Revolver Super Deluxe

This is a cash grab. Just in time for Christmas…

Let’s start with the new stereo version. For the first time in his history of remixing the Beatles, Giles Martin has come up with a final version very similar to the original product. I was stunned, because I find every other remix in this series sacrilegious, execrable, I believe they should all be destroyed, for fear they will become the standard in the future. Alas, this is not a problem with “Revolver.”

And the mono CD doesn’t sound as big as Giles’s remix, but it’s totally faithful. What I mean is certain instruments are emphasized beyond the original in the stereo remix. Like the cowbell in “Taxman” I heard just now. Then again, how are people listening to these records, if you’re using earbuds, does it make a difference?

And I fired up the big rig solely because it has the only CD player I possess. And I must say, the sound was impressive. But how many people have the equipment to reproduce this sound? And let’s be clear, it’s something you feel as well as hear, you’re in the sound, and that’s an experience that’s familiar to us from the seventies that today’s generations may be completely unaware of. With the bass pumping and the highs clear… Now that we have hi-res streaming, does that mean people will be incentivized to purchase better playback systems? No, unless listening becomes fetishized, like vinyl. You know, where you listen and that’s the only thing you do. Music has been relegated to the background, but when “Revolver” was released it was positively foreground.

And I was stunned there wasn’t a vinyl disc included in the package, with the aforementioned fetishization. And one thing we know is vinyl sounds different, even if it’s inherently not as pristine as the original digital production. But “Revolver” was cut analog, and listened to via vinyl, tape wasn’t even a thing, so maybe that would be the definitive product.

Wait a second, there is a vinyl version, but they didn’t send that to me, because vinyl production is backed-up and the costs are higher and the $199.98 package is sold out. Once upon a time, the music was for everyone, now it’s for a chosen few who probably won’t even listen to it more than once, if that. Whereas “Revolver” was cheap upon original release, and we played it ad infinitum, the records showed the wear, the scratches, the fingerprints, the dust. The music remains the same, but the world has completely changed.

But, once again, the remix is a change.

And if you want the original experience, check out the mono. It’s a bit flat, but it’ll remind you of what you were hooked on to begin with. And the weird thing that probably nobody involved in this production realizes is by time “Revolver” was released mono was history in America, we all bought stereo albums. After being told our heavy tonearms would kill stereo records mono records were made the same price, not a dollar less, and the industry reneged on this wear and tear problem and soon mono albums disappeared…why can’t we get the original stereo mix?

Even if in many cases we listened to our original albums on mono systems.

As for the extras in this package… That’s no longer a big thing, especially after the documentary and those multiple CD album packages of thirty years ago. Curios.

So the redo of “Revolver” is not really news, EXCEPT…

EXCEPT WHAT?

The CD is no longer the standard. You remember when the original “Revolver” CD came out in the late eighties? Well, maybe you don’t remember that either, but they put out the Beatles CDs in batches of four, the initial albums were in mono, the ones after that were in stereo, and we were all stunned how good they sounded, when nothing from that era sounded as good. Was it George Martin? The studio? The engineers? All of that. But was there more sound to be extracted?

That’s all I was interested in, a hi-res version, which I saw no hype about, all I’ve been reading is hosannas about the remix from people who weren’t even alive when the album was originally released.

But I decided to do research online and it turned out on the package’s site there was a link to a few tracks on all the streaming services, including Qobuz, the hi-res standard. And I clicked through and listened.

Now that’s a revelation. I can’t say enough about hi-res music, BECAUSE YOU CAN HEAR THE DIFFERENCE! Of course you need an external DAC to even reproduce this sound, ergo the Dragonfly Cobalt, but the final “Revolver” product is 24-Bit 96kHz as opposed to CD quality, 16-Bit 44.1 kHz.

I’m listening to the CD quality version on Qobuz right now. Sounds good. But when I put on the hi-res take…

It’s an entirely different record.

Then again, it’s the remix of “Taxman” I’m listening to, so it’s not exactly apples to apples.

But let me be definitive, the hi-res streaming version of “Taxman” is superior to the CD, both CDs, the remix and the mono.

But you can’t stream the mono yet. That’ll happen Friday.

So my recommendation to you is to skip this package and just buy an external DAC and subscribe to Qobuz, for at least the free term.

Of course you can hear hi-res on Apple and Amazon too. And they’re both very good, a definite improvement over CD quality, but, going back and forth…the Qobuz version is still a bit better, there’s more bottom, there’s…

And the Apple version is in Atmos. But unlike almost all the other Atmos remixes, it sounds akin to the stereo version, it’s not an issue of the vocals being lower or…

So do you really care?

The 50th anniversary of “Revolver” already came and went. There’s no exact hook.

But, even though people argued that “Rubber Soul” was the best album during the era, and some eventually cottoned to the “White Album,” and for some reason everybody is down on “Sgt. Pepper,” unnecessarily so in my book, the status, the reputation, the evaluation of “Revolver” has only risen. Even though the original American version lacked three tracks of the English one.

And I’d like to impart to you how big “Yellow Submarine” and “Eleanor Rigby” were during the summer of ’66, but unless you were alive at the time I can’t, you’ve got no frame of reference. We read all these chart statistics, about some act having x number of number ones, besting the Beatles. NO ONE BESTED THE BEATLES! Everybody knew the above two songs, YOU COULDN’T ESCAPE THEM!

As for the rest of the album…

“To lead a better life

I need my love to be here”

“Here, There and Everywhere” was the new “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” a mellow non-single standard. And both were played on our guitars, we’d sing them together, regularly.

As for “Got to Get You Into My Life,”… It wasn’t released as a single until 1976, long after the band broke up, it was just another album track.

But that was the magic of “Revolver,” unlike “Rubber Soul,” it had both hit singles and album tracks.

It opened with “Taxman” which we only understood on the surface, because many of us weren’t even paying taxes, and none of us was that rich living in England.

And no one ever talks about “I Want to Tell You,” with its indelible riff, a progenitor of what became standard on FM radio the year later, with Cream and other bands, but the key track…

“Turn off your mind

Relax and float down stream”

1966. Most people hadn’t yet smoked marijuana. Most people weren’t that hip. We listened to “Tomorrow Never Knows,” but it took us years to fully understand it. And it’s tracks like this that built John Lennon’s reputation. He might not have written as many hit singles as Paul McCartney, but McCartney couldn’t come up with stuff like “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “Tomorrow Never Knows.”

Listening to “Tomorrow Never Knows,” John Lennon is still alive, right there in the speakers, revealing truth like a pied piper, it’s all there for you to understand and digest.

So, “Revolver” was a monumental album. Giles Martin has not tarnished its reputation. But this project is a lot about nothing…

Revolver Super Deluxe

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