🎵 2022-09-07 15:30:00 – Paris/France.
When the deluxe edition and remix of The Beatles' 'Revolver' was officially announced on Wednesday - with everything slated to arrive in physical and digital formats on October 28 - many fans assumed a plus-size boxed celebration from the group's 1966 turning point was a given, as far as Beatles projects would inevitably go through the pipeline on this scale. But these things shouldn't always be taken for granted, as Giles Martin points out.
"At the end of last year, as I was finishing 'Get Back,' I was like, 'Oh my God, I better listen to these snippets and start going through them to see if we have any. enough to do that," says Martin, who oversaw not only the remix, but the two CD's worth of unreleased recordings of early versions and alternate takes. “Because we always want to make sure we don't scrape the bottom of the barrel, and you want to make sure there are enough grips for a 'Revolver' box set. If not, are we thinking of doing 'Revolver' and 'Rubber Soul' all together and just having extracts from both?
The very idea of a set combining two of these favorite albums might send shivers down the spine of some Beatles fans, but luckily both records had enough high-quality alternate versions to make everyone feel good, so to speak, d 'go forward. But Martin – the son of original Beatles producer George Martin – is always quick to point out that Apple Corps won't go ahead with anything just for a token Christmas release, as much as the faithful got a mega-set looking forward to more holiday seasons than not, since a 50th anniversary deluxe edition of “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band” established the pattern in 2017.
What was really uncertain, even until the end of last year, was whether a proper remix would be possible, as was done with the "Pepper", the White Album, "Abbey Road" and "Let's It Be” to date. This was all done from material recorded in 1967, when the Beatles used more tracks to capture separate elements of the recording. But starting with 1966's "Revolver," separating the instrumentation and vocals that had been compressed from four tracks into a two-track master would have been impossible until recently. Hardcore Beatles fans knew it, and they weren't looking forward to the possibility of a year off…or 10.
Martin credits the technology used by Peter Jackson's audio team for the 'Get Back' documentary - in which they discovered how to properly separate instrument vocals in rehearsal footage - for making the 'Revolver' remix possible ( and presumably, possibly, future releases of the group's recordings from 1962 to 1965).
For a full list of titles from the "Revolver" box set, scroll down; previous which is a modified version of VarietyThe conversation with Martin on the thinking and methodology behind the new remix and the selection of extracts.
Granted, there's been talk about why the pre-"Sgt. Pepper's albums could be a problem for remixes. You said in mid-2021 that you thought the technology was getting there, or almost. It seems fair to say that he got there?
Yeah. If it hadn't happened there, we wouldn't have done it — it's as simple as that. There is always pressure, which is great. I mean, the first one we did was “Sgt. Peppers. And like I said before, I didn't really feel like doing it, and then I did a few songs and they sounded interesting or good, and then the Beatles said they liked it, and so we says "Sgt. Pepper. Then what happened is that the fans themselves are now asking, 'When do we have this? When will we have 'Revolver'? And there are also forums that say "Why would you want to remix 'Revolver'?" and all those kinds of conversations.
But my hands were tied that there was no isolation. It was kind of designed for mono. There wasn't much stereo in '66, certainly in the UK. So on "Taxman," for example, it's all on one side (or the other) — like the drums and bass basically on one side, then you've got the vocals in the middle, then you've got a lead guitar and a shaker on the right side. This is exactly what I would (should) do if I had to remix it (without any new technology); otherwise you end up in mono, and then you're just remastering.
But we worked a lot on that for “Get Back”. And thankfully, thanks to the pandemic, because it's slowed down the whole project, a lot more people have been spending more time in their bedrooms working on stuff than they normally would have, and the Peter's team began to make these breakthroughs. I worked with them. I said, “Look, should we try to do 'Revolver'? We started looking at that, and eventually we had all the ingredients for me to mix it up. It was as simple as that. This “Taxman” track, which I'm using as a demo, has (now) guitar, bass and drums together; I can remove the guitar, I can remove the bass, and then I can even separate the snare drum and the kick drum. And they sound such as the snare drum and the bass drum. There's no trace of guitar on them (even though they were baked together on the master tapes). And I don't know how it's done! It is as if I gave them a cake and they gave me flour, eggs, milk and sugar.
So even with all your technical savvy, there's still some magic for you in the technology Jackson's team invented?
