CD: The Beatles - Yellow Submarine Yellow Submarine (2009 Stereo Remaster) © 2009 Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/EMI Records Ltd. © 1987 Capitol Records, Inc. Originally Released January 13, 1969 CD Edition Released either August 24, 1987 or September 21, 1987 Remastered CD Edition Released September 9, 2009 AMG EXPERT REVIEW: (Box Sets) The Beatles always stood apart from their peers, a self-evident statement that sadly extended to the treatment of their catalog in the digital age. Where all their peers from the Byrds to the Who have had their catalogs remastered and reissued in deluxe editions, sometimes several times, the Beatles remained stuck in the early days of digital, their 14 albums plus Past Masters singles collection remaining untouched since 1987. Anniversaries came and went, but no remasters arrived until the release of the video game The Beatles Rockband pushed a long-overdue revamping of the band's entire catalog into the stores on 9-9-09. This reissue campaign corrects almost all the problems of the original 1987 CDs: the sound and artwork are improved, and all the original mono and stereo mixes finally see the light of day. Naturally, it's possible to quibble about some details of the presentation, particularly the decision to split the reissue into two separate box sets, one covering the stereo mixes and one the mono mixes, with only the stereo mixes available as individual discs (it's still possible to complain that the albums do not add era-specific singles or outtakes, but such expansions were never really in the cards), but both boxes still constitute the best Beatles by far. Crucially, it's also inarguably the best-sounding Beatles music ever released, robust and rich even on the earliest rock & roll. None of the albums have been remixed -- although Help! and Rubber Soul retain Martin's 1987 mixes, the original stereo mixes are bonuses on the mono set -- so this doesn't shock the way the Yellow Submarine soundtrack did with its reimagined stereo mixes. Nevertheless, these remasters surely do surprise with their clarity and depth, with each album feeling bigger and fuller than the previous CD incarnation, but not artificially so. It's not that these are pumped up on digital steroids; it's that the veil has been lifted, so everything seems full and fresh. Appropriately, there's more to savor from Help! onward, as the Beatles' productions grew ambitious, but Please Please Me, With the Beatles, and A Hard Day's Night all have a strong punch, while Beatles for Sale is warmer than the previous disc. (Stereo Box Set) As a package, the stereo box is slightly unwieldy -- it's a large, vertical set with two stacks of discs in slick cardboard sleeves piled on top of each other. No extra book is included with the set, but each disc has its own booklet with dry, straightforward liner notes detailing the recording process instead of analyzing the music. If anything about the set could be called disappointing, it's the mini- documentaries attached to each disc as Quicktime files and collected on a DVD bonus for the box. "Mini-documentary" may even be stretching what these are: they're three to five infomercials about the albums, not much more informative than the notes themselves. Nevertheless, these do offer annotation, something sorely lacking from the first CDs, and they do replicate the original notes -- in the case of Magical Mystery Tour, including the entire storybook; in the case of Pepper, all the 20th anniversary annotation is added -- finally bringing the Beatles to the same standard for reissues that every other major (and most minor) bands have had for years now. And the story, at least for the stereo box, is not the packaging -- it's the glorious sound that makes this such a treat. There's also no question that those who waited 22 years to hear a better version of the Beatles will not be disappointed (although they may still wonder why it took so long for the Fabs to be treated as they deserve). (Mono Box Set) The stereo set may be the official canon, but what Beatlemaniacs have really craved is the mono box. This limited-edition box is laden with new-to-CD mixes, including the genuine rarities of the previously unreleased mono mixes of the four new songs from Yellow Submarine, and its packaging is gorgeous, filled with mini-LP replicas with stiff cardboard sleeves of every album from Please Please Me to The Beatles, complete with replicated gatefolds and packaging inserts, all protected in resealable plastic sleeves. As pure physical product, this satisfies any collector itch, but this also is arguably the better-sounding of the two sets, providing ample evidence that the Beatles did spend more time on mono mixes during much of their career. For generations of listeners raised on stereo mixes, there are plenty of surprises here, from the faster versions of "She's Leaving Home" and "Don't Pass Me By" to the numerous little differences that pop up on Pepper, The White Album, and Revolver, all adding up to dramatically different experiences. Sometimes, the density of mono just has more force -- "Lady Madonna" rolls like a freight train, "I'm Down" hits to the gut -- and sometimes the colors just seem more vibrant; in either case, there's enough emotional difference to make this worthwhile for the dedicated, and depending on taste, it may even be preferable. But there's no question of one thing: of the two sets, as a package, the