The Capitol Albums Vol. 1

Being a "first generation-kindred spirit" who was raised and nurtured via the Capitol releases here in the U.S. between '64-'70 (more specifically '64-'67, a.k.a. "Meet the Beatles" through Revolver, as all the releases after that were the same US and UK) I have an almost "karmic" affinity to the the "American" mixes.It's all about "contextual cueing" effects. The sequences that we first heard when those LPs were released here in the U.S. were the sequences (sound-scapes) that made for the soundtracks of our developmental years.For instance, when I hear "Money" my brain automatically cues in "You Can't do That" to come next and the visual image in my mind is that of "The Beatle's Second Album", not the closing cut from "With the Beatles" which, as far as I knew at age 12, didn't even exist. Of COURSE "Money" is by far the best possible closer for the Meet/With LP but, since we had "Not a Second Time" to close off our US lp well, that's what we went to bed with. Perhaps the US in-teen-i-gensia knew, through research, that finishing a socio-political statement such as a Beatle lp to bed with a tune calling for "Money" was un-American and so they opted for the kindler, gentler, "Not a Second Time."This holds true for every pre-Pepper's release. The U.S. versions sound "just right" to me, you know..."the way the Beatles, Brian Epstein, and George Martin" all intended because, heck, that's what WE heard!Most telling, perhaps, it's the Rubber Soul packages. Like most American, first Gen Beatle fans the Capitol versions just "fit better" than the UK ones to me. When I first heard "I've Just Seen a Face" as the 12th track on the UK version of "Help!" I thought surely someone had made a huge mistake."I've Just seen a Face," after all is the PERFECT opening to Rubber Soul. "Drive My Car"? INCREDIBLE song! but in no way "Rubber Soul'ish"! "It's only Love", on "Help!"? Are you KIDDING me? What sort of sacrilege is THAT? What a waste! To me Pepper's was not the first "CONCEPT" LP, Rubber Soul was--at least the notion of a "concept LP" that can be had by a 14-year old boy. In other words, (the US) Rubber Soul flowed like an LP, not a bunch of songs. "Help!" on the other hand, was a chaotic bunch of thrown together songs. "Yesterday"...on "Help!"? "Yesterday," everyone knew, was a single (45RPM) that had NOTHING to do with "Help!" the movie or album. As an album, the UK "Help!" made (and continues to make) no sense at all.That said, what the vol 1 and vol 2 Capitol releases have done, for us American first-gens, is help us to maintain those initial neural connections alive. When I listen to the US releases they bring back memory after memory, intact, fresh and pure. The UK releases, they sound like out of sync compilations that a buddy made trying to be cool with his new cassette player. Right for him maybe, just not for me.Capitol box vol 3, then...that's a task to figure out along similar lines.If Capitol holds the "in order of release" sequence we really get not much of anything worthwhile. Releasing in terms of "marketability" doesn't help much either.The Beatles Story would be a TOTAL rip off that we would listen to MAYBE once. "Hey Jude"? To us that wasn't a Beatle's release as much as compilation of songs we already had on singles. More of a convenience. Like having an early mp3 or those singles. "Yesterday and Today?" sinilar to "Something New," Half and Half, half songs we did not have, yet we NEEDED, but the other half we already had...on singles. Not all of us could affort $3.00 for that extravagance back then so that one took a while. The only thing that would have made "Yesterday & Today" a "must buy" life essential was the Butcher cover, and when Capitol ruined that there went a LOT of potential sales. Idiots. As far as "Something New," same thing. But the clincher there wass "Things we Said Today." the song that FINALLY made me fork out $2.79 for that album! To put it in perspective, that's almost 10 .30 cent U.S. lunches."Revolver" on Capitol vol 3. Unlike "Rubber Soul" the only thing you need to do with the UK "Revolver" is take two songs out and play the others in a different order--not quite the same as missing essential songs as I noted earlier. "Magical Mystery Tour"? Our "U.S." version had the movie songs AND the "singles" we already had (again) so, here we got the better deal --song wise.Sgt. Pepper, White Album and Abbey Road and Let it Be? All the same songs and song order, so, no need for those as Capitol versions.Therefore, the "need" comes in terms of having (a) the stereo vs mono versions (already now out in the UK sets), (b) the coveted original covers (in mini size! How cute are those?!), (c) completion (which really takes us only through "Revolver," as--again, all other REAL TIME RELEASES were the same US as in UK. As for the OUTSIDE PACKAGING both the US and UK versions are pathetically cheap looking and feeling. Beatles are worthy of something more akin Tory Amos' piano box set. How about box sets in the shape of each of the Beatle's primary instruments? (Vol 1 -Hoffner bass, Vol 2. George's Gretch?... See, those I'd buy!)When you stretch this into the ridiculous, second-generation Beatle era (Ballads, Rock and Roll music, Red and Blue LPs, Rarities, and the ludicrous Reel Music), well, they were SO un-important to us first generation people that mine are still in their plastic wraps.That said, there are OTHER much more worthwhile products we actually NEED out there folks, and, this message goes out to all my first-Gen superFans: "WE ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME!"My votes?--and by the way: just hand the project out to Rhino, sit back and let them do it.Let it BE- DVD set, various versions: 2-DVD basic, 4-DVD deluxe, X-DVD completist versions.Complete video collection.Please, PLEASE!!! WHERE?WHEN is this?! Pristine, remixed, remastered from FIRST GENERATION sources. COMPLETE performances (see "Reelin in the Years" British Invasion series for a reference to how this is done by caring professionals!) In proper sequence.Again, multiple options:2DVD - basic collection, complete set of all video release4-DVD - completist collection - complete set of all VERSIONS of each song (several "Hello, Goodbye", "Paperback Writer," etc) with interviewsX-DVD - suicide collection - all of the above plus out-takes, rehearsals, anything that has been salvaged one way or the other.The Concerts. DVDsThe pristine quality--video and audio--are out there, we've seen snippets, How about the whole things now?Shea...Cow Palace, Japanese shows (light and dark jackets), Italian and French concerts, Hollywood Bowl, Cavern and German snippets would make for superb "bonus" cuts.The Concerts - CDsAs above but, on CD.Magical Mysetery tour -DVD sets: 2-DVD basic (one color one black and white, remastered to that it is actually VISIBLE with bonus yardage); 4-DVD deluxe with interviews, out-takes, etc.Pepper's and Abbey Road -similar to the new Pink Floyd multi-set compilations, or, at least the Smile box set.White LP- 3 CDs- mono, out-takes/promos, originalcheers!

