As you can see they come in the collector popular Mini LP style mimicking the feel of a vinyl album with card jackets, replica inner sleeves and like their Japanese counterparts, have a plastic sleeve to keep the cd free from scratches with the entire packaged disc in a resealable archive see through plastic wallet.
In America because royalities were charged per track rather than per album it was normal for their lps to have 11 or 12 tracks compared to typically 14 on British releases plus in the states albums always featured the hit single(s) whereas in Britain they didn't.
This needless to say is why these albums, the ones I grew up with, are different than the now standardized British ones and so for many North Americans are the albums we cherish as quirky as they were.
Eight of these albums were reissued in a set of cheesy boxes in 2004 and 2006 with thin card covers the sort Britishers would associate with Newspaper giveaways or some of us remember ISP's giving out with the first set being quite blurry too. I wrote about these sets at the time.
The recordings used were sent over from Great Britain usually using the same final mixes for mono or stereo as the UK releases although when tracks were sent early due to requests from Capitol for an upcoming album, sometimes different versions were sent from the one decided upon for the UK.
These were copied altering the sound, adding echo and in some instances making fake stereo versions from mono tapes and then used on the lps, a process which while giving it a unique sound nontheless caused some loss of quality compared to the tapes Capitol received.
The earlier box sets used these modified tapes throughout with the mastering engineer just trying to get them as good sounding as the material he had would allow.
This album, a favourite of mine in this set, is a good example of that with two incredibly bad fake stereo songs in the middle of quite reasonable stereo with one unique mix and on the older cd it's that you hear on the stereo portion and some of mono tracks are not actual mono mixes just the stereo combined into mono.
The new version removes the fake stereo replacing it with true stereo mixes one of which had been available since 1966(!), keeps the echoey mono US single version and uses the UK mixes for everything that's not unique.
It's this that has proven controversial with some fans who wanted an exact replica in sound of their lps but speaking personally having bought this version, I'm delighted with it as it approaches what I consider a 'audiophile' remastering, going back to originals, removing the sonic grime to reveal more of the music making never mind the uprated packaging.
The four previously unreleased on cd albums are the A Hard day's Night movie soundtrack with instrumentals from the film originally issued on United Artists, Yesterday and Today, the US Revolver album I had which only had 11 tracks and the stereo only Hey Jude compilation of February 1970 featured then unreleased stereo versions of a good number of Beatles singles.
I was going to buy the Box set complete with the mainly talk The Beatles Story bonus album but I didn't, this was sadly connected to another, less defensible aspect of how this project was handled by Apple.
Way back in the mid 1980's as plans were drawn up to release on compact disc the Beatles catalogue, Sir George Martin was allowed to remix two UK albums (Help! and Rubber Soul) from the four track session tapes. Discovering Abbey Road studios echo chamber used on a number of tracks was out of use, he used digitally generated delay to attempt to get the same sound. Unfortunately it sound more like a karaoke type echo especially when he over did it on Dizzy Miss Lizzie and Drive My Car. Personally I can't stand them being 'too modern'.
These versions were themselves remastered in 2009 for the stereo set although the original 1965 stereo mixes were put on the mono cd set as bonuses.
Coming back to 2014, Apple have decided to use these stereo remakes for the tracks from those two UK albums featured in four of the albums in this box set (Beatles VI, Help Soundtrack, Rubber Soul and Yesterday and Today) where the previous 2006 box that had the first three with the 1965 stereo mixes on.
Personally, owing the the previous set, I really object to paying £146 for three albums whose stereo portions deviate from that which was issued not just in North America but even in the UK up to 1987.
I decided to rebuy the first four (Meet The Beatles, Second Album, Something New and Beatles '65) as the sound on at least the first two wasn't so clean,Second Album had an excessive amount of echo added to it and get the four previously unissued ones even with the stereo portion of Yesterday and Today being compromised with only 5 original mixes for the otherwise unavailable mono version.
As for the others, if I can come by cheap copies I may get them and switch the discs over as there's nothing on the jackets to tie them to any specific cd because I adore the packaging.
To summarize my thoughts on this set, I really liked the idea of it as quite a bit of thought had gone into the packaging and even a great booklet for the boxed edition, almost equalling the acclaimed Beatles in Mono box but feel the sound side of it was compromised for a number of the discs needlessly in the stereo portions by insisting on not using the original UK mixes sent at the time and loved by most fans.
I'd give the set 7 out of 10 on balance.
More Beatles Mini lps:
At the start of the year I'd acquired some unofficial mini lps of albums put out in the 1970's that had been retired with aim of buying this set adding these to them.
It's always been a favourite of mine being a comforting listen at boarding school running for about an hour.
The audio on these pressed cds (they're not cheap home made jobs) is actually very good matching that of the lps reproduced on a high quality vinyl system and come with Japanese notes and full English lyrics.
If you need them, these discs are good value.
Very informative Joanne and a clean, sober assessment of the box set. Your historical knowledge of the recording processes involved should be of great value to Beatles' fans who may not be aware of the many changes over the years when compared to the sound of the original, unaltered recordings. Your methodical reasoning for how this set could be improved upon was concise and unbiased.
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