YESTERDAY & TODAY: How the Beatles remixes measure up to the originals
If there was ever going to be a forensic review of the recorded Beatles music by yours truly, then now is the time. Why? Because the catalog has been going through a remix/ remastering period that began in earnest in 2006 with the Cirque du Soleil reconfiguration for the Las Vegas Love show, and then with the audacious reissue of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in 2017 and continuing through with The Beatles (aka the “White Album”) in 2018, Abbey Road in 2019 and a reissue to coincide with Peter Jackson’s reedited Let It Be movie, Get Back.
It should be noted that Let It Be was also totally remixed in 2003 as Let It Be...Naked. This was due to Paul McCartney’s particular distaste of Phil Spector’s over-production of the original studio album, which was officially the last Beatles studio album released but was actually recorded before Abbey Road.
Much has been written and will continue to be written about how The Beatles came to an end.
This, however, is not a story about that.
I want to begin by saying that as a 10-year-old kid first hearing The Beatles in mono through a 1-inch transistor radio speaker and then watching and hearing them through a 3-inch speaker in my parents’ Zenith B&W television, me (and millions of others) fell in love with the music. There was no stereo, no 180-gram vinyl albums, no CDs, no cassette tapes (yet), no streaming of any kind and certainly no remasters and remixes.
Just the music. In mono, coming out of little speakers.
Yes, you could buy stereo albums — that proudly stated “stereo” on the cover — and quarter-inch, reel-to-reel tapes, but not only was that an exotic concept, it was also financially non-approachable by me or anyone else I knew. No one had a stereo