In 1987, the decision to release the Beatles work on CD was made by EMI (not Apple, as some think). Unfortunately, instead of getting the albums we Americans (who put most of the money in the Beatles pockets) were familiar with, all we got were foreign compilations. And to add insult to injury, some were only available in flat mono. The British albums numbered only 13, so to fill up the gaps they added MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR (one of those "butchered" American compilations created by Voyle Gilmore in Hollywood, although so-called "purists" seem to overlook this fact) and the two PAST MASTERS volumes (two more compilations, these cooked up by Mark Lewisohn). However, as Lewisohn pointed out in the liner notes for PAST MASTERS, if you bought all these CDs, you had everything the Beatles commercially recorded between 1962 and 1970. Although the mixes could be better, I could live with that. All the Beatles work on 15 CDs.But after Apple gained control of the catalog in the 1990s, that neat little batch of 15 CDs containing the complete Beatles corpus changed. First they reissued 1962-1966 and 1967-1970, two compilations made by Allen Klein in the 1970s. These were unneccessary since everything was already available. What's that? Some of the tracks were stereo? Well, they should have been in the first place. Then came LIVE AT THE BBC and the ANTHOLOGY series, previously bootlegged scraps that only served to cheapen the Beatles' recording legacy. There's a reason all of that junk was unreleased in the sixties. It was supposed to be! These were followed by YELLOW SUBMARINE SONGTRACK and LET IT BE NAKED, revisionist perversions of classic albums. (What's next? A new and improved "White Album"? "Sgt. Pepper Revisited"?) What's that again? The sound is great? Why couldn't the originals have been released with good sound? And finally, the ultimate rip-off, BEATLES 1, which gave us nothing new and far too few hits, in spite of all the hype.Now the four of the original albums are back. Each disc is presented in its original form, both stereo and mono. These are the original AMERICAN Beatles albums, the ones that I knew when I first exposed to the Beatles. The ones that appeared in that little handout you got with THE BEATLES/1962-1966 (and 1967/1970) titled "FOR YOUR INFORMATION." I know that these records were only released in America, but I'm an American. I don't care about how the Beales' product was peddled in Britain, or Germany, or Japan. I want the U.S. albums.MEET THE BEATLES is arguably the most important Beatles album. It is the one that introduced most Americans to the group. Promoted by the single "I Want to Hold Your Hand," it brought Beatlemania to the U.S. and was responsible for all that followed. In that sense, its effect is still felt today. It is, of course, roughly the U.S. version of the group's second British album WITH THE BEATLES, but it's a stronger work. By including all of the original compositions from the British album and eliminating all but one of the cover songs, it showcases the group's songwriting abilities. The single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" is included, along with both its American ("I Saw Her Standing There") and British ("This Boy") flipsides. These tracks, all originals, add additional weight to the group's songwriting reputation. The only cover version is "Till There Was You," a Broadway tune from THE MUSIC MAN, and shows the group as masters of mainstream pop as well as rock and roll.THE BEATLES' SECOND ALBUM, a compilation cooked up at the Capitol Tower in Hollywood, was rushed out in the wake of the Beatles' tremendous American success. Just like "She Loves You" was that OTHER single, this was that OTHER album. Although good, the SECOND ALBUM doesn't quite measure up to MEET THE BEATLES. It's a patchwork album, made up of the 5 tracks cut from WITH THE BEATLES (all cover songs, most of them Motown), various single sides, and 2 brand- new tracks, "Long Tall Sally" and "I Call Your Name."SOMETHING NEW was Capitol's attempt to release the band's third British album A HARD DAY'S NIGHT. The British album contained the songs from the film A HARD DAY'S NIGHT on one side and various filler tracks on the other. The film company (United Artists) released the soundtrack album in the U.S. and it became a multi-million seller. Beaten out by UA, Capitol compiled SOMETHING NEW, containing 8 songs from the British album (4 from each side), plus 3 additional filler tracks. They heavily promoted this album, and released 3 singles from it, but it never could match the success of the United Artists album. Which is a shame. Despite its patchwork origins, SOMETHING NEW is a great album. It was the first album released completely in stereo, and there are many differences between the mono and stereo versions.BEATLES '65 is the American version of the group's fourth British album, BEATLES FOR SALE. The first side is nearly identical to the British album (minus one song), while the second side contains two songs from the album, a song leftover from the British A HARD DAY's NIGHT and the current single "I Feel Fine" with its flipside "She's A Woman."There are many myths about these albums:1. They're not in true stereo, and have echo added to them. The fact is, only seven tracks ("I Want to Hold Your Hand," "She Loves You," "You Can't Do That," "I'll Get You," "She Loves You," "She's a Woman," and "I Feel Fine") are not in true stereo. Only the stereo version of THE BEATLES' SECOND ALBUM has added echo.2. They were released against the wishes of George Martin. The fact is George Martin knew and approved of these albums. He even scheduled special mixing sessions for them (See Lewisohn 1992).3. They were not what the Beatles intended. As far as merchandise was concerned, in 1964, the Beatles had no intentions. The record company, not the group, decided what product was released.So, to those in the dark, get your facts straight and enjoy the Beatles as they were presented to Americans. This is the most important compact disc release in 20 years, so enjoy it.

