My favorite Beatles album finally got the much-needed Giles Martin stereo remix treatment. Squire Renfield ordered the lp version on the day of release, and we gave it a spin on the big rig last night. It sounds great, much better than the original stereo mix, where everything’s coming at you from two separate universes, as if they’d already broken up and decided they hated each other so much that they didn’t want you to think they existed in the same dimmension. For dorky fun, I played a CD of the original mix simultaneously; we could switch back and forth via remote. No contest. I’m pretty sure I would slightly prefer the mono mix over this new stereo one, as that’s been the case with the previous releases. I’ll A/B that next.
They gave this new RS the half-speed mastering treatment. Theoretically that should have added some clarity, but I’m not sure if that can make a difference with tapes this old. I wasn’t listening for that really.
I haven’t checked what reviewers think, and I likely won’t. So many are full of crap. With prior remixes, I used to check the blabbosphere for fun. While much of it was insightful, there was always an insane subset who would call every new re-mix a “missed opportunity” or a “cash grab.” The “missed opportunity” crowd usually acknowledged the need for a remix, but as far as I can tell the “missed opportunity” was that they were not the ones overseeing the project. As most of them were likely men over 60 who can’t hear above 10kHz, that’s a good thing. As for the “cash grab” crowd, they mostly think no remix was needed, that Sony/Universal and whoever’s else are just creating a false demand—which is ridiculous as people have been griping about the original stereo mixes for years and happily pay for the improvements. Selling people what they clearly want is not a cash grab.
Then there were absolute idiots who would say no remix was needed and also call it a “missed opportunity.” If it didn’t need remixing, what was the opportunity? Ridiculous.