Revolver [Enhanced]

There are only three stories worth knowing from the last 2,000 years of history: the life of Mohammed, the life of Jesus and the career of The Beatles. They invented all music ever. John was the best one; but Paul is--despite the knighthood and everything--still the most under-rated songwriter of the 20th century. This is the album with "Eleanor Rigby", "Here, There and Everywhere", "For No One", "I'm Only Sleeping" and "Tomorrow Never Knows" on it--but then, you knew that anyway. We presume you have this album already and you're just getting a second copy in case you lose the first. --Caitlan Moran

Revolver wouldn't remain the Beatles' most ambitious LP for long, but many fans--including this one--remember it as their best. An object lesson in fitting great songwriting into experimental production and genre play, this is also a record whose influence extends far beyond mere they-was-the-greatest cheerleading. Putting McCartney's more traditionally melodic "Here, There and Everywhere" and "For No One" alongside Lennon's direct-hit sneering ("Dr. Robert") and dreamscapes ("I'm Only Sleeping," "Tomorrow Never Knows") and Harrison's peaking wit ("Taxman") was as conceptually brilliant as anything Sgt. Pepper attempted, and more subtly fulfilling. A must. --Rickey Wright

Même sous forme de disque compact cet album a deux faces : celle des gentils Beatles, rois de la mélodie facile et celle plus sombre, cachée jusqu'alors, des Beatles psychédéliques, expérimentateurs et habitués des paradis artificiels. La face heureuse et insouciante c'est celle de McCartney qui aligne ici quelques classiques élégants : "Eleanor Rigby" et ses cordes classiques, "Here, There And Everywhere" avec sa mélodie dans le style music- hall ou "Got To Get You Into My Life, proche de la grande variété américaine. Mais la palme de la légèreté revient, évidemment, à Ringo Starr qui chante de sa voix bonhomme "Yellow Submarine", devenu un classique de la chanson pour enfants. La face sombre, vous l'aurez deviné, c'est celle de Lennon qui raconte, ici, ses rêves et ses hallucinations : la dérive psychédélique avec guitares à l'envers de "She Said She Said", le rock cynique "Dr Robert" sur un faux médecin dealer. Et puis, surtout, il y a "Tomorrow Never Knows", summum de l'expérimentation, jamais égalé mais souvent copié (cf les Chemical Brothers et Noel Gallagher avec "Setting Sun"). Orchestre à l'envers, boucle de batterie dance avant l'heure, vocaux saturés, résonance de sitar continue : les nouveaux Beatles naissent vraiment avec ce morceau. Ils sont prêts pour les aventures à venir : "Strawberry Fields Forever" et Sgt Pepper's. --Hubert Deshouse

Re-mastering the Beatles catalogue

The re-mastering process commenced with an extensive period conducting tests before finally copying the analogue master tapes into the digital medium. When this was completed, the transfer was achieved using a Pro Tools workstation operating at 24 bit 192 kHz resolution via a Prism A-D converter. Transferring was a lengthy procedure done a track at a time. Although EMI tape does not suffer the oxide loss associated with some later analogue tapes, there was nevertheless a slight build up of dust, which was removed from the tape machine heads between each title.

From the onset, considerable thought was given to what audio restorative processes were going to be allowed. It was agreed that electrical clicks, microphone vocal pops, excessive sibilance and bad edits should be improved where possible, so long as it didn't impact on the original integrity of the songs.

In addition, de-noising technology, which is often associated with re-mastering, was to be used, but subtly and sparingly. Eventually, less than five of the 525 minutes of Beatles music was subjected to this process. Finally, as is common with today's music, overall limiting - to increase the volume level of the CD - has been used, but on the stereo versions only. However, it was unanimously agreed that because of the importance of The Beatles' music, limiting would be used moderately, so as to retain the original dynamics of the recordings.

When all of the albums had been transferred, each song was then listened to several times to locate any of the agreed imperfections. These were then addressed by Guy Massey, working with Audio Restoration engineer Simon Gibson.

Mastering could now take place, once the earliest vinyl pressings, along with the existing CDs, were loaded into Pro Tools, thus allowing comparisons to be made with the original master tapes during the equalization process. When an album had been completed, it was auditioned the next day in studio three - a room familiar to the engineers, as all of the recent Beatles mixing projects had taken place in there - and any further alteration of EQ could be addressed back in the mastering room. Following the initial satisfaction of Guy and Steve, Allan Rouse and Mike Heatley then checked each new re-master in yet another location and offered any further suggestions. This continued until all 13 albums were completed to the team's satisfaction.

Digitally remastered digipak edition of this classic 1966 album from The Beatles featuring 'Yellow Submarine, 'Taxman', 'Good Day Sunshine', 'Eleanor Rigby', 'Tomorrow Never Knows' and many more. The album has been remastered at Abbey Road Studios in London utilizing state of the art recording technology alongside vintage studio equipment, carefully maintaining the authenticity and integrity of the original analogue recordings. Within the CD's new packaging, the booklet includes detailed historical notes along with informative recording notes. A newly produced mini-documentary on the making of the album is included as a QuickTime file on each album. The documentary contains archival footage, rare photographs and never-before-heard studio chat from The Beatles, offering a unique and very personal insight into the studio atmosphere. Capitol.