Lástima que Capitol ya descontinuó el de Capitol albums VOL 2. Espero que vuelvan a reeditarlo, fue también un exitazo de ventas.

Box che non deve mancare in una collezione dei Beatles. Ottima rimasterizzazione dai nastri originali U.S.A. della Capitol record sia in versione mono che stereo. Ottimo il servizio Amazon e l'imballo.

ビートルズ解散の時期位に生まれ、中学生の頃洋楽に目覚め最初に赤盤を買い当時は持っていない曲を安く集めたいとタワーレコードでUS版のセカンドアルバムを買いました。やがてCD時代が来てプリーズプリーズミーから買って集めてましたが、かつて僕が慣れ親しんだ曲はイントロのギターやハーモニカが違っており、ずっとモヤモヤしてました。たまたま調べていたら、このセットがCCCDであるために激安なのを知り、音が悪いとか再生機械が壊れるかは運しだいで一か八かで買ってみました。再生機器も高性能のステレオではないので音質も問題なく、もちろん機械が壊れることはなく、すごくいい買い物をしたと思います。本来なら１００００円のものが新品で２０００円以下でしたし、先ほど上で書きましたが僕にとっての懐かしいバージョンに３０年ぶり位に再会できました。USキャピタル盤の特徴の深くエコーがかかった擬似ステレオやバージョン違いの曲が沢山ありホントいい買い物をしました。

Los discos (títulos, etc...) están en inglés. Pero la edición es la japonesa. Es más alta que la edición original, asi que si tienes en vol.2 en otra edición no quedaran a la misma altura.

