A woman walks into a butcher shop. She says "Can I see that chicken?" The butcher hands it to her. She smells it in front, she smells it in back, she smells it all over and then hands it back to the butcher saying "Mister, this chicken stinks!" The butcher replies "Lady, could you pass a test like that?"
Released in the U.K. November 22nd, 1963—the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated, many of the songs here weren't released in America until Capitol issued Meet The Beatles! in January of 1964 but a few bitter months after the assassination. America, particularly its youth needed an emotional pick me up and The Beatles provided it, though more on the Vee-Jay album than on this one.
Recorded live at Abbey Road in fewer than ten hours in February of 1963 at a cost of around £400 and issued on March 22 (my Beatles birthday present), Please Please Me captured all of the raw energy of The Beatles playing live at The Cavern Club, though on stage they didn't put the vocals in one P.A. speaker and the instruments in the other!
I just got off the phone with Record Technology Incorporated's owner Don MacInnis regarding the stamped lacquer used to press A Hard Day's Night and only that album.
It's June of 1964. Beatlemania is sweeping America. You've just graduated high school and are getting ready for college. You're trying to grow up, you're listening to jazz, but you've been pulled into this teen craze by the music. Not since Elvis, the Everly Brothers and Roy Orbison has your world been so rocked.
The Beatles' early output was as confusingly presented as it was prolific. That was true on both sides of "the pond." In America, Capitol Records at first decided to pass on The Beatles. In the U.K. singles didn't make it onto albums.
This album stiffed when first released in the Spring of 1970. While it was hyped as the "last Beatles album" everyone knew it was recorded before Abbey Road, even if they didn't know the messy history behind it. And by the time the album was released the Beatles had broken up.
I've fed you another piece of misinformation fed to me by someone involved in this project but I can't remember whom: at first I was told RTI pressed these records. But that had to be walked back. Then I was told, no Rainbo pressed but RTI plated. Now I've been told by RTI's Don MacInnis that, no RTI didn't plate them either. Sorry about that.
Authenticity required this album to have a "Capitol" label since it was not originally issued in the U.K. There, the five tunes on side one comprised a double 7" EP issue containing the songs from the "Color Television Film called 'Magical Mystery Tour'".
Back in 1996 EMI contemplated a newly-remastered 30th anniversary CD edition of "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band. While the company later issued a 30th anniversary edition of The Beatles (The "White" Album) complete with a transparent slip case, black inner sleeves and the poster and photos originally included in the vinyl version, the 30th anniversary Sgt. Peppers... was never released. I know about it because I was peripherally involved.
Of course Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band was The Beatles' and George Martin's creative and technological pinnacle and the album most cite as their greatest, but there's plenty to be said for Revolver being their best and most consistent collection of songs and performances.
Yesterday was a waste case for listening. I powered up the stereo and what came out was so bad I couldn't review anything. I'm not kidding. I tried everything: various turntables, cartridges, digital and nothing sounded good......So I went upstairs and watched this fascinating BBC documentary on the life and times of George Martin. There's been an anti-George Martin backlash of late from people who think he takes too much credit for their success, but watching this makes obvious that these people are making stuff up. He certainly doesn't here.
This fourth Beatles album didn't exist in America because it didn't contain any hit singles. In England, hits were singles, sometimes issued as four song E.P.s. In America hits were the bait to get teens to buy albums, but in England you got fourteen songs for your money. In America you got twelve but you got the hits.
As expected, Rubber Soul, sourced from George Martin's 1987 16 bit, 44.1k remix sounds like a CD. Why should it sound like anything else? That's from what it was essentially mastered.