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Post by TheEarlyBeatles on Jun 6, 2013 4:38:45 GMT
The attitudes of most people towards the American albums are somewhat negative. Most people say that Capitol butchered the albums to produce more of them and make more money.
I read once that American LPs had to have a maximum of 12 tracks (and a minimum of 11), a statement that I have not been able to find since. If this is true, obviously Capitol had to do what they did.
The point of this thread is, Capitol could have done small things to make their albums seem less... half-assed. Namely having all of their records 12-tracks instead of seven of them being only 11-tracks since there were some songs that were never on American LPs.
This is what I've come up with for the 11-track albums with the changes being in bold:
The Beatles' Second Album:
Side One 1 Roll Over Beethoven 2 Thank You Girl 3 You Really Got a Hold on Me 4 Devil in Her Heart 5 Money 6 You Can't Do That Side Two 1 Long Tall Sally 2 I Call Your Name 3 Please Mister Postman 4 From Me to You 5 I'll Get You 6 She Loves You
Something New:
Side One 1 I'll Cry Instead 2 Things We Said Today 3 Any Time at All 4 When I Get Home 5 Slow Down 6 Matchbox Side Two 1 Tell Me Why 2 And I Love Her 3 I'm Happy Just to Dance With You 4 If I Fell 5 Komm, Gib Mir Deine Hand 6 Sie Leibt Dich
Beatles '65:
Side One
1 No Reply 2 I'm a Loser 3 Baby's in Black 4 Rock and Roll Music 5 I'll Follow The Sun 6 Mr. Moonlight Side Two 1 Honey Don't 2 I'll Be Back 3 Misery 4 She's a Woman 5 I Feel Fine 6 Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby
The Early Beatles:
Side One
1 Love Me Do 2 Twist and Shout 3 Anna 4 Chains 5 Boys 6 Ask Me Why Side Two 1 Please Please Me 2 P.S. I Love You 3 Baby It's You 4 A Taste of Honey 5 There's a Place 6 Do You Want to Know a Secret
Beatles VI:
Side One 1 Kansas City 2 Eight Days a Week 3 You Like Me Too Much 4 Bad Boy 5 I Don't Want to Spoil The Party 6 Words of Love
Side Two 1 What You're Doing 2 Yes It Is 3 Dizzy Miss Lizzy 4 I'm Down 5 Tell Me What You See 6 Every Little Thing
Yesterday and Today:
Side One 1 Drive My Car 2 Paperback Writer 3 Nowhere Man 4 Doctor Robert 5 Yesterday 6 Act Naturally Side Two 1 And Your Bird Can Sing 2 Rain 3 If I Needed Someone 4 We Can Work It Out 5 What Goes On 6 Day Tripper
Revolver:
Side One 1 Taxman 2 Eleanor Rigby 3 I'm Only Sleeping 4 Love You Too 5 Here, There and Everywhere 6 Yellow Submarine Side Two 1 She Said, She Said 2 Good Day Sunshine 3 For No One 4 I Want to Tell You 5 Got to Get You into My Life 6 Tomorrow Never Knows
To address a couple of things:
-From Me to You was never on an American LP until The Red Album. It wasn't even on the Hey Jude album.
-Misery seems to fit Beatles '65 pretty good. It's a mellow song on a mellow album.
-I'm Down may not have even been recorded by the time Beatles VI was released, but Yes It Is had been recorded, so maybe it was.
-I can't hardly imagine Revolver without I'm Only Sleeping. That one was a no-brainer.
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Post by The End on Jun 6, 2013 13:42:26 GMT
Interesting project - I can only agree with you there. Misery is probably the most difficult to find a home for, as you no doubt found, but you're right it does fit in ok on Beatles '65, a title which I always found very mis-leading as it contains no tracks from 1965!
With regards to how may tracks Capitol could release per LP, I think I remember reading somewhere that it was down to the increased amount of royalties Capitol had to pay if they included more than 11 tracks (but I can't find original reference anywhere!).
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Post by Amadeus on Jun 6, 2013 17:02:16 GMT
Hi There. Having grown up on the Capitol albums, I can tell you that there was nothing unnatural sounding about them. It was only when the UK versions were issued on CD in '87 that we had to get used to the new running orders. 'Act Naturally', Drive My Car' and 'I'm Only Sleeping' sounded natural on 'Yesterday...And Today'. It was a case of getting used to 'Revolver' having all those extra songs on it. But we did find it odd that John only had two songs on 'Revolver' (our version).
And as far as we were concerned, 'Rubber Soul' was the 'folk album'. It wasn't a folk album any more when they put 'Drive My Car' at the beginning.
The strangest album for me was 'Beatles For Sale'. I grew up with 'Beatles '65' and was thoroughly shocked to hear 'Kansas City' stuck onto side one and all those 'other' songs on side two. It was very weird. My thoughts were that 'I Feel Fine' and 'She's A Woman' belonged on there. And not the dry UK single. But our 'drenched in Dave Dexter Jr. reverb' version. I still find it strange hearing those two songs without the oceans of reverb.
