|
This 2004 releases bring the first four Capitol US Beatles albums on CD for the first time, each CD bringing both the mono and stereo versions of the albums. It also includes a nice booklet with pictures and a text by Mark Lewisohn. As known, in the early sixties there were different Bealtes releases on hte UK and US, since the Americans re-organized the tracks in different packages to maximze commercial potential. These albums have become an important part of the Beatles history, hence the historical importance of this release not only for Americans, but to the Beatles fans around the world. To the collector, it has the inclusion of the mono and stereo mixes, with several differences from the UK counterparts. In some cases, the box presents the first ever offcial stereo CD release of some tracks. That is reason more than enough to add this item to the collection, although a few remarks are stil to be considered.
First of all, of course the US invasion is one of the many possible approaches to the Beatles history, and maybe it's time to question if it is over valorized sometimes. Of course it's triumphant history, with the Beatles breaking the Americans resistence to non-US artists, therefore conquering the world's largest market, which undoubtly is an important step on their timeline, although it seems such an irrelevant data in the face of everything the Beatles did. Anyway, it's fair to remember that many other
|
countries had their alternative Beatles discographies. Brazil, for example, has a very different discography for the early releases, but I don't expect seeing the "Odeon Albums" being released on a box set one day, which is a shame. In any case, it's better to have the Capitol Album than to have no international boxed set at all.
On a nostalgic side, this all makes one think about how the music market has changes since the 60s and that creates conflictant feelings. On one side, we know these different releases existed for commercial reasons, and of course the Beatles had no participation on them. Considering this, along with the fact that, differently from many other of their contemporary artists the Beatles were not just a 7" singles band, the Capitol albums can be considered an ofense to their creative habilities, a violent interference on their work. On the other hand, the highly padronized market of 21st century somehow lost a colorful diversity that existed before. There was also a certain sense of cultural diversity underneath the belief that different countries should get different releases.
Now "The Capitol Albums vol. 1" is there to tell this story. It's also there to show that customized releases from the 60s are now ready to be distributed to the whole world. Be it good or bad, we'll still have the interesting point of it all, which of course is the music.
|
