So, Macca confirms (almost) a bumper box of White album wonderfulness this year. Quite possibly, Abbey Road will follow. So, am guessing will include Esher demos, mono and stereo remixes, studio outtakes etc… will you be getting it?
And while we’re here, what do we make of the new Macca single? I think it’s not half bad…
Use the special box
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nguRK37qI54%20%20%20%20https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aef2eV7GmQw
Which Macca single? There are 2 songs
It` a double `A` side.
In theory, but download/streaming only right?
Well that’s how the record co. described it, double ‘A’ side.
Oh dear, I’ve had an accident…
Actually the Macca album is the most exciting, because his last proper album (New) was proper ace.
How many more will we get?
Those songs sound pretty good – especially the piano intro to ‘I Don’t Know’
I’m beside meself with anticipation.
It sold masses in America, not so much in the UK, but it’s The Beatles album I play the most.
Fastest selling album ever in the UK (at the time), sold so much it made the singles charts! 9th biggest seller of the 60s.
1 Pepper
3 With
4 Abbey Road
6 For Sale
7 AHDN
8 Rubber Soul
9 The Beatles
Sgt Pepper came out in August? Great journalism…
Let the speculation begin!
– 2 CD stereo remix
– 1 CD of spectacular sounding Esher demos
– 3-4 CDs of studio sessions
– DVD/Blu-ray Of 5.1 mix/hi-res stereo
It’s easy to quickly get up to 8-10 discs.
They might skip the mono mix this time around – in my mind it’s not celebrated for its mono mix the was Pepper/early albums are. I would love a Beatles in ‘68 documentary, but I can’t see that happening. I find 68 really interesting as it’s the year they aged.
Dec 67: Jolly wizards on the bus
Jan 69: Miserable In Twickenham
…there’s a great story in those 12 months.
I’m sure that story will be told in 1000+ pages, by a descendant of Mark Lewisohn, probably some time in the next century.
I think I could live without the demos, studio sessions and bantz. But how about a definitive Giles Martin remixed and remastered single album edit, endorsed by Paul and Ringo. Not gonna happen. But that would be some pretty interesting spring cleaning.
Never a single album, and what would be the point of that?
To remove the bloat. I know it’s not a popular opinion, but I think there’s a lot of bad gas on that record. I don’t care if Macca thinks it’s a great double album. He’s wrong.
He’s right. It is perfect as a double album. Some of the lesser tracks are all part of the wonderful whole and would diminish it if they weren’t here.
Me, I suggest a triple (previously posted):
Sides 1-3 as is:
Side 4
Hey Jude (P)
Child of Nature (J)
Lady Madonna (P)
The Inner Light (G)
Junk (P)
Side 5
Sour Milk Sea (G)
Goodbye (P)
Not Guilty (G)
Step Inside Love (P)
What’s the New Mary Jane (J)
Side 6 is the old side 4
Well, that’s one interpretation. Another is that the lesser tracks are just that, and that the album contains far too much throwaway fluff and filler, whose importance has been amplified and overstated owing to the reverence surrounding the band. If you talk about a band long enough, you can make sense of anything.
There is a sense, maybe, that the band wanted – or needed – to put out a double as a statement, to stay relevant and on top of the game. Together with the giant poster insert, the photographic portraits, and the plain white cover, it seems part of a conscious attempt to create a larger than life package. The Beatles were hemmed in. With each new release, they always had to be special.
Ultimately, the album shows them as human and fallible. No Beatles album before or since had so much hubris. The record could not escape from the chaos and disharmony of it’s gestation. Beatles sessions had never been this disharmonious before, and it shows. Ob-La-Di-Ob-La-Da, Wild Honey Pie, The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill, Piggies, Rocky Racoon, Don’t Pass Me By, Why Don’t We Do It in The Road, Revolution 1 (the B-side of Hey Jude is more than enough Revolutions for me), Honey Pie, Savoy Truffle and Revolution 9 are all non-essential. Also, do we really need Everybody’s Got Something to hide etc, the unfinished sounding Sexy Sadie, or the undercooked but hugely overrated Helter Skelter?
