Mono Help! Double CD

[tristanjblythe]

Hi

I recently got the mono boxset and have been listening to it in chronological order. I'm trying to listen to it when I get a chance to sit down and properly enjoy the music so I haven't got that far.

Yesterday I sat down and put Help! on. Great album and the new mix sounds superb (as they all do). However when I got up to take the CD out after Dizzy Miss Lizzy I was surprised to hear Help starting again. I was even more surprised when I realised that my copy has the album on it twice!

Double the amount of tracks, double the length, it just repeats the album. Does anybody else have a copy like this? I'm wondering if it a widespread glitch or something rare?

[Harrythebannister]

Nothing rare about it I'm afraid..this is standard. Basically in 1987, George Martin remixed both the stereo Help! & Rubber Soul LP's for release on the 1987 CD releases. Both of these have been included in the Stereo boxset. However with the mono CD box you get the original Mono mix and as a bonus the original 1965 stereo mixes which have never been available on CD before. Hope this clears up any confusion.

[jgkojak]

The original stereo of Rubber Soul, especially, has an atrocious mix-- and while they did all they could for it on the remasters- RS would have sucked had they allowed the original mix to go out-- so GM remixed Help and RS in 1987- Help! he did an analog remix, RS he did an all digital remix.

While they sound fine- one problem with the remasters is they used GMs original '87 PCM (i.e. 16 bit) masters- while the other remasters are 24 bit-- wouldn't have been hard to replicate GMs mix in 24 bit- oh well!

[tristanjblythe]

Thanks! Sorry for delay I've been away...