The Beatles: Mono Masters (1962-70)

(Apple 2009)

!!! A+ COMPILATION !!!

Mono Masters was at first issued exclusively as part of the boxed set The Beatles in Mono; a sister of sorts to the familiar catalog item Past Masters, it gathers every official "canon" mono mix of Beatles music that EMI originally issued in Great Britain in the 1960s that was not part of an LP release. This means it contains 11 of the band's A-sides, 11 b-sides, the contents of the Long Tall Sally EP, the two German-language tracks, and the oddity "Bad Boy." (Like the last two Beatles albums, their singles from "The Ballad of John and Yoko" onward were issued in stereo only apart from the archival b-side "You Know My Name," so they are absent here.) Like Past Masters, it also serves as a de facto greatest hits, if an obviously incomplete one since it doesn't cover the likes of "A Hard Day's Night" and "Help!"; it's really the first opportunity ever given, apart from the old EMI boxed sets of singles and EPs, to hear the Beatles' progression in sequence with the original mixes that made these songs popular in the first place, which are often much more different than is now recalled.

In 1988, Past Masters brought once-elusive stereo mixes like those for "This Boy" and "The Inner Light" into general release at long last, sparing hardcore Beatles fans the trouble of tracking down promotional Heineken cassettes and obscure foreign LPs. Mono Masters goes one better; it marks the first official release, film and video aside, of the mono mixes created for three of the four new songs in the Yellow Submarine film ("Only a Nothern Song" is mono-only and is included as such on modern issues of the YS album, though until 2009 it was usually presented in rechannelled stereo) and the charity compilation version of "Across the Universe" -- these had been meant, at one time, for an EP that was fully mastered and ready to go before getting scrapped. Just over forty years later, it's finally here. In addition, of course, this collection -- with its later vinyl release taken into account -- simplifies the process of gathering all of the Beatles' catalog in mono considerably; don't forget that much of this music had been hard to find officially in mono for decades by this point, the upshot being that this album -- like the entire mono boxed set -- really marked a new listening experience for at least a full generation of longtime fans.

All the praise heaped on Past Masters as a listening experience applies here too. There are few better, more concise ways to hear the Beatles' story told than through their singles and supplemental material, far richer than you might anticipate for a band so universally celebrated for defining the album format. The first portion of disc one repeats a few mixes that are also included on the revised Past Masters because no stereo versions exist -- "Love Me Do," "She Loves You" and "I'll Get You" (the original Past Masters CD also utilized mono versions of "From Me to You" and "Thank You Girl") -- but "From Me to You" is the first marker of how different the experience can potentially be; it's obviously complete in a way the stereo mix (not released until 1965) is not, including harmonica overdubs that were excluded in stereo for one reason or another, which is why best-of compilations continue to use the mono mix even now. Oddly, "Thank You Girl" provides the opposite experience; Americans who know the song from The Beatles' Second Album, which used the stereo mix and a fold-down, will probably still be jarred after all these years by the absence of several elements in mono; and it does sound odd, especially without that closing flourish. The introduction of "I Call Your Name" also offers an obvious divergence from the canon stereo mix or either original American mix (the song was released here a few months before the UK got it, and all four versions have slightly different edits). "Matchbox" is one of the few casualties on this set, handicapped by a dreadful guitar solo and some flubbing on the vocal take. Despite George Martin's case to the contrary, there are times when stereo did get more attention and finesse.

For the most part, what makes Mono Masters valuable isn't really specifics like these (or other mixing quirks such as the longer fade on "I'm Down," letting us hear a bit more of the performance), which we could spend all day laying around and listing. More generally, it's about a certain feel and fullness that tends to be sacrificed by the separation of elements in stereo. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "Revolution" are the most egregious examples of songs that lose much of their might and intensity in every version save the original mono -- to hear both on this set is to hear them with their muscle and hypnotic power finally restored. Famously (because John complained about the stereo mix), "Revolution" is an unbelievably tough song in mono, played with a distorted abandon that gets compromised in the cleaner mix, but really so is "I Want to Hold Your Hand," robust, sexy and powerful in a sense that you really can imagine, all these years later, being irresistible for those who made it a worldwide pop cultural phenomenon in early 1964. This also goes for the almost subliminally powerful "I Feel Fine," which towers in mono, sounding like the vocals are bouncing off the walls of a cathedral. Mono is almost always more generous to the chaos and cacophony of rock & roll than stereo; it's for this reason that you can find yourself so much more engrossed here in songs like "Long Tall Sally," "I'm Down" and the colossal "Slow Down" that come alive on this collection and, despite the use of only one channel, manage to totally engulf you in their energy.

