Mono musings

   Well, it’s finally here — the crowning jewel of my Beatles collection, and indeed, my entire CD collection, arrived a week ago. I first learned of the existence of The Beatles in Mono set in April of last year. Slightly less than a year later, I am finally a proud owner.

   The journey has been long, and I admit, looked bleak at times. Because of its limited edition status, the set essentially sold out before it was even released, which cast serious doubt on my ever owning it, and temporarily sending me into a serious mope. I still suspect that this was an attempt on EMI’s part to create an artificial excitement for the set — the “If it’s sold out this quickly, it must be good” mentality. Even if I was manipulated in such a callous manner, it’s a moot point; I would have wanted this set even if you could find it at every Wal Mart and Walgreens between here and Topeka.

   Exactly why I wanted it so badly is another question. Since I announced my fervent desire for this set, I have been asked by nearly everyone, “why mono?” Mono, as we know, is only half of stereo, and very often, not even the best half. Why on earth would I pay for something that is going to, by its very design, limit my listening experience?

   Well, for starters, there’s the fact that this was what The Beatles intended most of their songs to sound like. When the group recorded its first album in 1962 — the exalted year of my birth — hi-fi stereo units were the province of rich audiophiles, and stereo recordings had all the earmarks of a pricy, gimmicky fad. The bulk of the record-buying public spun monophonic platters on a record player equipped with but a single speaker — as were most car and portable radios.

   My own experience from those days was no different. I first heard The Beatles as a no-doubt cranky 1-year old who was trying be convinced to go to sleep by my sisters. A few years after that, I started my journey into music appreciation sitting in front of an orange and white portable record player with a single speaker. While my sisters both had access to players with built-in stereo speakers about the same time, it wasn’t until the early 70s that I got regular use of one myself. Radios took even longer to make the switch — the new kitchen radio we bought for my mother in the late 70s was a mono unit as well.

Because of the predominance of mono, The Beatles and George Martin put all of their time and effort into the mono recordings. They did this until near the end of their partnership; only Yellow Submarine, Let It Be and Abbey Road are stereo-only. In fact, George Harrison once talked about how suspicious he was of stereo at first because the extra speaker diluted the sound.

   So it’s little surprise that The Beatles, and occasionally not even George Martin, weren’t even in the building when the stereo masters were done. For them, the finished version was the mono version. So one of the main reasons for shelling out the extra dough was for the sake of simple historical reference — back in the day, this was what they wanted the songs to sound like.

   Once the mono set was in my hands, and I had a chance to compare the mono mixes with the stereo versions, I realized the true value of this. The mono versions serve as a great road map to what both the Beatles and Martin considered to be the important elements of the song. Sometimes, an instrument or vocal part that's buried in the stereo mix rises to prominence in the mono version. And occassionaly, the mono versions even sound better than their stereo counterparts.

   Before I go further, please understand that I am blown away by the stereo remasters. Each and every one of them have something that was sometimes lacking in the 1987 CD versions — separation and accuracy.

   You should also know that my preferred method for listening is with earphones or headphones. This is for two reasons; first, it spares the rest of the house the both of having to listen to what I’m in the mood for, and second (and most important), it allows me to focus much more easily on individual parts. One of the invaluable lessons I gained from my days as an active musician was an appreciation of the way individual parts go to make up a cohesive whole. It is the single thing I value most about music.

   There is a scene in the movie Amadeus that I adore; Salieri is taking musical dictation of a requiem mass from his rival, Mozart, while the latter is too ill to compose. As we watch, Mozart, from his sickbed, sings the individual parts of the confutatis section to him one by one; first the percussion, then the brass; then the individual string parts, and finally, the vocal parts. As he sings each part, you hear the actual part being played by the instrument in question as he sings it to Salieri. Finally, Mozart takes the music from Salieri, brings his hand down as if he’s conducting an orchestra, and the entire glorious piece is played back from the beginning, all parts intact. It is a brilliant way of giving the viewer insight into how a whole song is made up of individual parts, and how beautifully those parts can intertwine.