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Post by mrmustard on Jun 6, 2013 17:09:14 GMT
Why did Capitol assume the American people would prefer loads of reverb as opposed to the 'dry' UK versions?
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Post by Amadeus on Jun 6, 2013 17:16:45 GMT
I'm not sure. For some reason it was considered more palatable to the U.S. audience. I don't know who decided that. Dave Dexter Jr? We even had a slightly reverby mix of (our) 'Rubber Soul' for a short run. A collectable now. In fact, a lot of our stuff had reverb plastered over it. 'Thank You Girl' for one. More than there already was!
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Post by TheEarlyBeatles on Jun 6, 2013 17:37:39 GMT
Hi There. Having grown up on the Capitol albums, I can tell you that there was nothing unnatural sounding about them. It was only when the UK versions were issued on CD in '87 that we had to get used to the new running orders. 'Act Naturally', Drive My Car' and 'I'm Only Sleeping' sounded natural on 'Yesterday...And Today'. It was a case of getting used to 'Revolver' having all those extra songs on it. But we did find it odd that John only had two songs on 'Revolver' (our version). And as far as we were concerned, 'Rubber Soul' was the 'folk album'. It wasn't a folk album any more when they put 'Drive My Car' at the beginning. The strangest album for me was 'Beatles For Sale'. I grew up with 'Beatles '65' and was thoroughly shocked to hear 'Kansas City' stuck onto side one and all those 'other' songs on side two. It was very weird. My thoughts were that 'I Feel Fine' and 'She's A Woman' belonged on there. And not the dry UK single. But our 'drenched in Dave Dexter Jr. reverb' version. I still find it strange hearing those two songs without the oceans of reverb. It's interesting that you should bring this up because I was just recently wondering what Americans reactions were like towards the new standardized albums in '87. I am a huge Star Wars fan and I kind of compare the American vs. UK albums to the Original Version vs. Special Edition of Star Wars. George Lucas has made the special edition of the original trilogy canon, and the original versions are no longer in available. The original versions are not his vision for the films. They lack good special effects, they have various mistakes, and some scenes were incomplete. But since fans grew up with the original versions, they like those better. In the case of The Beatles albums, the American ones were butchered, some songs had poor sound quality (the duphonic mixes), and several songs were drenched in reverb. The American albums are not how The Beatles vision their music. But since Americans grew up with them, they like those better. See the similarities? In all fairness though, it seems that the UK albums have been accepted by Americans way better than the Special Edition of Star Wars. In fact, a guy I know who is 35, had never even heard of the American albums until I showed him my Capitol Albums Box Sets; and after simply just reading the track listings of each one, he said that the UK albums are way better. He said that he had been listening to The Beatles for since he was 10 years old, and he turned 10 in 1987, so maybe his first exposure to them was through the re-released CD set. I'm not sure though, I'll have to ask him.
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Post by veejayrick on Jun 6, 2013 21:18:54 GMT
Early Beatles.......
Interesting speculation. I would like to point out. however, that perhaps it was Capitol Records ONLY that required 12 tracks as a maximum per Lp. Non-12 track Lp's from the 60's include "Bobby Vee's Golden Greats" (15 cuts ) on Liberty Records, as well as "15 Everly Hits" on Cadence records. Also I read once that Paul McCartney and the other 3 Beatles were stunned to hear Ken Thorne's muzak music on "Help". They hated it! (And so do I !). "Butcher Cover"? No wonder!
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Post by mrmustard on Jun 6, 2013 21:23:00 GMT
12 track LP's, excessive reverb! Who the hell did Capitol think they where!
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Post by The End on Jun 6, 2013 23:17:08 GMT
Hi There. Having grown up on the Capitol albums, I can tell you that there was nothing unnatural sounding about them. It was only when the UK versions were issued on CD in '87 that we had to get used to the new running orders. 'Act Naturally', Drive My Car' and 'I'm Only Sleeping' sounded natural on 'Yesterday...And Today'. It was a case of getting used to 'Revolver' having all those extra songs on it. But we did find it odd that John only had two songs on 'Revolver' (our version). And as far as we were concerned, 'Rubber Soul' was the 'folk album'. It wasn't a folk album any more when they put 'Drive My Car' at the beginning. The strangest album for me was 'Beatles For Sale'. I grew up with 'Beatles '65' and was thoroughly shocked to hear 'Kansas City' stuck onto side one and all those 'other' songs on side two. It was very weird. My thoughts were that 'I Feel Fine' and 'She's A Woman' belonged on there. And not the dry UK single. But our 'drenched in Dave Dexter Jr. reverb' version. I still find it strange hearing those two songs without the oceans of reverb. This is an insight I have been waiting for years to hear!
