It's Getting Better All The Time

Do I really need to do this again? Do I really need to buy another copy of the Beatles album Sergeant Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band?

A logical response would be no since I already owned seven copies over the past 32 years. Our first copy became family property when my mother purchased it at E.J. Korvettes in the summer of 1967. Years later my brother laid claim to it as I headed off to college. I purchased a used copy from Cheap Charlie’s discount records and later upgraded to an unscratched version in honor of the album’s tenth anniversary.

The 8-track version I purchased in 1977 got stolen along with my under dash 8-track player which was not exactly a great loss. I upgraded to a cassette player for my car and promptly recorded Sgt. Peppers to a new Maxell UDXLII tape. The cassette later melted or was eaten by the tape player.

Ten years later my wish for a perfect copy of Sgt. Peppers came true when a release of the entire Beatles catalog on compact disc began. I gradually replaced every Beatles lp with a scratch-free, pop-free compact disc.

Those discs were eventually loaded onto numerous Mp3 players which brings me to the present day. I now have the ability to play Sgt. Peppers or any Beatles song ever made with the twirl of a finger on my IPOD.

So why would I consider buying Sgt. Peppers or any other Beatles album again?

Well, the engineers at Abbey Road Studios have digitally remastered the entire Beatles catalog and the results are worth the cost.

Digital remastering is a process that literally pulls the music apart, cleans it up and reassembles it in the way it was originally intended. The push to digitize music in the late 1980’s cleaned up the scratches but flattened the sound, according to critics. Most of us didn’t notice but there was a big difference between the early vinyl recordings and the new compact discs. New digital technology now allows engineers to recreate that original vinyl sound.

Imagine scanning an old photograph and digitally cleaning it up. The photo visually comes back to life as long lost color and details reappear. The audio remastering process yields similar results.

Reviewers are raving about the quality of the remastered albums, particularly the early mono recordings such as Please Please Me and Hard Days Night.

Apparently the album that shines the brightest is Abbey Road, the Beatles’ final studio effort that was first released 40 years ago.

Beatle fanatics can purchase the entire 14 album remastered set for $260 or grab a limited edition boxed set called The Beatles in Mono for $299. The 14 discs will also be available individually for about $19 each.

The series was released in conjunction with The Beatles Rock Band interactive video game on September 9. Together, the game and “new” discs have created a bigger Fab Four frenzy than we have seen in 40 years.

As for my personal collection, I will probably drop $19 to see what the excitement is about. The odds are good that I will get hooked once again and eventually repurchase the entire set. Anyone interested in a complete set of vintage Beatle compact discs?