September 9, 2009, will be one of the most important days in Beatles history. It's fitting that the date will so accurately reflect John Lennon's fascination with the number nine. On this date, two very important releases will be coming out.
1) The Beatles'
Rock Band video game2) The Beatles' entire
remastered catalogueThe first release is something many of you are aware of, no doubt. Harmonix and MTV Games and EMI and anyone else who could get a hand in the cookie jar have been plugging this one since last October. While the Beatles' song canon is deep and varied, I still am having a difficult time coming up with songs that lend themselves well to the video game format (but more on that in a different post).
The bigger news for me (if you know me personally you'll recall me having mentioned this as long ago as 2001; I even did a
post on this a few months back) is the remastering of the Beatles catalogue. Quick primer: The Beatles' music was committed to tape in the 1960s (duh) and transferred to the CD format in 1987. No actual improvements or error corrections were made at that time; instead, the music was simply copied over and released without taking advantage of the improvements the CD format could offer. This was the eighties, after all, and we were taping stuff off the radio then (radio? what's that? taping?), so no one noticed.
[Spoiler Alert: Incredibly nerdy section coming]
Since then, the CD format has become the primary means of distributing music, and is now already being supplanted by digital music sales online. During the last two plus decades, audio technology has come so far that today's better CDs are almost indistinguishable from the studio tapes. Some CDs even sound as good as live. Remastering technologies have allowed the murkiest recordings from the past to be heard in newly-clarified sound, such as The Beach Boys'
Pet Sounds. The improvements in dynamics and fidelity from old tapes can be revelatory. Yet the Beatles have been noticably absent from artists receiving this restoration.
In 1999, the Yellow Submarine movie was re-released (I think), and they took the opportunity to update the
Yellow Submarine album from 1968, which has always been the lamest of Beatles albums (three great cuts, two previously released cuts, one startlingly mediocre piece of filler, and six unrelated orchestral pieces). The
remastered mixes of those six Beatles songs, plus the other nine excellent
ones in the movie, were decent improvements sonically.
1, which arrived in 2000, is
still the biggest selling CD of this decade (about 30 million sold), but the mastering was mostly noted for simply making everything louder. Overcompression and the "
loudness war", as it is known in music circles, have been a main concern of remastering projects for a time now
(interesting animation on the Wikipedia page). 2003's
Let It Be... Naked was a vast sonic improvement over Phil Spector's production in 1970's
Let It Be, and 2007's Cirque de Soleil soundscape
LOVE was, on the other hand, amazing.
The sonic clarity and crispness of the instruments on each managed to make even the most overplayed of songs ("Let It Be", "Yesterday") sound fresh and relevant. Pieces of songs that I had never heard before suddenly came to the forefront, such as the plucked violins on "Something". They'd been there the whole time, they were just muddled in the mix.
[End nerdy section]
[Commence dorky section.]
If you're still reading this, I'm stunned.
To make a very, very long story a little bit shorter, this remastering has been far too long in the ordering. There are a host of problems with the Beatles CD mastering, including material recorded in mono and artificially split into stereo as an afterthought, choppy editing, and the occasional lousy mix of all vocals on the right and all instruments on the left. I've only heard half of the Beatles albums on vinyl, and none recently, but the sound presented was often warmer and a more cohesive whole. In particular, Ringo's drums and George's harmonies, where applicable, often get shortchanged in the CD mixes. For a band that put so much creativity into their craft, these second-rate recordings are unfortunate.
Now comes news that the end of a four-year project is in sight and, much to my approval, Giles Martin (son of Beatles producer George Martin and co-producer of the excellent
LOVE) is in charge of the proceedings. His work on
LOVE was not only creative and imaginary, but remarkably faithful to The Beatles and their music. He managed to greatly improve the mixes, creating a cleaner sound. It is not easy to make material that was often shoddily recorded five decades ago sound as if it was performed yesterday, but he accomplished it. I can think of no better person for the job, unless Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were co-producing as well (Steely Dan's studio mastering is damn good).
Does this mean I'll have to shell out for the box set? It will no doubt cost an exorbitant amount, but this is my favorite band. My concern is spending all that dough to find out that the songs are just more compressed and louder than they are on
1. On the flip side, buying just a few isn't going to cut it.
Santa Claus?
Anyway the point of American Idol, as I gleaned from the lead-ins to commercial breaks, is to be the next American Idol. This is what the short man with the hair gel told me. Singers from around the country apparently wait all day at multiple casting calls for their approximate 1 in 1000 chance to be judged on national television while presenting what they feel is their best work. The best singers are told they're "going to Hollywood woooooo!" and the worst of the worst are also strung along and given false hope so they can be trotted out and mocked by an international audience.