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Post by Amadeus on Jun 7, 2013 2:05:38 GMT
Even now, Whenever I hear 'Drive My Car', say, when I'm playing Rubber Soul, I still unconsciously expect to hear 'I'm Only Sleeping' follow it as it was sequenced on Yesterday...and Today.
And 'I'll Be Back' belongs with the first six songs on side one of Beatles For Sale. Hearing it at the end of Hard Day's Night is still a 'novel' idea to me. And all those songs on side two of ...For Sale, (except 'Honey Don't' and Everybody's Tryin'....)they belong on a totally different album i.e.: Beatles VI. Along with 'Bad Boy' and 'Yes It Is'.
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Post by The End on Jun 7, 2013 9:25:31 GMT
This is why in my opinion the Capitol boxsets were a great idea - not because they were great remasters (far from it!) but because I wanted hear the albums just how America first heard them.
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Post by ROCKY on Jun 7, 2013 14:43:28 GMT
Well I can remember the radio stations had a field day when Capitol would bring out a new Beatle album and the stations would have the English copy and play the songs that weren't on the Capitol release. Every hour they would play one of the songs that weren't on the American release. Got a lot of kids listening to the radio back then and trying to tape the songs onto our little reel to reel players. Those were the days and will never happen again!
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henryj
For A Number Of Things
Posts: 792
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Post by henryj on Jul 19, 2013 12:45:29 GMT
Mr. Mustard: "Why did Capitol assume the American people would prefer loads of reverb as opposed to the 'dry' UK versions?"
Americans also loved Phil Spector productions with all that reverb.
Story goes that some rock band was playing a gig, and a the guitarist heard a dancer calling for "RE-verb." And the guitarist kept turning up the reverb on his amp. And the dancer kept calling for "RE-verb." So the turned up the reverb on the PA. The the guy STILL called for "RE-verb."
They were hearing him wrong. Turned out he was just requesting that they play some Skynyrd.
"Hey man... 'Free Bird.'"
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ranger
I'll Be On My Way
Posts: 153
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Post by ranger on Jul 20, 2013 7:09:48 GMT
There is a bright side. At least these U.S. versions didn't become the norm, which appears to have happened with the Rolling Stones back catalogue. Want (and why wouldn't you?) the Stones first two British LPs on CD? Well you can't, you can only get the lesser U.S. versions.
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henryj
For A Number Of Things
Posts: 792
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Post by henryj on Aug 2, 2013 17:26:31 GMT
Another bright side is that the Dexterization ended with Revolver. Sometimes I wonder how Sgt. Pepper would have sounded with the inclusion Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields Forever and the exclusion of three other songs to get down to 12 cuts. (They would have appeared later that year on MMT.) The white album would have been three separately-released albums and would have included Hey Jude, Revolution, Lady Madonna, and The Inner Light.
But this alternate reality didn't happen.
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Post by pothos on Jan 5, 2014 23:01:11 GMT
I have been left rather puzzled by the fact that the US version were so different to the UK versions. Did any resourceful US fans try and import UK versions of the LP's. Also were the fan base angry at the apparent fiddling with reverb, track listing, and even the sleeves.
Do you also think that this had any influence on the butcher cover.
Sorry if this has been discussed before as I am fairly new to the forum and the wider Beatles experience.
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Post by Amadeus on Jan 6, 2014 4:37:16 GMT
Some of the 'cool' fans may have got imports over here, but mostly, we didn't know any better or different. At first, I always thought those were the real albums. They weren't available in the original form in North America until 1987. And since we didn't have the internet then, we learned things at a much slower pace. I had heard of 'Beatles For Sale' but I didn't know what it was. I just knew it had a lot of the same songs as 'Beatles '65'.
So there was no reason to feel cheated because we didn't know we WERE cheated.
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henryj
For A Number Of Things
Posts: 792
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Post by henryj on Jan 10, 2014 12:22:14 GMT
Amadeus: "So there was no reason to feel cheated because we didn't know we WERE cheated."
And that's why there's a high likelihood that my review of Rubber Soul will be of the American release. I still think "I've Just Seen a Face" is the perfect leadoff for the album.
Not to defend Dave Dexter, but, hey, it's the Beatles. EMI could re-release their stuff on CDs with all the songs they recorded in alphabetical order, and it would still sound good, IMHO.
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Post by Bongo on Mar 19, 2014 23:28:20 GMT
12 track LP's, excessive reverb! Who the hell did Capitol think they where! Don't forget the UK still favoured mono while the US was pushing Stereo sound in the earyl 60's. And god knows it was easier for Capital to put on the UK singles that weren't originally put on the UK LPs. And also easier to put less songs on each album to force people to buy more albums.
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Post by Amadeus on Mar 20, 2014 23:50:21 GMT
It would've been fantastic as I would imagine it! A new album every couple of months? What's not to like?
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