Beatles 50th Anniversary Sgt. Pepper Release

Got the deluxe Sgt. Pepper set and I'm listening to the mono mix of the album.  I've never heard it before, and I was curious because the story has always been that the group spent much more effort on mono than on stereo.  As I started listening, I did think that the mono mix seemed more "present" than the stereo version I've been listening to for decades.  But I wasn't sure that I was just convincing myself of that.  Until "She's Leaving Home" started playing.  It was obvious immediately that the tempo was faster, and the pitch was higher.  I thought I knew everything about The Beatles recordings, but it was very cool after all these years to discover something unexpected.

I had the reverse happen when the CDs came out in 1987. My dad had a Sgt. Pepper's mono LP, which is what I had been used to and I spotted a few differences right away, and the one I was never able to square up was Paul's missing shouting at the end of the Sgt. Pepper's reprise. She's Leaving Home does tend to plod along as well, the consensus that the accompaniment was recorded at one speed, but sped up when the vocals were recorded. The mono got mastered at the speed that matched the vocals, and the stereo at the speed that matched the accompaniment. So it's likely that the faster speed is what was intended.

Up until the White Album the mono mixes are generally seen as 'better'. Stereo was still a bit of a novelty, which is why there was still a lot of extreme panning (sort of how 5.1 could be viewed today, I guess.) The White Album is a bit weird as I think they were trying to actively make both versions different. So it's harder to say which one is definitive there. The Mono version of that has a sped up Don't Pass Me By that just sounds too fast, and it's also missing the 'I've got blisters on my fingers' in Helter Skelter.

qrysdonnell said:

 and the one I was never able to square up was Paul's missing shouting at the end of the Sgt. Pepper's reprise. 

yes.  I posted before I listened all the way through.  That was the other thing that absolutely jumped out at me.  And how loud the laughing at the end of "Within You Without You" was.

Interesting article about the mono Sgt. Pepper that describes exactly my reaction (which I described as seeming "more 'present'" than the stereo version).

In mono, Sgt. Peppers’ sounds like an urgent, anxious and sometimes alarming statement; it’s not the over-large bouquet of sickeningly sweet aromatic flowers it appears to be in stereo. Rather then seeming like a fanciful, welcoming LSD dreamscape, the mono version comes across as an almost cynical reflection of its time. The mono Sgt. Pepper’s often sounds skeptical, mocking and it’s altogether more thoroughly rocking.

In fact, I had never thought of Sgt. Pepper’s as one of the Beatles’ “rock” albums until I listened to the mono version.

The “sound” of the album and it’s individual components is also extremely different, and therefore impacts the listener in an entirely different way: The drums sound fat, flat and phased; the bass is high in the mix without the burping, apocalyptic dominance it has on the stereo version; and both the guitars and John Lennon’s lead vocals are far harsher, a factor that almost singlehandedly eradicates the strawberry frosting we usually find slathered all over Pepper’s.

http://observer.com/2016/06/49...

I feel like I've discovered this album all over again.  I need to listen to it again with headphones.

The new Stereo remix has remarkable clarity too. They went back to the pre-bounced masters, and it makes a big difference. Most of the remixed '1' album from 2015 was done the same away as well. Most of the remixed tracks on there are much better, although there were a few nitpicky mistakes that people complain about. I haven't heard any major nitpicks with this one as most differences were taking one version's way of doing things versus another. Hopefully they'll sonically upgrade all of the albums that they can at some point.

@ml1 - listen to this.  http://www.npr.org/2017/06/01/...