• • • • • For anyone who grew up listening to ‘ LPs released by Capitol in the United States, the actual chronology of the Beatles songbook has always been a bit confusing. From the first U.S.

Release of Meet the Beatles in 1964 until in 1966, American Beatles albums were tremendously different from their U.K. Albums such as Yesterday & Today, Beatles ’65, and Something New were assembled haphazardly from fragments of U.K. Albums, singles, and EPs, while actual albums such as Help! And Rubber Soul had reordered track listings and swapped songs. American audiences weren’t experiencing Beatles releases in even remotely the way they were intended, and the Beatles themselves were none too pleased. When The Beatles’ catalog was reissued on CD for the first time in 1988, the original U.K.

Analyzed: The Beatles / Past Masters (24 BIT Remastered) DR Peak RMS Duration Track DR10 -0.16 dB -11.09 dB 2:25 01-Love Me Do (Single Version).

Albums were maintained. (The one exception is, which had been a double EP in England, and was fleshed out into a full album in the States via the inclusion of five prominent singles.) This adherence to the original album track listing caused an interesting side effect. Infosys training program. Several major Beatles singles that American listeners had taken for granted as being a part of albums were no longer included on any of the LPs. Mainstays such as “She Loves You”, “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, and “Day Tripper” had only ever been released as singles and on compilations in the U.K.

Later, this would be the case with singles like “Hey Jude” and “Lady Madonna” in both countries. In order to fill the need for these and the many other non-album singles and b-sides within the Beatles CD catalog, the Past Masters albums were created. Since the 1988 CD release, the two Past Masters volu mes have become a necessity for Beatles listeners to complete their songbook without owning any unnecessary compilations. All key singles are present, as well as alternate versions of later releases, and eclectic b-sides. Now that the world is made brighter by the Beatles remasters, the two volumes of Past Masters have been consolidated to one double-album, for the first time since 1988, and refurbished to stereoscopic glory.

Past Masters is included as part of The Beatles Stereo Box Set, but an alternate version has been compiled for The Beatles in Mono box set, called Mono Masters. Mono Masters is 34 tracks to Past Masters ‘ 33. While the first disc of earlier tracks is the same track listing, the second disc has the stereo-only tracks swapped out in favor of mono versions of the four songs recorded for Yellow Submarine, an album not included in the mono set. Confused yet?

Past Masters disc one, formerly Volume One, spans The Beatles earlier years and opens with the original single version of “Love Me Do”. What separates the Past Masters version from the cut on Please Please Me is that Ringo Starr plays drums on it. George Martin didn’t care for Starr’s drumming on this original version resulting in the final, album version being r ecorded with a session drummer and Starr on tambourine. “Love Me Do” is one of four tracks on Past Masters that couldn’t be rendered in stereo, making the transition to the stereo versions of “From Me to You” and its b-side “Thank You Girl” an interesting experience.

Hardcore audiophiles have on the subject of mono to stereo preference, and for good reason: It’s a very different experience than what was originally intended. I haven’t had the opportunity to compare the stereo to the mono mixes, but I can’t find any fault with the warmth, depth or quality of the stereo remasters.

Call me a young upstart, but the now “classic” instrumentation on the left, vocals to the right layout of these and other early tracks makes me smile. As with all the remasters, Past Masters comes with a posh booklet filled with high quality pictures and an historical notes by Beatles expert Kevin Howlett. The photos are terrific and the compilation’ s career-spanning breadth allows for Howlett’s insights to cover the whole Beatles timeline in one go.