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More than ten years after the limited-edition release of the The Beatles in Mono box set on vinyl, the collection is now being reissued. The Beatles website has announced that the 14-LP anthology will be available again on July 18 (the CD version remains in stock here).
This box set includes the group’s first nine LPs as they were released in the U.K. — from Please Please Me to the White Album — along with the U.S. compilation, Magical Mystery Tour, and non-album singles compiled in Mono Masters. The albums are pressed on sturdy, 180-gram vinyl, preserving the original releases, and the mono mixes still provide a richer sound compared to their stereo counterparts from that era. (Notably, the box set excludes the Fab Four’s three albums primarily mixed in stereo: Abbey Road, Yellow Submarine, and Let It Be.)
Engineers Sean Magee and mastering supervisor Steve Berkowitz, both Grammy winners, handled the releases, working with quarter-inch master tapes devoid of digital interference at Abbey Road Studios in 2014. The collection comes with a hardbound book.
“In general, our focus was on mono,” McCartney shared in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2009. “The stereo version wasn’t a priority for us – we thought you could simply spread the mono.”
The tracks also offer distinct sounds; for example, Lennon’s vocals feature a different effect on “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds” compared to the stereo version. A Rolling Stone review from 2014 examined the discrepancies in the mono edition of the White Album versus the stereo release. “McCartney’s ‘Helter Skelter’ was more compact, a full minute shorter than in stereo, lacking Starr’s exclamation about his ‘blisters,’” it noted. “Starr’s country pie ‘Don’t Pass Me By’ ran at a quicker pace in mono, and Eric Clapton’s guitar soloing was more pronounced, lingering longer in Harrison’s powerful piece ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps.’”
The reissue, which follows last year’s 1964 U.S. Albums in Mono box set that featured the albums with their original U.S. track listings, is likely to reduce the number of Beatles in Mono box sets currently listed on eBay for prices reaching $1,000 or more.
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