All the Beatles in a box

OK. I know I got it late. The D-Day after all, was Sept. 9, 2009. I didn’t know what all the fuss about the date was about at first. I thought, wasn’t the important date Sept. 11? Well it turned out that 09-09-09 was the release date of The Beatles, the definitive box set of all Beatles recordings.

Why Sept. 9? I do not know the reason. I heard a Beatles fan say though that it was because of the line “Number nine, number nine” in Revolution 9 from The White Album. Maybe. But then I thought, why release another Beatles box set. All of the albums have been available on CDs for years now. Besides, it did seem exploitative on the part of the labels, Apple and EMI, to come out with such a pricey product. It was $300 when I first checked online.

So come Sept. 9, those who could afford it trotted off to the stores to buy the few units available in the local stores or went to Amazon when those ran out. The rest of us watched Paul, Ringo and the widows Yoko and Olivia promote the set in various TV shows and wondered when or if we will ever get to check out The Beatles, let alone own a copy for ourselves.

I have no need to wonder anymore. Santa thought I was a good girl last year and I got my boxed Beatles right before the end of the Christmas season. Just goes to show that if you wish hard enough and are patient enough you might just get what you wish for. It felt like Christmas morning excitement, except that unlike kids hurriedly tearing off wrappers, I almost didn’t want to open the box. It seemed too important, too valuable and might even fetch a good price on E-bay 10 years from now.

But then curiosity got the better of me and I laid out the contents in all their glory. Very impressive. First off, there are all of the 13 Beatles albums, digitally remastered in stereo along with past masters. You should know all the titles. Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard Day’s Night, Beatles For Sale, Help! Rubber Soul, Revolver, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Magical Mystery Tour, White Album, Yellow Submarine, Abbey Road and Let It Be. These are all individually digipacked with the original covers and even poster as in the case of the White Album. Each one features rare pictures and new liner notes in the booklets housed in the special packaging.

There are also all of the non-album singles and EP tracks in two CDs, also digitally remastered. Then there are 13 documentaries about the making of every album featuring The Beatles and producer Sir George Martin in DVD. To top it off, these shorts with rare footage and dialogue are presented with subtitles in seven languages. And to keep the pirates away, there is a version that requires a special disc drive. Neat.

The quality of the recordings is simply astounding. The sound just leaps out of the speakers and you hear every little bit of the music. This is a great part of the listening process because The Beatles loved to play at the studio so you can hear all sorts of things that were lost in the original mixes. Everything is so clear and bright that you will really start to wonder how come some of your new CDs do not sound that way.

What I find most amazing of all though is the sense of history and appreciation for the work of the Beatles by the people who worked with them. The only way this set would have been possible was because the original recordings were very well-preserved. Did some engineer know he was on the verge of affecting the future of pop music while recording I Wanna Hold Your Hand by an unknown boy band from Liverpool? Maybe. Was there somebody in the studio already thinking of future technology beyond the mono console they were using? Maybe again.

Thanks to them, those who put together this boxed set had excellent materials to work with. You could also sense the love for the music, the effort to achieve perfection in the way the package is presented and the desire to tell everybody. “Hey these are the Beatles and they made great music.”

To end this piece, here’s wishing every Beatle fan in this world will soon have a copy of The Beatles.