mono box is a thing to behold. And there's also no question that those who waited 22 years to hear a better version of the Beatles will not be disappointed (although they may still wonder why it took so long for the Fabs to be treated as they deserve). -- Stephen Thomas Erlewine AMG EXPERT REVIEW: The only Beatles album that could really be classified as inessential, mostly because it wasn't really a proper album at all, but a soundtrack that only utilized four new Beatles songs. (The rest of the album was filled out with "Yellow Submarine," "All You Need Is Love," and a George Martin score.) What's more, two of the four new tracks were little more than pleasant throwaways that had been recorded during 1967 and early 1968. These aren't all that bad; "All Together Now" is a cute, kiddieish McCartney singalong, while "Hey Bulldog" has some mild Lennon nastiness and a great beat and central piano riff, with some fine playing all around -- each is memorable in its way, and the inclusion of the Lennon song here was all the more important, as the sequence from the movie itself in which it was used was deleted from the original U.S. release of the movie (which had no success whatever in the U.K. and quickly disappeared, thus making the U.S. version the established cut of the film for decades, until the late-'90s restoration and DVD re-release of the movie). George Harrison's two contributions were the more striking of the new entries -- "Only a Northern Song," a leftover from the Sgt. Pepper's sessions, generated from a period in which the guitarist became increasingly fascinated with keyboards, especially the organ and the Mellotron (and, later, the synthesizer), and is an odd piece of psychedelic ersatz, mixing trippiness and some personal comments; its lyrics (and title) on the one hand express the guitarist/singer/ composer's displeasure at being tied in his publishing to Northern Songs, a company in which John Lennon and Paul McCartney were the majority shareholders; and, on the other, they present Harrison's vision of how music and recording sounded, from the inside out and the outside in, during the psychedelic era -- the song thus provided a rare glimpse inside the doors of perception of being a Beatle (or, at least, one aspect of being this particular Beatle) circa 1967. And then there was the jewel of the new songs, "It's All Too Much"; coming from the second half of 1967, the song -- resplendent in swirling Mellotron, larger-than-life percussion, and tidal waves of feedback guitar -- was a virtuoso excursion into otherwise hazy psychedelia, that was actually superior in some respects to "Blue Jay Way," Harrison's songwriting contribution of The Magical Mystery Tour; the song also later rated a dazzling cover by Steve Hillage in the middle of the following decade. The very fact that George Harrison was afforded two song slots and a relatively uncompetitive canvas for his music shows how little the project meant to Lennon and McCartney -- as did the cutting of the "Hey Bulldog" sequence from the movie, apparently with no resistance from Lennon, who had other, more important artistic fish to fry in 1968. What is here, however, is a good enough reason for owning the record, though nothing rates it as anything near a high-priority purchase. The album would have been far better value if it had been released as a four-song EP (an idea the Beatles even considered at one point, with the addition of a bonus track in "Across the Universe" but ultimately discarded). And the original soundtrack was partly supplanted by the release at the end of the 1990s of the Yellow Submarine (Songtrack), which marked the first of the remastered Beatles albums, thus reducing the appeal of the original. No one would argue that there's a huge amount more than meets the eye (or ear) there, but listening to the original album anew 40 years on, one is still struck by how mostly second-rate, and recycled and rejected Beatles material still sounds so good. And while George Martin's instrumental music from the film wasn't what a lot of Beatles fans were looking for, it was relegated safely to side two if one wished to ignore it. And even that material offered a pleasant surprise or two -- first, over how much more enjoyable it was than the Ken Thorne-arranged background music for Help! (could one imagine a full side of that on an album?); and, second, the fun that Martin has as an orchestrator with some of George Harrison's recent Hindustanti music excursions on "Sea of Time"; the latter is doubly interesting, as Martin in later years, in his autobiography All You Need Is Ears, admitted to regretting some of the antipathy he showed to Harrison and his music and songwriting during their time together with the Beatles. And, finally, as a Beatles-lite release, Yellow Submarine does have its moments of welcome on the turntable or the CD player -- it's not every time that calls for listening as ambitious and demanding as The White Album, Abbey Road, or Sgt. Pepper's. -- Richie Unterberger & Bruce Eder Amazon.com Editorial Review The most dashed-off of the Beatles' records, Yellow Submarine doesn't have much to it: the goofy title track and "All You Need Is Love" are reprised from earlier discs, George Martin's trifle of a score to the animated Submarine feature takes up the second half, and that leaves just four relatively insubstantial new tracks. The Beatles' throwaways are anyone else's classics, though: "Hey Bulldog," the last song Lennon and McCartney wrote in full collaboration, has the instinctive urgency of their best work, Paul's singalong "All Together Now" is awfully cute, and more than one band has dedicated its career to trying to replicate what George's guitars are doing on his dazed, pulsing "It's All Too Much." --Douglas Wolk Half.com Details Producer: George Martin Album Notes The Beatles: John Lennon (vocals, guitar, keyboards); Paul McCartney (vocals, guitar, bass); George Harrison (vocals, guitar); Ringo Starr (vocals, drums). This reissue of YELLOW SUBMARINE has been digitally re-mastered. It comes packaged with replicated original U.K. album art, an expanded booklet containing original and newly written liner notes, and rare photos. Limited quantities of the CD are embedded with a brief documentary film about the album. Audio Remasterers: Sam Okell; Sean Magee; Steve Rooke; Guy Massey; Paul Hicks. Liner Note Authors: Mike Heatley; Kevin Howlett. Starting out as a sing-a-long vehicle for Ringo Starr on REVOLVER, "Yellow Submarine" became the inspiration for the 1968 animated feature film of the same name. Most of the soundtrack was composed and orchestrated by George Martin, but the remaining six songs were far from being Beatle cast-offs. George Harrison's two contributions, "Only A Northern Song" and "It's All Too Much" mark the adventurously experimental phase the Beatles were in at that time and dabble in woozy psychedelic shadings laced with orchestrations that continued to influence cutting-edge pop artists for decades to come. Along with the aforementioned "Yellow Submarine," other Lennon/McCartney compositions include the good-time, skiffle-flavored "All Together Now," the Lennon- driven rocker "Hey Bulldog," and "All You Need Is Love"--the unofficial flower-power anthem. AMAZON.COM CUSTOMER REVIEW (Mono Box Set) A Cheapskate's (Relatively) Guide To The Mono and Stereo Re-Issues, 09. 10.2009 By James N. Perlman Introduction: The following is pretty much a full review of both the mono and stereo reissues largely written in real time as a series of e- mails to an old friend who once owned a legendary record store here in Chicago. The story of the reissues really comes down to the technical limitations of two-track, four-track, eight-track, etc. recordings and the relative complexity of the music of the Beatles. Listening occurred on what would be considered an audiophile system with Quad 988's as the speakers. Please Please Me: The sound on the mono is just amazing. You can hear the echo in the room as John sings Anna. The vocals just soar. Ringo was just so good, even at this early stage and so was Paul. They supported and framed the songs so perfectly. And just think, in twenty- one minutes, or so, Twist And Shout! Stereo can't hold a candle to this, if for no other reason than the left/right "stereo" found later in With The Beatles, Rubber Soul and Revolver. With The Beatles: As with Please Please Me, the mono sounds so, so, nice. As the stereo has that annoying left/right "stereo," no contest: mono hands down. A Hard Day's Night: Seems better and more enjoyable in stereo. I think the reason is that they now had four tracks so George Martin could do proper stereo mixes and still have a mostly fresh first generationish sound. Remember, there were only two track available for Please Please Me. However, when they got to Rubber Soul and Revolver, four tracks weren't enough, which required, in some instances, numerous dubs of the four tracks to another four track tape, merging the four tracks to one track, thereby opening up three new tracks. While this degraded the sound somewhat it also made it difficult to back-track and do the after-thought stereo mixes, which is why we have the atrocious "stereo" of Rubber Soul and Revolver. Consequently, the reason the monos of these albums rule has mostly to do with technical limitations. While the mixes on A Hard Day's Night are true stereo mixes, they carry George Martin's idiosyncratic, but really right, decision to put the vocals in the center, the rhythm section to the left and the other instruments to the right. I always have loved how Martin took care to isolate the brilliant work of Ringo and Paul so many times instead of just following the convention of placing the drums in the center. This is why one of Martin's memoirs is entitled: "All You Need Is Ears." The Beatles For Sale: Comments, preference and reasons for preference similar to A Hard Day's Night. Help: Well, thank God we have three different versions to compare to make life ever so easy. First, mono is the definitive mix, that's a plus. As a minus, while it sounds richer, it is also a bit muddy compared to the stereo mixes. As for the stereo mixes, the remaster of George Martin's '87 remix does show some limiting in this new incarnation. A bit a hard to dial in the right volume. Sounds fuller, but that's the limiting. Not sure I care for this version too much. As for the '65 stereo version, that comes on the same disc as the mono version, as this album is somewhat acoustic, the absence of the limiting that was done to the new stereo remix/remaster is a plus. The delicacy is there in I Need You. Overall, the "old" stereo is prettier than the "new" stereo. One can argue over whether the "new" stereo or the ""old" stereo is better, I come down on the side of the "old" stereo, I like pretty. But as you get both the mono and the "old" stereo on the single mono disc, the cheapskate in me screams if you had a pistol to your head and only had to purchase one version of Help, it would be the "mono" disc. Rubber Soul: Mono over stereo, if for no other reason than the left/rt channel mix that plagued Please, Please Me, With The Beatles and Revlover. Revolver: There is a section of Run For You Life where Ringo is just so muscular and explosive in the mono that is missing in stereo and this is before we get to the issue of the left/right "stereo" of the stereo mix. Plus, there is just this overall richness of sound to the mono that is missing in the stereo. That said, it is a bit cooler to hear Tomorrow Never Knows in stereo. But, overall, mono. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band: The things you have heard are correct about the mono mix, the clarity and control over the notes, instruments and vocals is all there. Overall, it just sounds better, fuller and richer than the stereo, plus it is what the boys intended. Oddly, the thing that was most breathtaking was She's Leaving Home; just a full, gorgeous, sound. In stereo, it just sounds relatively wrong; thin compared to the mono. That said, because Day In The Life is such a mind-f the stereo is the definitive version of this song. Magical Mystery Tour: While Pepper's sounded better in Mono, MMT sounds better in stereo. The Beatles (The White Album): Both versions have their merits, you need both. If you can only go for one, it's the stereo. Abbey Road: The defining moment of these reissues, and why it took four years, may be found on AR's I Want You (She's So Heavy). Because they couldn't take the tape hiss out without compromising the sound, they didn't. But when it came to John's final "she's so heavy" which was over saturated and clipped previously, they were able to take the clipping out, and for the first time, you can hear all of John's vocal. Second side now, Here Comes the Sun and now Because. Wonderful sound throughout. Can't wait for Ringo at the end. Let It Be: It is what it is. I prefer the Naked in vinyl. Mono Past Masters: Right now, listening to the The Inner Light, which I hate, but it sounds so, so, so good in mono that I may actually like it. And, look out, Paul's bass piano notes in Hey Jude are right there as is Ringo's tambourine. Can't wait for Revolution plus the mono songs from Yellow Submarine. The mono Past Masters would have been perfection if they had added a stereo Let It Be and The Ballad Of John and Yoko. After all, the "stereo" Past Masters is actually a mixture of stereo and mono. So kids, here's where we end. Your core, oddly enough, should be the mono box set. Augment this with the stereo Hard Day's Night, The Beatles For Sale, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour, The Beatles, Abbey Road, Let It Be and stereo Past Masters. Addendum: As I live in Chicago, and have access to one of the country's remaining great stereo stores, that also boast three incredibly knowledgeable owners and an original Sgt. Peppers British Stereo pressing, following posting this review I went over there to compare the original vinyl with the two new CD reissues. We listened to the reference system, Naim Audio electronic and Quad speakers. There was total agreement on what we heard. First, Pepper's mono CD had better tonal balance than Peppers stereo CD. Pepper's stereo CD had better coloration than the mono, but this was defeated by the harshness of the sound (more on harshness shortly). Thus, overall, between the two CD's we preferred the mono CD. All that said, the stereo original British vinyl pressing crushed both. It had both tonal correctness and coloration. Now as to the harshness issue, please be mindful that I have listened to these discs on two audiophile systems. Something like harshness is likely to be more prevalent the higher up you get in the stereo food chain. Thus, someone who doesn't have an audiophile system may not experience the harshness at all, but it really is there. This may render some of the stereo CDs more listenable for these people than they were for me, at least when it comes to Pepper's. 9/12/09 THANKS TO ALL: The past few days, following the posting of my review, have been a lot of fun. So many people have taken the time to write me, quite a number saying the review was flat-out the best review of any sort they have read. Others shared memories and feelings about how important this music is to them. Amazingly, two old friends, one in Boston one in Paris, reconnected, after a number of years, as a result of the comments section following the review. All in all, it has been a very rewarding experience. I thank Amazon for providing this opportunity, and those of you present and future who have/will take(n) the time to play. -- RELATED INFO ------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- from Wikipedia.org UK and US Differences Although the essential artwork on the album covers issued in the United States and Great Britain are similar, there are a few subtle differences on the sleeves. The front of the British jacket contains the words "NOTHING IS REAL" in green print just below the album's title. This subtitle had been omitted from the American album cover. On the back of the cover, the British album contained a review of the Beatles' "White Album" written for the The Observer by Tony Palmer. The review was introduced by a few liner notes by Apple press officer Derek Taylor. Rather