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Originally Posted by Ockeghem
Brad Vautrinot:
There have been quite a few releases over the years. However, not all of them are (as you probably know) legitimate releases. I own roughly 250 LPs of the Beatles music (from about twenty countries) and over 200 CDs, including a ton of stuff the wasn't released legitimately. (For example, I own around seven or eight recordings of many of the releases on Please Please Me and With the Beatles. It's wonderful being able to trace to some extent the compositional processes by listening to the earlier and subsequent versions of one and the same song. Listening to Don't Bother Me in keys other than what it was legitimately released in is a real treat.)
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Amen Ockeghem! Though I don't like to identify my sources for bootleg material (and we're not really supposed to discuss them anyway), I do like the fact that so many that were released in the 80's have a sonic quality that rivals and (more often) surpasses the official releases, especially where session reels are concerned. Where they came from in terms of timing with Mark Lewison's marvellous book is still a hot subject of debate.
I will however, go to great length to say that, even though they are from later generation masters, the Capitol Records box sets are a revelation in sonic quality, especially where mono mixes are concerned. Being a Britmix fan, the stereo version of
The Beatles' Second Album is still a sonic bastardizing with all the extra compression, 'duophonic' mixing, and reverb, but the fact that overall there are stereo and mono mixes of songs not found elsewhere (including the British singles and EP box sets) is reason enough to have them.