Remastered Beatles catalog coming in September

The Beatles' entire catalog of studio recordings will be reissued in September, fully remastered after years of clamoring from fans for upgraded versions of the group's recorded legacy, the Fab Four's label announced today.

The new versions will be issued on CD, but the announcement said plans for digital distribution were still going on. The Beatles catalog is considered the most significant body of music still not available for downloading. The release date is Sept. 9, which coincides with the arrival of the recently announced "The Beatles: Rock Band" edition of the popular video game.

Engineers at EMI's Abbey Road Studios in London have been working on the remastering for four years, according to the announcement from EMI and Apple Corps. During that time, surviving Beatles Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr as well as others within the Beatles camp have said there were no plans for remastering the music, even though the original CDs came out in 1987 when digital remastering was in its infancy. Most major pop music acts' recordings have been remastered at least once, in some cases two and three times to take advantage of technological advances in sound reproduction.

All 12 studio albums, in their original U.K. configurations, will be reissued with original album artwork and new liner notes, rare photos and other extras, according to the statement.  The CDs will be available individually or as part of a new boxed set including other extras. A second box set combining the monaural mixes of the albums also will be available. Several of the group's earliest recordings have never been issued in stereo on CD, and the new versions will represent the debut of the full catalog in stereo.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo: AP

Comments

[Rob]

Well... Congrats to them for FINALLY entering the 1980's. Does anyone else find it odd that they're releasing CD's and NOT making the music available for download? As it is, the day those CD's are released, someone in China, India, Europe, Japan, America or ANYWHERE else with a decent internet connection is going to rip these and make them available via filesharing.

EMI & Apple Core, you cannot hide from the 21st Century. It will find you. Personally, I think they should release the music on iTunes and make the CD's available as a limited edition release, with random packages containing the autographs or personal notes from the surviving Beatles, or people connected with the musical projects over the years. THAT would create BUZZ.

[JoeltheGreat]

Does anyone yet know how to pre-order the boxed set? I do know that the individual CD's are now available for pre-order on amazon.co.uk.

[MIchael Garcia]

I'll bet the surviving Beatles & the estates of the former Beatles John & George wish they had taken advantage of the past opportunity they had to buy back Northern Songs (The Beatles Catalogue) before Michael Jackson and now Sony, got a hold of it. I remember a story when Paul could have bought it back, but didn't want to do it without Yoko. She had thought the price was too high...that they could get it for less. After that was when Michael Jackson was rolling in cash from the Thriller album and had bought it himself. I was hopeful the estates of and the present Beatles parties could still buy it back when Michael Jackson was in financial trouble but instead he sold a substantial chunk of it to Sony. Why he didn't offer that chunk to The Beatles is beyond me...it would have seemed to be the least that he could have done.

[Rex Cox]

And exactly how good will these new re-mastered releases sound? The ones from the '80s- even their engineer Geoff Emerick said sounded like crap!

[JoeltheGreat]

In Michael Jackson's will, reportedly, he has stipulated that upon his death, Paul McCartney would receive the Beatles catalogue. Hopefully, Paul lives long enough for that to happen.

The Beatles 'Love' CD for Cirque du Soleil a handful of years ago gave everyone a taste of what a proper remaster can do for The Beatles' music. This time around, the music should sound better than ever, rather than like a poorly done and rushed product as were the previous remasters.

[shamus]

Release them on iTunes?
You won't be getting full fidelity!