remixed.
You Like Me Too Much is soooo a strong one!!! I love that song.
They made a huge mistake by not also enhancing the vocal for Free as a Bird and Real Love as well and coupling those with Now and Then as an EP.
Plus I HATE Ringo's drum sound on both (FAAB, especially). Ugh. Look up "plodding" in the dictionary and it says "Free As a Bird." The drum sound on "Now and Then" is 1000% better.
Excellent discussion, gentlemen! I first bought the Red Album at the age of 11, just after Christmas 1976, and it was a huge influence as I learned guitar. It was great to hear everybody's perspective on the new remixes!
35:12 Yup, that's because the original stereo mix was half-real and half-fake stereo. The live radio feed (which was King Lear by Shakespeare) was mixed directly onto the mono mix so there was no way to make a real stereo version of that part, so they had to do a fake stereo for that section. They took the mono mix and duplicated it sending each track to the left and right, one of them being set a little bit out of time to get that stereo effect on speakers, but it's truly awful
yo creo que este álbum fue hecho sólo para acompañar el lanzamiento de Now And Then y fue hecho a petición de Paul McCartney. creo además que los mixes nuevos fueron hechos a la rápida, excepto los mixes de Rubber Soul, y la razón por eso es que Rubber Soul era el álbum siguiente a lanzar, por lo que en esos mixes ya llevaban más tiempo trabajando...
My only disappointment was that I thought the Pepper tracks on the Blue album weren't as shiny as the 2017 box set.
On the question of which mixes are new, I'm pretty certain that if a track was on the Revolver, Abbey Road, White Album, Pepper or Let It Be remixes, they used that, while everything Rubber Soul and before, and everything from Yellow Submarine or late singles was newly done for 2023 - so it's about half and half.
Overall I feel the Red Album was mostly a success while Blue is still nice despite it barely having anything new. Most older remixes sound great and added new life and groove to them. I can only think of a couple tracks that felt like they went overboard with some element of the song, like Ringos drums being way too loud or something not sitting in the mix in the most ideal place. I’ll take most of those mixes over the 2009 remaster any day.
I believe it was Young Americans that David Bowie was playing for John and Paul in his apartment (the story is in May Pang's book?). But honestly, if you're a musician who grew up idolizing the Beatles, and if you had John Lennon and Paul McCartney sitting in a room listening to your new album, no amount of plays would be enough.
I've heard and sometimes been convinced by various arguments against the new remixes. Especially unnatural aspects of the vocals, but one thing is objectively certain: if you make an MDX stem from one of the new mixes, it's much easier to hear and transcribe. For example, I've yet to hear any two drum covers of I Saw Her Standing There that are close to each other in terms of the kick drum and even my MDX of the 2009 remaster is annoying, but this new red/blue remix, through MDX, makes the drums crystal clear. The new ones also seem impervious to the annoying MDX bug where sometimes the bass stem is blank and the bass is added to "other".
The world music Beatles box is still the best compilation IMO
Surely Allen Klein and Allan Steckler weren't selecting all those "Rubber Soul" songs from a British perspective.
I'd bet they had a pile of Capitol LPs in front of them, so were choosing from "Rubber Soul" AND "Yesterday And Today", when they picked all those "Rubber Soul" songs.
35:56 I'm with Sam, the Revolution mix is dreadful. It's the exact same panning as the 1973 mix which John Lennon called "a piece of ice-cream", bass and drums to the left, guitars to the right.
The LOVE mix is far superior, John on the left, George on the right, bass and drums centered (although yeah, it's not 100% true to the original during the intro and outro because of the mixture between songs). Pretty strange considering Giles worked on both projects
Now as it was then the Red and Blue were targeted at a general audience.
Someone who wanted to have some Beatles in their collections.
It’s not meant for rabid Beatlemaniacs.
However Beatlemaniacs are begrudgingly snapping it up.
And why not?
Of course what we really wanted was that Rubber Soul box set.
I know I was disappointed at the Red and Blue announcement.
So…do I like it?
Yes and no.
Certainly the Red album is a lot of fun.
The Blue album maybe not as much.
I do like most but not all of the remixes up to Rubber Soul.
I want box sets of all their pre ‘66 albums and singles.
Giles and Sam have obviously done the work.
So it’s a matter time.
In the end what we have here is…choice.
And we gotta like that.
Say what you will about the remixes,
we can always listen to our ‘09 remasters
or the mono box set.
Thankfully.
🤘😳🤘
Did someone say Now and Then is better than Free As A Bird? That’s a wild take
If someone said that, it definitely wasn’t me (Ryan)
You guys need to listen to the RED & BLUE in Surround or even Atmos and your opinions would be different. Some of the songs you mentioned would change your opinion.
What classifies one as a Beatles 'expert'?
Have always disliked the dirgey 'Free As A Bird.' 'Real Love' is pretty, but little else. 'Now and Then' effected me emotionally in a way that those two didn't.
