The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper Lonely Heart's Club Band Deluxe Edition

RandallFlagg

Just listened to The Beatles Sgt. Pepper Lonely Heart's Club Band 2017 Deluxe Edition featuring the Giles Martin 2017 stereo remix and a selection of outtakes.

The remix is pretty good, hearing a bit more clarity and separation on the guitars, vocals and other instruments with some tastefully added reverb here and there. Paul's Fender Esquire sounds especially clear and sharp on the title track.

But it's the outtakes that really grabbed my attention. To hear the boys in No. 2 playing the basic Pepper songs live with drums, bass, piano, acoustic guitar or electric guitar and rough vocals is great. The quality of the songs really comes through. In particular I like the outtakes of Lovely Rita, When I'm Sixty-Four, Fixing A Hole, Lucy In The Sky, they're not a long way off the finished tracks just in those live takes.

Good stuff and well worth a listen if you like the Beatles and have an interest in their songwriting and playing.

streethawk

Going through my periodic Beatles obsession at the minute.

Colour me interested. 

ICBM

I may have to get this… although it's a reminder that I'm getting old now, since it was at no. 1 when I was born .

RandallFlagg

streethawk said:

Going through my periodic Beatles obsession at the minute.

Colour me interested. 

Yep, I have periodic Beatles obsessions every now and then. Mark Lewisohn's 'The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions' book usually comes out and I pore over the studio photos from No. 2 Abbey Road.

guitars4you

ICBM said:

I may have to get this… although it's a reminder that I'm getting old now, since it was at no. 1 when I was born .

your lucky - They did not release the Love Me Do single until I was 4

but like wise I'll be buying it - don't have it on CD anyway only vinyl

Plectrum

guitars4you said:

ICBM said:

I may have to get this… although it's a reminder that I'm getting old now, since it was at no. 1 when I was born .

your lucky - They did not release the Love Me Do single until I was 4

but like wise I'll be buying it - don't have it on CD anyway only vinyl

I was somewhat older than 4 when Love Me Do was released!

richardhomer

Luxury! I used to dream of being somewhat older when Love Me Do was released.

I was 427 when Cliff released Move It.

And you try telling that to the kids of today....

RandallFlagg

It's a chance to revisit McCartney's bass playing. His playing on Pepper is a masterclass of melodic bass, probably the epitome of bass playing for me, wonderful movement, flow and tone.

proggy

richardhomer said:

Luxury! I used to dream of being somewhat older when Love Me Do was released.

I was 427 when Cliff released Move It.

And you try telling that to the kids of today....

Quality. You can't beat a bit of Python

ICBM

RandallFlagg said:

It's a chance to revisit McCartney's bass playing. His playing on Pepper is a masterclass of melodic bass, probably the epitome of bass playing for me, wonderful movement, flow and tone.

Completely agreed. In my opinion he's one of the best bassists ever, and hugely under-rated by many who are into virtuoso-style bass playing. That album in particular is also one of the reasons I play a Rickenbacker...

TheBigDipper

ICBM said:

I may have to get this… although it's a reminder that I'm getting old now, since it was at no. 1 when I was born .

Hah! First record I ever heard in stereo, at a family friends house, aged 9 (on day of release). 

Adjacent question. Am I alone in vastly preferring "Let It Be - Naked" over the original release? 

streethawk

ICBM said:

RandallFlagg said:

It's a chance to revisit McCartney's bass playing. His playing on Pepper is a masterclass of melodic bass, probably the epitome of bass playing for me, wonderful movement, flow and tone.

Completely agreed. In my opinion he's one of the best bassists ever, and hugely under-rated by many who are into virtuoso-style bass playing. That album in particular is also one of the reasons I play a Rickenbacker...

Handy guitarist too.

AndyR

@RandallFlagg when you say "deluxe", have you gone for the 2CD or the (owch!!) box-set? I'm still on the fence whether to even bother, get the 1 CD, or the 2 CD at the moment... (I've checked out the new mix on spotify, and I can see it's interesting but ...)

