ReDiscoveries

The first Beatles music is more than 60 years old, and the group broke up 53 years ago. Yet they and their music remain relevant. So when Apple Corps announced "The Last Beatles Song," on October 26, the world's media ran with the story (footnote 1).

Beatles fans span at least four generations, and the group's promotion machine is looking to hook today's youth, and perhaps rekindle old flames, with 50th Anniversary deluxe reissues of the "Red" (1962-1966) and "Blue" (1967-1970) compilations. These expanded editions—12 new tracks on Red and nine on Blue, including the new-old single "Now & Then"—sport remixes performed since 2015. The most recent prior reissues of Red and Blue were in 2010, using the 2009 transfers of The Beatles' original master tapes. They were first issued on CD in 1993.

If you're a Boomer, you may have experienced Beatlemania first-hand. A Gen Xer, I dove into Beatles music after the fact, initially through the original, two-LP Red and Blue sets from 1973. Millennial fans were likely pulled in by the first CDs, or the swirl around the 2009 reissues, or when the Beatles catalog became available on iTunes. Younger folks may have been hooked by the 1 compilation in 2000 or the post-2015 reissues.

Each of these gateways into Beatles music comes with a different sonic perspective. The original LPs sound different from the 1980s versions, and the original CDs sound different from the 2009 remasters. All the earlier versions sound different from the remixes and remasters that started in 2015.

The new LP sets, now three platters, begin with the same running order as the original two LPs, with extra songs on the third disc. The new two-CD versions place the extra tracks in chronological order, so the sequence is different from what we're accustomed to, which may or may not be jarring (footnote 2).

More jarring may be the remixes. On the new Red, 30 of 38 songs are newly remixed; the rest were remixed for the 2022 reissue of Revolver. The new Blue features six brand-new remixes plus "Now & Then." The rest of the Blue tracks were remixed between 2015 and 2021, for reissues from 1+ through Let It Be (footnote 3).

The remixes sound quite different from the originals, especially the early material on the Red album. Reissue producer Giles Martin has used the "demixing" technology developed by Peter Jackson's WingNut Films to take apart mono mixes and individual tape tracks containing multiple instruments and voices, separating out each instrument and voice onto its own digital track, then remixing the songs. Voices and instruments end up in different speakers and at different relative volume levels compared to the original releases. Whether you prefer this will depend on your own aural memories and listening aesthetic and will likely vary from song to song.

On the original Red, the opening track, "Love Me Do," was the version with Andy White on drums and Ringo Starr on tambourine. On the 1973 LPs, it was fake stereo; it was the original mono on the 2010 CD version. On the new Red, the original mono single version, with Ringo on drums and no tambourine, was demixed and remixed to a sparse stereo spread.

"She Loves You" has a weird, high-pitched halo around the vocals that may be sonic artifacts from the demixing. If you grew up on the stereo LPs or CDs, be prepared to hear instruments in different speakers than you're accustomed to. Vocals tend to be in the center and more prominent; drums often but not always move to the center from one of the sides. The low end tends to be more prevalent than on even the 2010 version, which was already heavier and louder than the first-edition CDs and the original LPs. Loudness-wise, the new versions stand up to contemporary pop music, which is to say, they're loud. That's okay: Beatles music was intended to be loud and exciting—to jump out of 1960s radio speakers—so these songs never had a big dynamic range. Now the songs have gone from loud to louder.

If you've followed the recent reissues of the Beatles catalog, from Sgt. Pepper onward, you'll know what to expect on most of Blue. The remixes of the later albums have tended to be similar as far as what sounds are where in the stereo image, but bass and drums are heavier and vocals are clearer and more forward in the mix. However, the remixes of "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "I Am the Walrus" sound quite different from those earlier remixes, to the point that the psychedelic sound collages are not the same as in the original mono or stereo mixes. The same is true of the Revolver track "Tomorrow Never Knows," now the final track on Red. If one considers the sound collages as distinct parts of the song, alongside melodies and arrangements, you may find these alterations a bridge too far.

As of now, the 2009 remasters, plus the more recent remixes, are all available for streaming. This makes it easy to compare and decide whether you prefer the original or new versions of your favorite Beatles tunes. At the time of this writing, the 2010 Red and Blue albums were streaming, so hopefully Beatles fans of all ages will find it easy to compare song by song and each of us decide whether we favor the old or the new.

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Footnote 1: See Stereophile's coverage, including an exclusive interview with remixing engineer/producer Giles Martin.

Footnote 2: See the new Red and Blue track listings with remaster dates here.

Footnote 3: 1+ was the deluxe edition of 1, complete with Blu-ray. See this detailed history of Beatles remixing/remastering since 2015.