As a first-generation Beatles fan, I never owned the Red or Blue albums. I never saw the point. They struck me as a shameless record company money-grab. Then, and now. I might be interested in hearing the Dolby Atmos mixes. Overall, I dislike the Giles Martin remixes. Although I liked what he did to Abbey Rd. I enjoyed this podcast.
I think the Red and Blue were a nice guide as a Beatles fan who was born in the 90s, in addition to the Beatles 1 album, before I started listening to the all of the studio albums. I might have gone about it differently if I could redo it, but being a kid who had no knowledge of any of their music those were nice enough compilations to start with. Reissuing them now certainly does seem like a bit more of a record company money grab, but I suppose I can’t blame them when a lot of crazy Beatle fans will buy anything.
Here here. When I discover any group I try to avoid any compilations.
Swap out Glass Onion for Savoy Truffle.
For me it was a mixed bag. A lot of the songs I was anticipating on the red album didn’t sound too different. I wish there had been more instrument separations. Then I am the walrus was completely messsd up and revolution was a flat mess. The Revolution Love mix is so superior compared with this mix. The I am the walrus remix for the blu ray release in 2008 was also so well done. I just don’t know how this was messed up so badly.
John's "Whatever Happened To" would have been a better song than Now & Then...
Hey !!!! ....This is what I've been thinking for about 8/10 years now : That they should release ( it can be done now ) all the individual instruments of each track and let the buying public remix them to their own fancy . The Fandom out there , with proper equipment and to the best of their ability , is already capturing and isolating individual drums , guitars etc. Yes , it would really really muddy up the original Beatle content , but .... well , the " cat may be out of the bag' by now .
I feel like they’re afraid they won’t be able to sell anything else if they do it that way. The way they’re doing it now, they can just keep releasing one more unknown outtake every year or so and force you to buy a whole new box set for it. (Assuming the public buys it and doesn’t just get it some other way)
If they did just officially release multitracks of each set of album sessions, they could sell another 10 albums’ worth or so, even if half of it is already bootlegged.
Yes .... later on in yalls video ..... that idea was set forth by you or the other guys .... and yes you are right .... the money aspect comes into play again and fandom suffers.... Thanks !!!@@GearThereEverywhere
yeah ..... what a treasure trove !!!!! and what joy for us guys and gals !!! ..... and / or ( if I am understanding you correctly ) just release an officially released early album and give ( say ) 12 tracks of drums , 12 tracks of guitar , some tracks of hand clapping , 12 tracks of vocals ( and backing vocals too ),etc. . Then you would have (say ) 7 to 10 or so albums of a single song . 12 tracks times 8 is 96 tracks . Witness the White Album Chronicles : 12 cds of a billion tracks . Oh the wonder of it all !!!!!@@GearThereEverywhere
Exactly !!! @@GearThereEverywhere
Just to chime, in the CRIME committed in these two collections is the WALRUS remix…losing George’s great distorted rhythm! I mean WTF!
I also hate the too loud handclaps on the early songs I WANT TO HOLD YOUR HAND especially . I hate handclaps used like that…its worse hear than the mono versions.
What makes someone an expert?
Hmm, could be a lot of different things, for me (Ryan speaking) a good indicator (although this alone doesn’t make someone an expert) is being able to recognize most Beatles songs within 0.5 seconds (and some within 0.1 seconds as can be seen on my channel) as well as being familiar with a lot of session photos and various gear used on Beatle records and studying/experimenting with how to recreate it. I know there are areas where others know way more than I do, so I’ve still got a lot to learn.
What do you think a good metric for that is?
@@GearThereEverywhere Being able to recognize a song quickly is a rather dubious measurement, at least to me. It makes for a nice parlor trick to be sure, but I don't think it's all that impressive. I can name every song from memory, but I don't think that qualifies me as an expert. That's just another neat parlor trick. Knowing about them as individuals as pertains to their personal lives, while informative, is only helpful to a point, for as interesting as some might find that, the end product, the songs, the music is still more interesting. I think being alive when that all happened helps. But I guess it's hard to say. There are some things about them that are contradictory, at the same time, often both sides of a statement about them turn out to be true. Anyway, that being said, I don't think it would be that hard to become an "expert" on this, it's not rocket science after all. But if you talk to someone who knows music theory, it does start to sound like rocket science. Maybe the only true experts on the Beatles are themselves, who created more really good songs that seem humanly possible. I could say I'm an expert on a couple things, but it wasn't as easy as just absorbing something you were surrounded by when growing up. I don't know if this is a good answer, but it made me think, so thanks for your reply and have a good one. If you have any other questions, I'd be happy to answer.
@@peterolbrisch8970 wat
a minimum of 10 peer-reviewed papers published in leading Beatles academic journals
@@Murray_69 And who hands out this certificate?