For a number of years I've owned a copy of Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band that I found at a used record store. Most of my Beatles records came to me in this way and were more than a little noisy, inked up, marked up, abused and smelly. So when I heard that they were re-releasing the whole Beatles catalog on vinyl I couldn't resist, I had to replace my Sgt Peppers album. I was of course worried about all the detractors of the new pressings. Some said they were noisy, some said they were sonically inferior but all I knew was that if I wanted to hear a pristine, vinyl copy of Sgt Peppers I would either have to spend hundreds of dollars on an untouched original or I could spend $25-30 on this remaster. I'm so cheap the choice was easy, it would have cost me money not to buy this!
I was a little nervous about dropping the needle down on the new vinyl. First things first, the packaging is beautiful. The vinyl is heavy, the record label is an exact reproduction of the original Parlophone label, the gatefold, inner record sleeve, everything reproduced beautifully and faithfully. These weren't my main interests though, my original copy came with everything it was supposed to except for a clean copy of the vinyl inside. My fears were quickly alleviated; I dropped the needle on the outer edge and was met with... silence.
I hate it when I read reviews on records and people talk about the mastering and compression and analog digitality blah, blah, blah. Some people can hear that kind of stuff. I can't. Even as a musician a lot of that seems to be lost on me. What I can tell you is that when I sat in front of my sound system and listened to this album I felt like I was inside the sound. I felt like it was happening around me rather than in front of me. If I closed my eyes I could imagine being surrounded by the musicians (which is pretty cool considering that the musicians were the freakin' Beatles).
This is one of my favorite Beatles albums and being able to listen to it in this manner was like re-discovering it all over again. Most who know me know that I'm not a huge Beatles fan, I came into them only recently upon reading the book by Geoff Emerick on his days recording the group. The only reason I had the original album to begin with was for the fact that I couldn't really call myself a record collector without having any albums by the Fab Four. This is one of those albums where most people in the world know just about all the songs on here. Same held true to me before I first heard it. The tracks on here that left me wanting would probably be She's Leaving Home and Mr. Kite, while the un-precedented classics would be the title track (of course), Little Help, Lucy in the Sky, Getting Better and, most poignantly as I age, When I'm 64.
Needless to say, I'm after the rest of this collection. People hoot and holler about the Mono release. Someday I should get these out of morbid curiosity, but I'm a stereo guy. I don't like my music, movies or pictures in "flat". I love music that surrounds you, I love ViewMaster slides and 3D movies. I can't wait to hear the rest of the new releases... Beatles on pristine vinyl? Yes please. But that will have to wait for another day.
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