than plug the group's previous release, however, the more imaginative back of the American cover contained a fictitious illustrated biography of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, in which the ensemble's battle with the Blue Meanies was compared to three other epic struggles in the history of the English-speaking world: Beowulf's struggle to save the Heorot mead hall, King John's signing of the Magna Carta, and Thomas Jefferson's writing of the Declaration of Independence. The two album covers (and record labels) also differ in the fact that the British version recognizes seven tracks from the film's score on Side Two, while the American version only recognizes six tracks, treating the songs "Sea of Times" and "Sea of Holes" as a single track, titled "Medley: Sea of Time & Sea of Holes." One final difference is that the American album was only released in stereo, while the British album was available in both stereo and mono, though the mono version is simply a collapse of the stereo version and not a true mono mix. Surprisingly, it does not include the true mono mix of "Only A Northern Song" which appears in mock-stereo on the stereo LP. The international compact disc release is consistent with the British version of the LP, in that the "Nothing Is Real" subtitle remains intact, and the review of the "White Album," with Taylor's introduction, is included inside the CD insert. The CD also recognizes "Sea of Time" and "Sea of Holes" as separate tracks. -- RELATED INFO ------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- from rec.music.beatles There Are Five New Previously Unavailable Tracks In The Remasters Although they are not really saying much about it, there are five previously unreleased tracks in the remasters. One on Yellow Submarine (Stereo) and all five in the Mono Masters. Yellow Submarine (Stereo) has the first release of the MONO version of "Only A Northern Song". Huh? This is convoluted, but "Only A Northern Song" was never mixed in stereo. For the stereo Yellow Submarine album, they electronically reprocessed the mono version to make it sound like stereo, i.e. fake stereo. And regardless of what they claim in the Mono Box, there WAS a mono release of Yellow Submarine. But apparently this time the mono version was an afterthought becasue rather than use the actual mono mixes, they took the stereo masters and folded them down into mono. Go figure. Subsequencely, "Hey Bulldog", "All Together Now" and "It's All Too Much", which were only mixed for official release in stereo, are being released in true mono mixes for the first time on the Mono Masters. "Only A Northern Song" is repeated here as well. So where are these mono mixes coming from? All four of these songs were mixed on mono for use in the Yellow Submarine movie and can be found on original prints of that movie. (The VHS and DVD versions of the movie use the stereo tracks.) Finally, "Across the Universe" was recorded in Feb. 1968 and mixed to mono for use in a proposed EP that would also include all four of the new Yellow Submarine songs. That EP never saw the light of day, but "Across the Universe", as you all know, was sped up for one release and slowed down for another. It is being released for the first time in its original finished form on the Mono Masters. -- RELATED INFO ------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------- from Wikipedia.org Missing Stereo Session Tapes No stereo mixes exist for the 1963 single "She Loves You" and its flipside "I'll Get You" or the 1962 single "Love Me Do" and its flipside "P.S. I Love You". The master two-track session tapes were destroyed, as was common practice at Abbey Road studios, once they were mixed down to mono for single release.[3] Every release of these four songs has been in mono (or fake stereo) and they will appear in mono on the stereo version of Past Masters and Please Please Me. This is also the case for the single version of "Love Me Do" with Ringo on drums but at some point even the mixed down mono tape of this version of the song was lost. Since the 1980s, a new mono transfer sourced from a reasonably clean 45rpm from a private collector has been used as the master for this version of the song. Two other songs in The Beatles' catalogue which also appear in mono on the stereo CDs are "Only A Northern Song" and "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)". Neither of these songs were mixed into stereo during the time that The Beatles were recording. "Only A Northern Song" was first mixed into stereo and 5.1 surround for the Yellow Submarine Songtrack album in 1999 and a differently edited stereo mix of "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)" appeared on Anthology 2 in 1996. "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)" is the only track left in The Beatles' catalogue whose original edit has never received a stereo mix despite the multi-tracks being available. YEAR: 1969 01. Yellow Submarine [0:02:39.54] 02. Only A Northern Song [0:03:24.37] 03. All Together Now [0:02:10.67] 04. Hey Bulldog [0:03:11.23] 05. It's All Too Much [0:06:25.01] 06. All You Need Is Love [0:03:51.16] 07. Pepperland [0:02:20.55] 08. Sea of Time [0:03:00.16] 09. Sea of Holes [0:02:16.52] 10. Sea of Monsters [0:03:36.52] 11. March of The Meanies [0:02:19.27] 12. Pepperland Laid Waste [0:02:12.58] 13. Yellow Submarine in Pepperland [0:02:14.02] 14. Yellow Submarine Mini-Documentary [0:23:36.13]