Shimmy She Wobble

Sad day for Pirates.

In memoriam, I am posting a mono version of the Beatles’ Sgt. Peppers album. Today there was a Gizmodo post on how “Sgt. Peppers” sounds better in mono vs stereo. The article quotes George Martin as saying “You’ve never really heard Sgt Pepper until you’ve heard it in mono.”

Mixing details from wikipedia:

The Beatles were present during the mixing of the album in mono; they did not attend the mixing of the stereo version. The two mixes are fundamentally different. For example, the stereo mix of “She’s Leaving Home” was mixed at a slower speed than the original recording and therefore plays at a slower tempo and at a lower pitch than the original recording. Conversely, the mono version of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” is considerably slower than the stereo version and features much heavier gating and reverb effects. McCartney’s yelling voice in the coda section of “Sgt. Pepper (Reprise)” (just before the segue into “A Day in the Life”) can plainly be heard in the mono version, but is nearly inaudible in the stereo version. The mono version of the song also features drums that open with much more presence and force, as they are turned well up in the mix. Also in the stereo mix, the famous segue at the end of “Good Morning Good Morning” (the chicken-clucking sound which becomes a guitar noise) is timed differently and a crowd noise tape comes in later during the intro to “Sgt. Pepper (Reprise)”.

Other variations between the two mixes include louder laughter at the end of the mono mix of “Within You Without You”, as well as a gush of laughter between the coda of the title track and the beginning of “With a Little Help From My Friends”, and a colder, echoless ending on the mono version of “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!”.

I found this version of the album on The Pirate Bay since it is impossible to buy in any store. That is the beauty of P2P and torrent sites.

This collection includes “Penny Lane” and “Strawberry Fields Forever” which were singles that should have been included on the original Sgt. Peppers album. With these additions, Sgt. Pepper possibly surpasses Revolver as the best Beatles album ever made. Does that make it the best pop album of all time? Perhaps.

From wikipedia:

Though “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Penny Lane” had originally been intended for the new album, in January 1967 producer George Martin responded to EMI Records’ pressure for a new single and called the two tracks for issue in February 1967. In common with UK music industry practice at that time, which did not duplicate recent singles on new albums, both tracks were subsequently left off the Sgt. Pepper album. Martin later described the decision to extract the two songs from the album as the biggest mistake of his career.

I also included an acoustic demo version of Strawberry Fields Forever that blows away the official release IMHO.

Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (mono).zip (complete album)

1. sgt. pepper’s lonely hearts club band (mono).mp3
2. with a little help from my friends (mono)
3. lucy in the sky with diamonds (mono)
4. getting better (mono)
5. fixing a hole (mono).mp3
6. penny lane (mono)
7. she’s leaving home
8. being for the benefit of mr. kite! (mono).mp3
9. within you without you (mono)
10. when i’m sixty-four (mono)
11. lovely rita (mono)
12. strawberry fields forever (mono).mp3
13. good morning good morning (mono)
14. sgt. pepper’s lonely hearts club band (reprise) (mono)
15. a day in the life (mono)
16. run out groove (mono)

• a day in the life (alt. version)
• strawberry fields forever (acoustic).mp3: best version of this song ever.