Fans who aren't fond of mono sometimes accuse it of being a "mush" of sound, but what I tend to hear is a greater emphasis on band interplay. Take "Slow Down" for example, and hear how Paul's bass completely drives it and also seems more distinctive when not shoved off into one channel or another. The same with Ringo's drums on the relatively innocuous "She's a Woman." I don't mind the stereo versions of most of these songs, but as in the case of many other '60s recordings, mono really does have an almost inscrutable magic about it -- it seems to be closer, more dynamic, and to be happening right NOW.

The second disc brings us to songs that are downright stunning in this format. Across the two singles that open it, "Day Tripper" c/w "We Can Work It Out" and "Paperback Writer" b/w "Rain," we have three songs that exhibit all the benefits of the Beatles' and George Martin's considerably increased attention toward mono mixes (plus one dud in the oddly mixed "Work It Out"), and these alone make a strong case of how valuable a complete single-disc compilation of the band's singles in mono might have been. (Note that except for the Sgt. Pepper album, the mono versions of the catalog are still not on streaming platforms.) "Day Tripper" gets right in your face and demands your attention; it's only in mono that you can fully hear how the Beatles still stood out so starkly on the radio in late 1965, well after their influence was becoming palpable everywhere. With "Paperback Writer" they prove themselves adept at every sound and style they deign to attempt; known now to most of us as a good piece of witty rock & roll, it's fuller and more dramatic in mono and turns into some sort of psychedelic monster full of phasing, unexpected assertiveness (the lead guitar), and uncompromising experimentation, and even it is eclipsed by its b-side "Rain," somehow simultaneously the Beatles' best piece of folk-rock and the most fully convincing, pure moment of psychedelia by pretty much anyone aside from "Strawberry Fields Forever" and maybe some of Love's Forever Changes. Again, "Rain" is wonderful in stereo, that's how it became one of my favorite songs, but in mono it seems to place emphasis on and drive forward every suggestive element of it that makes it alluring across two channels, so that the entire song takes you over and refuses to be ignored.

As on Past Masters, we skip over 1967 as a release year entirely and jump to the pre-India period with "Lady Madonna" and "The Inner Light"; you'd think by now the differences would be less pronounced but they're not. Both are practically different experiences in mono; "Lady Madonna" might as well never even be heard in stereo after you become familiar with this, with its bounce, filthiness and utterly convincing nightclub sleaze pronounced and engaging in ways that can't fully be described; you almost wonder if the prevalence of stereo mixes of songs like this is why there are people out there who don't "get" the Beatles. There's no avoiding "getting" this. As for "The Inner Light," it's obviously a lesser song in the catalog, but still very pretty and in mono you can hear the actual original intro which is vastly different from the stereo mix that wasn't widely heard for decades. The difference is less pronounced with "Hey Jude" -- which sounds wonderful either way -- but there's a nice feeling to being aware that you're hearing specifically what was heard at the time, what made it their biggest hit.

The botched Yellow Submarine EP is something of a distraction here; it interrupts the flow a bit with a couple of lackluster songs, and with the disappointment that the full unedited, wild "It's All Too Much" wasn't used, though "Hey Bulldog" sounds terrific here, as strong a piece of throwback rock & roll as "Lady Madonna" in its own acerbic manner. "Across the Universe" would have been preferable in the version that circulates on bootlegs without the wildlife sounds; that problematic song's best Beatles version is on Anthology 2, followed by Let It Be... Naked if one is attached to the original performance the band kept tweaking. And the "Let It Be" b-side "You Know My Name" is an anticlimax -- it always was -- but before that we do get one last bit of rock & soul fury with the stunning "Don't Let Me Down," the b-side of the last mono Beatles single ("Get Back," also here but only a marginally different experience than the familiar one), which only shows slight concrete divergences from the stereo but still benefits from the compression into one channel, achieving its primal grace as a love song even without the extra room to breathe. Billy Preston's piano solo never seemed so much to be playing one's heart and body.

The purpose of Mono Masters is practical, not artistic; but the music it contains, with scattered exceptions, is nearly flawless and encompasses many of the Beatles' signature works. It stands as a monument to the achievements of their career because, for once, their work is treated sonically with the historical reverence it deserves. This is how the Beatles sounded on the radio in the '60s, and the legacy created by that interaction is why they are still so beloved across generations today.