I've already done the autobiographical thingy about this album and if you want to read that it's here. In short, I've never warmed to it. Then this came out, a box set with hours o' material to listen to if you really love the thing. Well, I don't but I have been increasingly fascinated by it as a whole statement and these expanded releases at their best can really set things in context. So, does this?
First, what's in the box? Six CDs of the remastered album, outtakes, demos, studio takes in various states of completion, all the rags that eventually were placed and trimmed before the record was given to the world. A hardcover book with masses of photos and interview material to give context to the songwriting, recording and the place of the album in its moment of history. And a second sleeve with two Blu-Rays that have everything on the CDs plus the studio jams that became a lot of the companion Yoko Ono: Plastic Ono Band.
There's a distinct difference here between this packaging of the later Beatles albums that have come out in fiftieth anniversary boxes and it's a significant one. On the Abbey Road box we get a number of discs that feature the other shots taken of the iconic zebra crossing photo and it's easy to see the point as the alternative photos are on the covers of discs with alternative versions, out takes, and whatever else that, like the particular photo didn't make it on to the album.
The Plastic Ono Band box contains a number of iterations of the original cover without a pixel's difference. Every sleeve has the same photo. There's also a point to this. Lennon's purpose was minimalism: low production of a small band and the least arrangement necessary to keep the mystique at a minimum and the communication front and centre. It also reflects the sequencing of the music which is the tracklist in album order regardless of its state of completion or recording date. Starting with the new master we get the entire set as demos, developing tracks, raw studio mixes and so on. Oh, also, the three singles from the time get the treatment, too: Give Peace a Chance, Cold Turkey and Instant Karma. A lot of material but formed into digestible courses.
I pretty much shelled out for the two hi-res discs. The finished album is presented in stereo, 5.1 (96 and 192 khz 24 bit!) and the more expansive Dolby Atmos (lesser bit rate but a world of great newness). The rest of the material on the two Blu-Rays is entirely in stereo but at those celestially high sample rates.
From Mother to My Mummy's Dead, the original album in Atmos is swoonable. When you get a movie in this audio format you usually get a lot of directional presence (helicopters landing, bullets richocheting etc) but here the object based sound design is used to create a larger ambient stage. The voice is in the centre with other instruments in the typically trio setup and the room reverb filling out the rest of the channels. It's a kind of stereo deluxe. The early days of remixing classic rock in surround featured a lot of gimmick thinking with guitars circling around the way they never do but here we just get to be in the room with the music. If anything the overall sound is beefier than before which will bother a lot of purists but it is a higher resolution presentation than it ever was and it's not pretending to be anything else. Thoughtfully executed, it is a marvel.
And then it's all the other versions. All of them are worth at least one listen but many hipsters happening on this set will nod sagely at reverb free vocals on Instant Karma or a plainer mix than Phil Spector administered. There is a lot to enjoy in the evolution and elements sequences and the demos and raw performances bring a lot of moment to the experience. I usually find going through these preparatory or forensic versions interesting the first time and most of these fall into that box. None is better than the released version but many hold charm as musical diary entries. Of all of them my favourite is an early take on Mother with guitar and amp tremolo which is delivered with a quieter and more poignant vocal. At the other end of the album sequence there were exactly two takes of My Mummy's Dead. They were done at the same occasion by the same method, Lennon singing along to his guitar into a cassette recorder. They are all but indistinguishable from each other, do not allow more than EQ or compression. Despite this either one or the other will appear at the end of the tracklist whether it's demo, evolution, elements, raw studio, or whatever else. Given the generous real estate of Blu-Ray this can't be called a waste of space but the only reason they are there is because that's how the original album ends and the concept of presenting that and the three singles in order needed to be fulfilled.
The jam tracks are mostly misnamed, being the kind of idle cover versions you might remember from the Let it Be sessions. Elvis here a number of other early rockers there. Two early drafts of Imagine's I Don't Wanna Be a Soldier are worth a listen as they goe from a kind of flavourless Blood on the Tracks canter to the more effective blues take which led to the album track. Some moments are too fleeting to get the titles they receive in the sequence: I've Got a Feeling is really a few strums of the chord sequence; Get Back is a brief guitar noodle. The longer take of Lost John is worth repeat listening and the banter can be funny but that's what you get when you put jams on (see also the third disc of All Things Must Pass, though that's a lot slicker).
The most value beyond the original album and singles sequence, though comes at the end when the bedrock jams (actual jams) are laid down for the Yoko companion album. Not all of it was used and then not always recognisably but these really are worth the listen. If you thought that Yoko Ono was only capable of ice pick wailing over tokenistic rock playing get in front of these. There is that wailing but there's a lot more as well and it's articulate and purposed, sounding more disciplined and committed than the designation of live studio jam would suggest. It is what we get instead of the Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band album. I can say that I've listened to these tracks (they're only on the Blu-Ray) more than the jams or out takes.
The book is a handsome hardcover with strong photographic content. There are chapters on Janov's primal scream therapy which informed the shape of the music, lyrics and performance of the record, chapters on individual tracks taken from various interview sources including some more recent recollections of participants. Information on the recording process and a very handy mix map of the surround material. It's more, in other words, than a glorified brochure.
I bought this set and bought into it because, despite the distaste I had for the album, the record haunted me (and I had the money) and whether it was hearing it in such high resolution, in surround, or just as clearly and fully as it is presented here I have changed my mind. Where I thought of it as a musically mediocre showbiz turn in the guise of a cry of pain and triumph it now meets me as an authentic statement made from serious needs and presents as a cohesive punch. I still don't love Well Well Well or I Found Out and still have trouble recalling them as distinct from each other they now sit well in the sequence. What once was a bin of narcissistic whinging now, finally, feels like communication.
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