Lancelot Link and the Evolution Revolution, Tinnitus and the Ground Rule Double: The Beatles: The U.S. Albums--Something New?

Question: How many versions of I’m Only Sleeping should one have?

If you answered correctly and said “all of them” then The Beatles: The U.S. Albums will be somewhat of a disappointment.

While the 2009 release of the remastered Beatles Collection in both stereo and mono editions remain the gold standard, there was a substantial part of the Beatle catalog that still needed to be dusted off and released. Eager American Beatlemaniac Baby Boomers looked forward to hearing the Beatle songs the right way, as they were released in the good ol’ U.S. of A. The songs need to be in the right order, on the right albums and with lots and lots of reverb. Well, the Beatle Boomers, judging from social media and Amazon reviews, are not uniformly happy, and it’s causing a bit of ado and oodles of confusion.

The brouhaha over The U.S. Albums stems from the fact that they don’t accurately represent the Capital albums we know and love. You know, the albums with Duophonic Stereo and/or Fold-Down Mono that were all heavily saturated with glorious reverb verb verb verb verb….

On The U.S. Albums, the reverb-a-go-go pretty much went-went. Well, not all of it. But enough for those who were looking forward to basking in the glory of the muddy-sounding Fabs of yore. I mean, The Beatles Second Album never sounded so good. And that's bad. Kinda.

(Baskers note: The collections The Beatles: The Capitol Albums Vols. 1 & 2 contain the first eight original albums released in the states on Capitol Records. Each album is presented in both the beloved faux Stereo and/or faux Mono mixes. With the reverb!)

So what gives with The U.S. Albums? As with the above mentioned Capitol Album collections, each album in The U.S. Albums contains both the mono and stereo versions. However, it was decided that the duophonic and fold-down mono versions of the lads tunes would be avoided, and in their stead would be the 2009 remasters. (Except for Help! and Rubber Soul, which, for some reason, seem to be George Martin’s 1987 mixes.) But, any tune that was specifically mixed for the U.S. is what is used. (Huh?)

Basically, if Capitol received a mono version of Twist and Shout mixed for the U.S., that mono version is what you hear when playing the second track on The Early Beatles. But the stereo version, which was Duophonically created in the laboratories at Capitol and used on the actual “stereo” LP, is not the “stereo” version used in this collection. Instead the true stereo version is used, which is the exact same mix found as the last song on the 2009 CD release of Please Please Me. Capiche?

Now the good news is that many of the wacky mixes found on the U.S. albums are here; just not represented in both mono and stereo. For instance, the long (and non-double tracked) version of And I Love Her on Something New is here in mono, which is how it was mixed and sent to Capitol. The stereo version, however, is the shorter, 2009 remastered version. (This means, reverb fans, that the reverbiatastic versions of She’s a Woman and especially I Feel Fine are here, albeit just in mono. The stereo versions lack reverbiatisity.)

It comes down to this: Any tune that good ol’ George Martin and the Lads sent to the U.S., be it a stereo or mono mix, is used. Any tune that was tinkered with at Capitol, turning a mono tune to “stereo” or visa versa, and therefore not approved by Martin, is not used.

So, while The U.S. Albums is a good collection, it only partially represents what was heard in the states. No question that by not using any of the faux stereo/mono versions, The Beatles’ music is presented the way they intended and not the way the head honchos at Capitol thought would sell better in the states, making them (the honchos) more dinero.

But…. If you are used to, and love the albums as presented by said honchos, you’d best pick up the Capitol Albums Vols. 1 & 2. Alas, though, there is no Vol. 3, which means that you will be missing two essential Capitol Beatle albums, one interesting collection, a soundtrack, and one of the most cynical, money-grubbing suedo “documentary” albums those honchos at Capitol could conceive to exploit the unsuspecting, Beatlmania-infected American public.

They are:

Yesterday and Today. This is the album with the infamous butcher cover, the cover which is(!!!!) included! (Kudos to the producers who also include a sticker of the replacement cover.)