Your report, if it's the 2 CD, is enough to push me over the edge and get it... 

I'm older than @ICBM (like many others it seems!) but I've never really "got" Sgt Pepper and what all the fuss was about. Revolver and earlier is where it's at for me (and chunks of the White album), but much as I like them - and Paul McCartney is THE man as far as I'm concerned - I was SO disappointed when I first bought Sgt Pepper... I could see it was ground-breaking, etc, etc, blah, but I've never been able to get into it as an album.

But if CD 2 is as you describe, it could be the "way in" for me.

scrumhalf

RandallFlagg said:

It's a chance to revisit McCartney's bass playing. His playing on Pepper is a masterclass of melodic bass, probably the epitome of bass playing for me, wonderful movement, flow and tone.

I read somewhere recently that Macca would go back and re-do his bass after everyone else had recorded their stuff. Interesting.

ICBM

scrumhalf said:

I read somewhere recently that Macca would go back and re-do his bass after everyone else had recorded their stuff. Interesting.

Quite likely, since his bass parts are often much more like a melody accompanying the songs than a 'bassline' underpinning them.

RandallFlagg

AndyR said:

@RandallFlagg when you say "deluxe", have you gone for the 2CD or the (owch!!) box-set? I'm still on the fence whether to even bother, get the 1 CD, or the 2 CD at the moment... (I've checked out the new mix on spotify, and I can see it's interesting but ...)

Your report, if it's the 2 CD, is enough to push me over the edge and get it... 

I'm older than @ICBM (like many others it seems!) but I've never really "got" Sgt Pepper and what all the fuss was about. Revolver and earlier is where it's at for me (and chunks of the White album), but much as I like them - and Paul McCartney is THE man as far as I'm concerned - I was SO disappointed when I first bought Sgt Pepper... I could see it was ground-breaking, etc, etc, blah, but I've never been able to get into it as an album.

But if CD 2 is as you describe, it could be the "way in" for me.

I've listened to both the 2 CD Deluxe and the 4 CD + Blu Ray Super Deluxe (I haven't heard the 5.1 mix on the Blu Ray or seen the video content). The best outtakes from the Super Deluxe are included on the Deluxe in my opinion, you don't gain a whole lot of re-listenable extras on the Super Deluxe and CD 4 is the Mono mix of the album, same as the Mono masters that were issued a while back. So I would go for the 2 CD Deluxe but a the end of the day it's just the Sgt Pepper album and if you don't like it mch then a new mix and a few outtakes won't change that.

stickyfiddle

TheBigDipper said:

ICBM said:

I may have to get this… although it's a reminder that I'm getting old now, since it was at no. 1 when I was born .

Hah! First record I ever heard in stereo, at a family friends house, aged 9 (on day of release). 

Adjacent question. Am I alone in vastly preferring "Let It Be - Naked" over the original release? 

Not at all. It's vastly superior with the schmaltz removed. 

I've never been a big fan of Sgt P's. Obviously it's brilliant, but I've never quite understood why it's so revered by more casual Beatles fans than Revolver and Abbey Road, which for me are easily their best two records. 

stickyfiddle

As for Macca, I find it baffling whenever someone tries to convince me he's anything less than a genius. 

mart

stickyfiddle said:
..... 

I've never been a big fan of Sgt P's. Obviously it's brilliant, but I've never quite understood why it's so revered by more casual Beatles fans than Revolver and Abbey Road, which for me are easily their best two records. 

Undoubtedly some of it is just the hype, which will influence a casual fan more than the serious fans. 

But also I'd say Sgt P's creates an overall vibe or atmosphere that the others don't. Revolver is a collection of fantastic songs, that are individually great and original. But there's something about the coherence and integrity of Sgt P's that puts the album on that level. It's not just a collection of great songs, it's a great album.

Plus, the two Sgt P songs bookending the album, with A day in the life as a coda, is just magical.

stickyfiddle

I get that it's a great, cohesive record, but it's not in the same league of side 2 of Abbey Road...