After their histrionic ballad or a sterilized rock song, they are reviewed on-the-spot by the panel, made up of four celebrity judges. The first is Randy Jackson, who played bass for bands without good bassists (like Journey) and who produced the hottest ticket in town, Randy Jackson's Music Club, Volume 1. He is there cause everyone likes to be called "dawg". Paula Abdul is there because she knows what it takes to make a hit, and for twenty years she has straight up foregone her own hit-making tips so as to selflessly leave more room on the charts for others. A fellow named Simon Cowell, whom you'll recognize as the producer of legendary recordings by Ultimate Kaos, Zig and Zag, WWF, and the Teletubbies, is there to tell us what is "dreadful". With a resume like his, you have to think he knows what he's talking about. Finally there is singer-songwriter Kara DioGuiardi, who is famous for being a judge on American Idol.
Rather than highlighting the best and praising the most dedicated and talented performers, American Idol takes the novel approach of focusing each episode on the "Bottom Three", where the host announces which three performers did the crappiest job this week. As the season rolls along, the show democratically allows the viewers to vote on who should stay, while each judge is aware that they can override what the stupid public thinks by saving a performer they like. The American Idol, I am led to believe, is the last singer standing on the show, and they are rewarded with a record contract. Folks who do not win can only aspire to be as successful as the likes of Jennifer Hudson, Katherine MacPhee, and Elliot Yamin.
"HEY!!!
here, and I'm from the Grammar Police! To serve and correct, and wooin' the ladies on the side. Get ready to get punched in the face. WITH KNOWLEDGE!!!!!!
"So get this nugget of wisdom through your applesauce filled heads: 'Anyways' is not, I repeat, NOT a word. It's 'anyway'. Next week, I'll be back to teach you that a preposition is not a correct part of speech to end a sentence with.
September 9, 2009, will be one of the most important days in Beatles history. It's fitting that the date will so accurately reflect John Lennon's fascination with the number nine. On this date, two very important releases will be coming out.
The bigger news for me (if you know me personally you'll recall me having mentioned this as long ago as 2001; I even did a post on this a few months back) is the remastering of the Beatles catalogue. Quick primer: The Beatles' music was committed to tape in the 1960s (duh) and transferred to the CD format in 1987. No actual improvements or error corrections were made at that time; instead, the music was simply copied over and released without taking advantage of the improvements the CD format could offer. This was the eighties, after all, and we were taping stuff off the radio then (radio? what's that? taping?), so no one noticed.
Now comes news that the end of a four-year project is in sight and, much to my approval, Giles Martin (son of Beatles producer George Martin and co-producer of the excellent LOVE) is in charge of the proceedings. His work on LOVE was not only creative and imaginary, but remarkably faithful to The Beatles and their music. He managed to greatly improve the mixes, creating a cleaner sound. It is not easy to make material that was often shoddily recorded five decades ago sound as if it was performed yesterday, but he accomplished it. I can think of no better person for the job, unless Donald Fagen and Walter Becker were co-producing as well (Steely Dan's studio mastering is damn good).
Photo courtesy of MyFoxBoston
Someone stole one of the ducklings in Boston Public Garden.
This is Nancy Schon. She sculpted each one of those ducks individually, and her work has brought joy to children, parents, and even the occassional illustration afficionado since 1987. Guess what? As soon as I'm done, she's gonna kick your ass too.
I generally expect every other driver around me to do the dumbest thing possible at any given moment, and I am not afflicted with easily triggered road rage. Nevertheless, the brash recklessness on display on any given commute never fails to astound me. First off, driving like that is dangerous anyway; I'm pretty sure natural selection should have already taken care of these genetically-deficient rebels in souped-up lemons. Even more than that, though, what thought process would lead these miscreants to think that crossing three lanes without signaling or looking (rain or shine) would ever be okay?
internally rationalize their behavior to the point that certain rules and guidelines can be blatantly violated, and all the while the guilty party sees nothing wrong with their actions?
, but they feel clean. And what do you mean I can't use my cell phone when visiting my child's school? Seriously? I know about the many problems that it poses to the staff and students, but this is an important call.
iced coffee. Those signs might as well have read "No hypocrites beyond this point", the way I was moving right past them.
Apparently in the past month or two Phelps has done nearly a complete 180 (insert witty diving joke here) and is now speaking candidly about the much-publicized incident for the first time since his public apology with Matt Lauer a few weeks ago.
The interview is apparently starting to make waves around the internet, as Stahl's line of questioning eventually leads Phelps to become quite agitated and lash out at the media.
"I made an immature mistake. It was poor judgment, and frankly pressure from those around me, that clouded my judgment and led me to apologize to the world for smoking pot. I regret that now. It was a rather childish thing to do, and hopefully next time something like this comes up, I'll tell the media to call me when they've won fourteen damn golds."
Posts