It’s quite a long list, which leaves:
Side One
Back in the USSR
Dear Prudence
Glass Onion
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Happiness is a Warm Gun
Cry Baby Cry
Long Long Long
Side Two
Martha My Dear
I’m So Tired
Blackbird
I Will
Julia
Birthday
Yer Blues
Mother Nature’s Son
Good Night
Everybody’s Got Something To Hide… is my favourite Beatles track these days. Turned up loud it sounds brill, really exciting, which is what pop music is meant to be.
Keep EGSTHBMM, loose Birthday. There you go.
It’s a good tracklisting, but it’s not right …
Same old same old pointless arguments between the Leave It As It Is -ers and a multitude of viewpoints on what should be Left Off/Added/Substituted. Then there are the Running Order-Changers.
There will never ever be a consensus on this album.
Well it beats talking about Brexit.
Brexit With The Beatles
Back in the EUSSR
Happiness is a Hard Brexit
The Continuing Story of Jacob Rees-Mogg
While My Guitar Gently Weeps (for Brexit)
etc, etc
Everybody’s Got Something To Hide Except For Boris and Nigel
Your 1st comment above Martin H Net was right but it was also even more wrong.
Your inside is out when your outside is in
Your outside is in when your inside is out
I like the idea of making it a triple album. As far as I am concerned there are only a few Beatles tracks that I would happily lose and none are on The Beatles.
I’ve long wondered why they don’t release boxed sets of each album with all the non-album tracks, unreleased tracks, live ones and demos, so it’s great that it’s happening and that they are giving some thought to them. The 5:1 mixes are a great novelty, but it’s rare I shove any of the 50-60 5:1 mixes on. The new stereo mix of Sgt. Pepper, however, is ruddy fantastic. I am looking forward to cleaned up Esher Demos, as they are great.
Paul and Ringo might endorse something, but as I understand the way things work in Beatleworld, they can’t do anything without Yoko and Olivia.
I think that’s a great arrangement for a band. I think Monty Python have something similar. Gets a bit complicated when it passes on to the widows, but I can sort of understand why the departed members need a voice and it’s not like Olivia and Yoko had only just met their Beatle hubbies when they died. But imagine if Paul had croaked whilst still married to Heather [shivers]. And what happens when the Beatles and all their widows are dead? Will the eldest kids then have the veto?
Then again, just look at other mega-acts that didn’t have such arrangements. At least the Beatles product has retained some class and we haven’t had umpteen re-releases of Sgt Pepper, like we have with Pet Sounds, or dozens of best ofs, like, er, The Beach Boys.
Presumably to whoever inherits the shares in Apple Corps.
Oh I think the mono mix should be in there, some pretty noticeable differences here and there. As well as Esher it would be nice to have some recordings from Rishikesh, if any exist
The largest differences between mono and stereo mixes on any Beatles album I believe.
“I say you fellows, my fingers do hurt frightfully from all this drumming”
It’s all listed here:
http://www.thewhitealbumproject.com/the-album/mono-vs-stereo/
The stereo I Will has more prominent bongos.
I hope this unreleased take of ‘I Will’ makes it onto the box
Ian McNabb as I live and breathe!
Alternatively…
2 CD Stereo remix
8 CDs of Ob La Di Ob La Da takes
DVD/BluRay of Macca grinning like an idiot and flicking the Vs at the camera. For 2 hours.
Special essay from Charles Manson – “What The White Album Means To Me”
Too soon?
Is it too early to discuss what`s gonna be on the `Abbey Road 50th Anniversary SE`?
The uncut version of I Want You (She’s So Heavy) where instead of cutting the song dead they jam on for another 25 minutes?
There is so much we can look forward to on Abbey Rd
Live Bed In (studio) – Yoko’s commentary on the recording sessions
Golden Squabbles – edited highlights of the bitchy bantz
McCartney’s alternative basslines for ‘Something’
20 takes of Ringo’s drum solo
True fact – the song started off as ‘I Want You (She’s Actually Quite Light)’ but you try holding an Old English Sheepdog for forty-five minutes.
Oh I can’t wait for this.
The Esher demos are the bit I can live without. Heard them, in no hurry to ever listen to them again.