AndyR

RandallFlagg said:

AndyR said:

@RandallFlagg when you say "deluxe", have you gone for the 2CD or the (owch!!) box-set? I'm still on the fence whether to even bother, get the 1 CD, or the 2 CD at the moment... (I've checked out the new mix on spotify, and I can see it's interesting but ...)

Your report, if it's the 2 CD, is enough to push me over the edge and get it... 

I'm older than @ICBM (like many others it seems!) but I've never really "got" Sgt Pepper and what all the fuss was about. Revolver and earlier is where it's at for me (and chunks of the White album), but much as I like them - and Paul McCartney is THE man as far as I'm concerned - I was SO disappointed when I first bought Sgt Pepper... I could see it was ground-breaking, etc, etc, blah, but I've never been able to get into it as an album.

But if CD 2 is as you describe, it could be the "way in" for me.

I've listened to both the 2 CD Deluxe and the 4 CD + Blu Ray Super Deluxe (I haven't heard the 5.1 mix on the Blu Ray or seen the video content). The best outtakes from the Super Deluxe are included on the Deluxe in my opinion, you don't gain a whole lot of re-listenable extras on the Super Deluxe and CD 4 is the Mono mix of the album, same as the Mono masters that were issued a while back. So I would go for the 2 CD Deluxe but a the end of the day it's just the Sgt Pepper album and if you don't like it mch then a new mix and a few outtakes won't chnage that.

Cheers for that

We've gone for the 2CD version in the end - should be arriving later.

I found that spotify had the second CD of the two CD, tried a couple of those - I won't listen to them often, but I agree with you -WOW!

But that's not what decided me to buy it! lol It's actually the remix of the album - I tried a few more tracks and went "oh yeah, I get what Giles Martin has tried to do" (I've been reading interviews, etc). I decided to give it a go. I went for 2CD because I want the remixes of Strawberry Fields and Penny Lane.


Anyways, it's not so much that I don't like the album - it's more that it never grabbed me. It disappointed me because I was expecting the 2nd Coming or something.

The bits I've heard on spotify seem to make it feel, to me anyway, more like the vibe I get off Revolver (which utterly blew me away when I first sat down and listened to it properly in the mid 90s).

I spose you could say I'm one of the ardent beatle-converts from the "anti-beatle" generation. Of course I thought I knew all about them - I even remember Yellow Submarine being on the radio when it must have been in the charts - but I'd never owned any myself. Sometime in the 80s I got 2nd hand copies of the Red and Blue compilations and loved them in secret (along with ABBA The Singles - what an album!!). Then in the 90s I got all the CDs, the book Revolution in the Head, and went public... it bored the hell out of my band-mates!! Chaps, you gotta listen to it, these guys were AMAZING, just sit down and LISTEN! ... I came across Sgt Pepper as an album in the middle of all that, and I was expecting the Holy Grail... but it came across as weak in comparison to those around it... Yeah, technically, it's utterly mind blowing, but as music/entertainment, it lacks the fairy dust that all the other Beatles stuff seems to have in my experience.

The thing is, I DON'T hear it as a coherent whole album, to me it's always sounded like an attempt at that, but Revolver or the White Album seem to achieve it effortlessly. If I put on the rambling White Album, I have to hear it ALL - the tracks and their sequencing just drag you through. Revolver, works beautifully for me as an album. Sgt Pepper... less so. 

It does have some HUGE songs on it (for me, that's Lucy, She's Leaving, and Day in the Life) but after that it's either some favourite but overplayed songs (With a little help, When I'm 64) or filler (the rest)(... oops sorry folks! It is just my personal taste/opinion).

The worst was always the Harrison song, I could never stand Within You Without You, I often switched off at that point (we were listening to the old stereo mix earlier in preparation - I went and did the washing up when that came on!). BUT on spotify last night, I loved remix of WYWY - it actually sounded like a song! - so we've ordered the 2CD, let's give Sgt Pepper another go

(Amazon tells my wife that it's out for delivery!)