   The new stereo masters allow this to a remarkable degree. I can easily follow each individual line; much is being made of the way the new remasters cement Ringo’s invaluable contribution as a drummer, but for me, one of the jewels is the way it allows me to focus on Paul McCartney’s virtuoso bass work. McCartney has always been in my top five of all-time greatest rock bassists, but I never really emulated his style, or tried to re-create his lines, the way I did with Geddy Lee of Rush, Chris Squire of Yes, or John Entwhistle of The Who. If I’d had access to these discs when I was actively playing, I likely would have been committing Mr. McCartney’s work to memory as well. As it was, his contributions were often muddy, and buried at the bottom of the mix next to Ringo.

   That’s certainly not the case in the new stereo masters. All of the instruments on the stereo mixes sound incredibly clear and lifelike; it’s like sitting in the middle of the band while they’re recording. For example, the crashing opening chord in the stereo mix of “A Hard Day’s Night” reveals not just the chime of a Rickenbacker 12-string, but also an acoustic guitar and bass. The sound is so realistic, I can easily make out what kind of bass McCartney is using on a given track just from the sound of it. And in fact, the quality of the bass part on the mono mixes is one of the main things I have against the set.  The bass on many of the mono songs I’ve heard — I’ll give “Nowhere Man” as an example — are unpleasantly muddy and indistinct; precisely what I disliked about Paul’s playing when I was a young musician. I realize now it wasn’t his fault — that was the best that could be managed with the recording equipment of that time.

   But this ‘fault’ — that the monos have a lot of the flaws I remember from my youth — is also the mono set’s greatest strength. Because, at the end of the day, the mono versions sound like to original releases a lot of us heard in 1960s. I was completely sold on the mono set from the moment I heard the mono version of “I Want To Hold Your Hand.” I have fond memories of spinning the original 45 rpm single of this tune on that orange record player I mentioned, but the song has never sounded quite right since the ’87 CDs. Now I know why. The Past Masters Vol. 1 version was in stereo; I remember from my youth must have been in mono, because the mono version sounds right for the first time in a long, long time. In some cases, it’s like getting the music you loved back.

   Conversely, there are times when the stereo versions, as well done as they are, simply don’t sound like the same song. Sometimes, the stereo is a great boon — “Nowhere Man,” for example, which has a big, spacious clarity that compliments the song beautifully, especially in comparison with the mono version’s cramped muddiness. Just a few tracks later, though, the same spacious quality in the stereo mix completely undoes “In My Life” into an incoherent jumble of (admittedly great-sounding) parts, while the tight, clean mono version sounds like a cohesively-mixed song, and one that sounds better than it ever has.

   There are some disappointments in both sets. For example, both the mono and 1965 stereo versions of Help are generally lifeless, and sound, to use a borrowed phrase, as if they were dubbed from a cassette. As of this writing, I have no idea if the 2009 stereo mix follows suit.

   Happily, there are also some new revelations as well. For example, there’s a curious silence during the falling arpeggios played by George Harrison in Help’s title track. Further investigation revels that a full measure of Ringo’s drums, including a fading cymbal crash, and the light beat of a floor tom keeping time, were scrubbed from the mono version. This further showcases Harrison’s part, and ads a new ‘surprise’ to a song I’ve heard hundreds of times over.

   This brings me to the final, glorious, fun of both sets — the two versions are so different, in so many different ways, that one could devote weeks or months to just going over the differences in the mixes between the two albums. Needless to say, this is precisely what I intend to do, from the beginning, once I obtain the final pieces of the puzzle — the stereo remasters of Please Please Me, Beatles For Sale, Help and Yellow Submarine. In the meantime, I’ll be happily get acquainted with both new versions for a long time to come.

   So what versions should you get? That’s easy. Unless you’re a completist when it comes to the Fab Four, go for the stereo versions. You can buy them piecemeal, and you’re probably going to be a lot happier with the sound.

   Sorry if this post was overlong; I’m afraid I was writing this one for myself, and neglected to follow the first rule of writing — namely, “pity the reader.” I shall return in a few weeks with a hopefully non-partisan discussion of Macs vs. PC debate. You have been warned...