The Beatles Revolver

I, for one, am looking forward to hearing the new mix.  Last year, I heard a bootleg remix from someone who dubbed himself Lord Reith who de-mixed and re-mixed most of the Beatles' material, and when I heard his new version of Revolver, it was an absolute revelation. 

There seems to be two reasons the mono mixes are usually preferred: the first is that the mono mixes were the priority since that is how most fans would actually hear the music (and therefore somehow more "authentic"), and the other is that the stereo mixes of the pre-Sgt. Pepper material often interfere with the "willful suspension of disbelief" since they commonly have the elements hard-panned to the left or the right without much blending across the middle; hearing the drums in just one speaker, for example, is just plain weird.

So when I heard the Lord Reith remix with the instruments and vocals blended across the channels much more naturally, I really connected with it in whole new way.  In fact, the final track, "Tomorrow Never Knows," never made much sense to me, but with that remix, it suddenly came alive.

So if a very talented guy somewhere on the Interweb using an alias can create such a magical version, I can only wonder what someone with the last name Martin can pull off.

It Revolves around MONEY.

While I clearly understand the desire to remix songs from days of yore, my personal feeling is that you get to choose to purchase them or not.

I like the original vinyl that I bought new back then and will always play it.  If, for some reason, I happen to like the remixed versions, I will put my hard-earned money on the counter and make the purchase.

So far, I have only heard one "remix" song.  It is from the Eagles, and I don't care for it.  Unfortunately, I have to look hard on the internet to find the original version as I don't happen to have the vinyl.  I will, however, purchase it if I find it.  Oh, the song is one of my favs, and best, IMO, in the original mix:  Please Come Home for Christmas.  (The Bon Jovi version, while not as good, is by far the sexiest video I have ever seen, and they perform it with their clothes on!)

Cheers!

The sound engineer of Revolver, Sgt. Pepper,  Abbey Road was Geoff Emerick. George Martin was the producer. So for technical recording stuff Geoff was the responsible person. For their time Revolver was the revolution in sound engineering. The Beatles were involved in the recording process too and they gave a lot of new ideas to the recording engineer team.

It has been said for years that the mono version of Sgt Pepper was far better than the stereo version because George Martin focused most of his time on the mono version and very little time afterwards on the stereo version and this was the case on all of the Beatles albums through Pepper. I have both versions on early releases and while I didn’t think the stereo version was terrible I did enjoy the mono version more. I can also say this about most of their earlier albums where I prefer the mono releases.

The only Giles remix that I have purchased so far is Sgt Pepper and I have to say that I think he did a great on the remix and it is for more engaging than the original stereo version. So bravo!

I will be ordering the Giles remix of Revolver but mainly because I only have the original stereo version that was released in the US on Capitol and it does not include three Lennon compositions that were on the UK release. I believe they were released on Yesterday and Today in the US. Regardless, looking forward to Giles Revolver in stereo and hoping he dd as good a job on this as he did with Sgt Pepper.