LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Capitol Records will issue the first four U.S. albums by the Beatles as a boxed set, "The Capitol Albums Vol. 1," on Nov. 16.
The release marks the first time the Fab Four's evergreen early American catalog is being made available on compact disc. Priced at $69.98 (and undoubtedly a prime target for price-slashing by mass merchants), it will be a slam-dunk sales bonanza for Capitol in the busy preholiday shopping season.
"It's been a personal quest for me over the last three years to get these records released because this is the way I remember them, the way I first heard them," said Capitol Records president Andy Slater.
The band's initial quartet of American albums -- "Meet the Beatles," "The Beatles' Second Album," "Something New" and "Beatles '65," all originally released in 1964 -- contain such No. 1 singles as "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "She Loves You" and "I Feel Fine."
The box, which Slater says will be available for a limited time only, will be the first new product from the band since the Apple/Capitol hits compilation "1" was issued in November 2000. That collection entered the Billboard 200 at No. 1 and has sold 9.7 million units to date, according to Nielsen SoundScan; it remains a fixture near the top of Billboard's top pop catalog chart.
So far, the Beatles have not licensed their catalog to any digital music service.
The upcoming box is the first significant upgrade of the Beatles' earliest music since the commercial dawn of the CD format.
When Capitol debuted the Beatles catalog on CD in 1987, the albums were issued worldwide in their original British configurations from EMI's Parlophone imprint, in mono.
Some American Beatlemaniacs howled in protest when the CDs appeared. While the English versions contained more songs than their American counterparts (which had appeared on LP in retitled formulations, whittled down to address higher music publishing costs, created by EMI's U.S. label Capitol), Stateside fans bemoaned the absence of the albums they grew up with and clamored for stereo versions.
Now, at the end of the year marking the 40th anniversary of the Beatles' "British invasion" (they played their first U.S. dates in February 1964), Capitol is finally releasing the American editions.
"The Capitol Albums Vol. 1" will comprise four discs, with the stereo and mono versions of the individual U.S. titles, mastered from the original tapes, available on each disc.
The stereo versions will be either true stereo or "duophonic." The duophonic sound was created by Capitol in the '60s using two mono channels that were equalized, compressed and reverbed. "It's fairly primitive stereo -- instruments in one channel, vocals in the other channel," Slater says. But, he added, "It creates a sound that your memory tells you is correct."
He said, "When you actually listen to these records and hear them compared to what's (been) available, it's intoxicating."
The CDs in "The Capitol Albums" will be housed in miniature replicas of the original albums, and the set will include a 48-page booklet.
Slater said there are no plans to release the four individual titles separately and that a "Vol. 2" of American albums has not yet been scheduled.
Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
Y'know, if I hadn't already bought Mom Beatles-related gifts for MANY Christmases past, I'd say my shopping had once again been done for me.
First things first: I clicked on the link that CRZ graciously provided at the top of his post, and I would just like to take a moment to address a brief comment towards the folks at YAHOO! News: What kind of motherfucking cock sucking lowlife scumbag thought it was a good idea to illustrate this story with a photograph of Mark David Chapman?
Now, as regards the release itself, my initial reaction when I heard the news on the radio this morning was "about time." It's just incredible to me that it's taken this long to finally have these treasures on CD.
Originally posted by Capitol Records President Andy SlaterIt's been a personal quest for me over the last three years to get these records released because this is the way I remember them, the way I first heard them....It's fairly primitive stereo -- instruments in one channel, vocals in the other channel. [But] it creates a sound that your memory tells you is correct.
Agreed; vocals in one speaker, instruments in the other, nothing in the center - this was the original karaoke. (BTW, for anyone wondering, the reason why nothing was put in the center on the stereo mixes was because if you play a stereo record on a mono record player, whatever is in the center will be (IIRC) approximately four decibels louder than what's in only the left or right channel, and it was presumed at the time these albums were released that the stereo versions would probably be spun at least as often on a mono record player as they would be a hi-fi stereo system). It should also be mentioned that the stereo versions of some of these songs were mixed from different takes than the mono versions, which is another reason why the mono versions don't quite match the memories of how these songs sounded to Americans back in the Sixties. Anyway, this is very good news for this Beatles fan. I now have to notify my family not to consider getting me this item for the holidays, as I expect to pick up a set as soon as it's released.
iTunes Top Downloads -- January 09, 2005 This is a moment in time snapshot of the current top downloads from iTunes. We take a snapshot each week at the same time and post it here. To preview the songs, click on a link.