But ooooh imagine the out-takes of helter skelter and Me And My Monkey etc. I need them. For all the talk of the white album being the work of four musicians working separately, it’s my favourite album for Beatle ensemble playing. They had that ‘heavy’ style where the bass and drums really lock together, plus the insane lead guitar sounds have never been bettered in my most humble opinion.
Oh I don’t know Arthur, well I do really. I think the Esther demos should ALL be included. I thought I had a very good quality copy of them until recently when I managed to get the cleaned up & high quality copy that was available on’t net. If a bootleg copy can be this good just think how good it can really be. The thing is I doubt we will get more than 6-8 tracks of the Esther demos, I hope I’m wrong, somebody said I usually am.
THEY ARE STANDING STILL
It is of course great that these recordings and outtakes have survived, but I’ve never understood why studios keep everything ever recorded. Why didn’t they erase the tapes as soon as the master copy of a song had been made/a song had been released?
Like the approach the BBC took to old episodes of Top of the Pops, Dr Who and many other programmes? Save tape?
cos it was The Beatles, and EMI. Standing order to engineers was to throw nothing away. That’s why ‘Her Majesty’ appears where it does on AR. The engineer was told to remove it from the medley, and following orders, spliced it to the end of the reel after a few seconds of silence. Once the fabs heard the lucky accident they decided it had to stay. Not all artists were as lucky; a lot of companies reused multi tracks once the record was mixed to 2 tracks for stereo mastering.
Stiff Records and Pathway Studios.
In a Stiff doco, Dave Robinson (or Nick Lowe, or Dave Vanish, or maybe all 3 of them) said they did it so often the tape was wearing thin and previous recordings could be heard leeching into the current recording
Some companies even went further than erasing multi-tracks. I’m aware of one that even erased the final mix masters after two years as they thought there would be no demand for them after that point.
I’ll be happy if I can stop worrying that all my bootlegs of this stuff on CD-R might degrade.
Bring it on, says I. Never been bettered.
The Watusi!
You become naked – take 2
In Take 3, Mal Evans says… “No wait a minute George, here’s that Bourgogne after all! There you go la!”
I have my original 1968 mono copy.
A stereo early vinyl.
Another vinyl mono copy from the mono remastered box set.
Mono CD
Stereo CD
Numerous bootleg tapes/cds accumulated down the years.
You may have ascertained that this my fave album of all time.
A 50’th anniversary remastered box set. Will I be buying it ?
Can’t wait !!
Sure this has been posted before, but apposite.
https://hyperallergic.com/65570/we-sell-white-albums/
That’s an interesting website. I’ll add it to my favourites. Thanks.
A few years ago some lunatic posted a recording on Soundcloud of 100 vinyl copies of the White Album being played simultaneously – the utterly terrifying result made Beyond the Valley of A Day In The Life sound like Bombalurina.
3 CD/4 LP Tracklisting
CD 1: The BEATLES (‘White Album’)2018 Stereo Mix
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Dear Prudence
Glass Onion
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
Wild Honey Pie
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Happiness is a Warm Gun
Martha My Dear
I’m so tired
Blackbird
Piggies
Rocky Raccoon
Don’t Pass Me By
Why don’t we do it in the road?
I Will
Julia
CD 2: The BEATLES (‘White Album’) 2018 Stereo Mix
Birthday
Yer Blues
Mother Nature’s Son
Everybody’s Got Something to Hide
Except Me and My Monkey
Sexy Sadie
Helter Skelter
Long, Long, Long
Revolution I
Honey Pie
Savoy Truffle
Cry Baby Cry
Revolution 9
Good Night
CD 3: Esher Demos
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Dear Prudence
Glass Onion
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Happiness is a Warm Gun
I’m so tired
Blackbird
Piggies
Rocky Raccoon
Julia
Yer Blues
Mother Nature’s Son
Everybody’s Got Something to Hide
Except Me and My Monkey
Sexy Sadie
Revolution
Honey Pie
Cry Baby Cry
Sour Milk Sea
Junk
Child of Nature
Circles
Mean Mr. Mustard
Polythene Pam
Not Guilty
What’s the New Mary Jane
I’ve got blisters on my eardrums