5 Punkte für die exzellente Musik der Beatles - ein Muss. Weitere Ausführungen zur Historie der US Ausgaben haben schon die meisten Rezensenten hier bestens abgegeben, deshalb Infos, welche für eine Kaufentscheidung wichtig sein können.Da Amazon die Rezensionen für verschiedene Ausgaben hier wieder in einen Topf wirft, der Hinweis, dass diese Rezension NUR die japanische Ausgabe, Label: Import (MFG Entertainment Service) ASIN: B00068X53U betrifft.Weiter ist zu bemängeln, dass Amazon nicht das originale Produkt im Bild darstellt. Auf dem Bild der Box ist nicht zu erkennen, dass es sich hierbei um die japanische Ausgabe handelt.Alle großen Mitbewerber stellen das Produkt richtig dar. Mit dem japanischen Umschlag und japanischen Schriftzeichen. Nur für Experten ist zu erkennen, dass es sich um die Japan Ausgabe handelt ( siehe das Wort in der Produktbeschreibung : Toshiba und es wird von 2 Booklets gesprochen).Das hat auch zu Folge, dass nicht erkennbar ist, dass diese Box auch kopiergeschützt ist. Auf dem Originalbild wäre das zu sehen. Diesen fehlenden Hinweis sehe ich als gravierend an.Warum ist diese Japan Box besser als die deutsche Erstausgabe (mit Kopierschutz) ?Die Japan-Longbox ist in den Ausmessungen etwas länger und breiter. Das hat den Vorteil, dass die CD's nicht so reingepresst sind wie in der Box, welche in D zuerst erschienen ist. Des Weiteren haben alle CD's zusätzlich eine schützende Plastik Innersleeve ( dt. Erstausgabe nicht).Nächster Vorteil, das 2. zusätzliche Booklet. Viel japanische Schrift , ABER. für alle Titel sind die Texte auch in Englisch abgedruckt. (dt. Erstausgabe nicht).Jetzt zum wichtigsten Punkt. Auch diese CD’s sind kopiergeschützt. Beim Vergleich der japanischen CD’s mit den CD’s aus der dt.Erstausgabe fällt schon optisch auf , es gibt einen Unterschied. Die Japanischen weisen auf der nicht bedruckten Unterseite einen silbernen Zwischenring auf , die CD’s der dt. Erstausgabe nicht. Das machte neugierig und weckte Hoffnung, dass die japanische Ausgabe einen anderen Kopierschutz benutzt, welcher weniger die Qualität der CD’s beeinträchtigt.Vorweg , so ist es auch !Die CD’s , welche in der Erstveröffentlichung in Deutschland herausgegeben wurden , sind in ihrer Qualität erheblich beeinträchtigt.Tests mit dem Nero Tool zeigen, dass diese CD’s massenhaft sogenannte C2 Fehler aufweisen , das sind Fehler , die auf einer neu produzierten CD Nichts zu suchen haben. Normale Audio CD Player gleichen diese Fehler aus. Kommen aber weitere Fehler durch Benutzung ( Kratzer, Fingerabdrücke) oder Alterung hinzu, fallen solche CD’s eher aus oder bereiten Abspielprobleme.Auch der Oberflächen Scan liefert reichlich beschädigte Sektoren.Der Test der japanischen CD’s zeigt bei beiden Untersuchungen KEINE FEHLER in den Audiodateien an !CD’s beider Boxen zeigen aber NACH den Audiodateien defekte Sektoren an (illegal Mode for this Track). Das soll das kopieren verhindern.Fazit: beide Boxen haben Kopierschutz, aber in die Audiodateien der japanischen Ausgabe sind keine weiteren Fehler implementiert im Gegensatz zur deutschen Erstausgabe.Klare Kaufempfehlung für diese Japan BOX.Besser wäre nur die Box ohne Kopierschutz, welche aber zur Zeit das 2 bis 3-fache kostet.Noch der Hinweis betreff der Rezension von M. Weickenmeier „günstig und japanisch„. Er hat vollkommen recht mit seiner Überschrift. Der Inhalt stimmt aber nicht. Auf die originale Box ( auf der Rückseite unter den englischen Titeln ist nur ein klitzekleiner Vermerk betreff des Kopierschutzes in japanisch ) , ist nur ein zusätzliches Blatt (inclusive des in Japan obligatorischen OBI Strips) gelegt. Das kann man abnehmen und schon sieht die Box aus wie die Erstausgabe die in Deutschland erschienen ist. Und das 2. Booklet, mit viel japanischer Schrift , war nie Bestandteil in der Box , die erstmals in D verkauft wurde.