Yeah, it's AI, and it scares me, because I'm like, OK, what's next? But yeah, it's very, very, very, very smart technology. There's no one in the world who does that as well as them. I also love the fact for The Beatles that this album is over 50 years old — what's 56, right? – and they still use revolutionary technology.
Many fans were looking forward to a possible remix, and then of course there are people who say, "That's how it was done, and I like it." But listening to it through headphones was always a confusing experience, even if you got used to it.
It's the helmet that annoys people more than anything else. And so much music is listened to through headphones.
There are certain tracks… On “Yellow Submarine”, I think there was acoustic guitar, bass and drums on one track. I tried to keep the acoustic guitar away from the drums. And to me, it seemed like they (still) needed each other to be next to each other. It sounded good; it didn't quite sound good. So there are some things that I always lean one way or the other, because there just isn't a whole lot (of instrumentation) there. I mean, compared to modern recordings, you go back to “Taxman” or “She Said” – mostly it's guitar, bass, drums… and that's it. And then they want Dolby Atmos! And then you go, OK, there's the bass guitar, the guitar… I'm not going to put the guitar and the bass behind!
(The music is) really incredibly effective. It's as if you don't need a big plate for very chic French cuisine; it's like just three little pieces of stuff. And that's often what "Revolver" sounds like: it sounds big, but there's not much to it.
But it's not just about moving the instruments around to readjust the left-right balance.
I now have two teenagers who are 13 and 15, and they listen to stuff in the car and they play me stuff like they found out, like “The Chain” by Fleetwood Mac. They listen to Rex Orange County or Olivia Rodrigo or Billie Eilish, and then there's music that wasn't (from) now, and it could be Fleetwood Mac, it could be the Arctic Monkeys, it could be the Beatles, but they' concerning any the same time for them. And what I want to make sure is that when people hear The Beatles, they have the same dynamic as the other stuff they're listening to.
I mean, 'Abbey Road' was a slightly different album than the others because it sounds more hi-fi than the other Beatles albums. And I think that's probably why the latest stuff gets more airing. I sound like a guy from a commercial record company, and you know I'm not, but you think about what's most important - 'Here Comes the Sun', 'Let It Be ', 'Get Back', it's all there because kids like that… there's something about it. And so if I can make "Revolver" not sound like it's been buried... Because (the Beatles are) just a bunch of 20-somethings who sing songs the same way today there is a group of 20-year-olds singing songs. I don't think music gets old, we just get old with it. You know, (on the recordings) the bands are the same age as them.
And I love that there are forums that say, "I'll never listen to anything Giles Martin does." It just means they're just passionate about things. I have no problem. I think that's great. They are the ones who listen to the stuff. It's all the people who don't listen to the albums that I want to address.
The Beatles in 1966
Many years ago there was conventional wisdom that “Sgt. Pepper' was their masterpiece, then there was a correction to that with many fans thinking it's 'Revolver' - insisting that was the exact moment they peaked - so for those making that argument, it's a holy grail of sorts.
Every Beatles project is someone's holy grail. I was never very good at this (comparison album) thing because my background was doing 'Love' (with his dad in the 2000s), and 'Love' was just basically any the Beatles, if that makes sense… You could say they peaked on “Abbey Road”; the second half of this record is simply amazing. Their most popular song is “Here Comes the Sun” from their latest album. Very few bands, their most popular album is their last…Rick Rubin will say the White Album is their best…
“Revolver” almost feels like a sort of test for the white album…
It does!
... in terms of the number of different styles he quickly covers and each contributing very distinctive songs that are their own. But here about half the album is really experimental, whether it's sitar or dark orchestra or soul-review horn section, and then about half is a pretty rock guitar album.
I recently mixed "Pet Sounds" into Dolby Atmos while doing this. So I was stuck in 1966. I said it's amazing how much change happened at that time, musically. You're listening to 'Rubber Soul' (the previous album) and it's a lot more of a 60s feel, in terms of rhythm and timing, with 'The Word' and stuff like that – a lot more 'Austin Powers' , if you kind, generation of that Beatles swing. While "Revolver" changes the tangent. The only one close to that is "Doctor Robert", which sounds a lot more like "Rubber Soul". It is interesting to see how they have transformed in a very short time.
Starting the album with “Taxman” then immediately moving on to “Eleanor Rigby” is an odd sequence, whichever way you look at it.
And then "I'm just sleeping"... Yeah, all that...
SOURCE: Reviews News
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