I ordered Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band's Between My Head and the Sky from Amazon.com a few days before the release date but it would still take a week after the release date to get it. I'm not sure why. Shouldn't a new release ship at least the day of release and even if it's sent Media Mail, it should arrive within a week. But this was sent first class(?).
Anyone familiar with the Plastic Ono Band might expect the album to rock and it does. Although there is only one original member, the POB was never meant to be a band with the same members with each release. It's first releases were two albums, one with lead singer Yoko Ono, the other with lead singer John Lennon. The next release was John and Yoko, alternating tracks with an entirely different band (Elephants Memory). They were billed as the Plastic Ono Elephants Memory Band (Poem Band).
Yoko is probably best known in music as the maker of the disco punk beat classic "Walking on Thin Ice". Several remixes have been released and they always go straight to the top of the dance charts. It's the only "bar song" I know of that actually has puking in it. (Oh yeah, and some people think she is responsible for breaking up the Beatles.)
The album is a little trippier than I expected. It's not quite as hard core grunge rock as Ima, another pairing of Yoko and John's and her son Sean Lennon. One song evokes that album with almost a sequel, "Ask the Elephant" is like 'son of "Ask the Dragon"' from the Ima Album. Yes, this whole album is more like an Ima album than a Plastic Ono album.
"I'm Going Away Smiling" sounds more like one of the later John and Yoko albums. Was there a song "Mrs Lennon"? I don't seem to have it, maybe on video.
Between My Head and the Sky is a sonically pleasing album. This is not generally what I'm looking for in an album, but it might just rock enough to keep me interested. And hey, it's me too. I'm alive.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
The Beatles.wma
I'm not too sure how this works, so bear with me here.
I'll admit I've got more versions of Beatle songs than a person needs. I had all the eighties CDs but bought the Capitol sets for the sonic improvements. There was a lot of echo added (or was it reverb? One or the other, maybe both). And there was that cool false start on the stereo "I'm Looking Through You".
I ordered the Mono box set when I heard Amazon had sold out of them. I couldn't bear the thought of not being able to get one later if I decided I had to have it.
On 9/9/9, I was going to buy the stereo albums not included in the mono set at my local music store. In the next few days I ended up going back until I had them all. Hey. the stereo versions are what I wanted to begin with.
So I loaded the stereo versions on my PC so I could listen to them on my zune. And when I get my mono versions, I can click back and forths to hear the differences. I'm not going to miss out, I'm plugging the discs into my car player to hear the full quality.
So, when the mono set arrived, I started copying them to my PC.
They are copying down like normal. But when I switched to Library, a few of the discs loaded as "The Beatles Mono Box Set". Of the discs that did not use the box title, only the first track seemed to be there. Looking at the download date, only the first song downloaded.
But...., listening to the tracks, they sound mono. The mono tracks appear to have over-written the stereo tracks but did not change the date.
As I started this page, I'm not sure how this works. Some kind of space/time continuem thing, no doubt.
I'll admit I've got more versions of Beatle songs than a person needs. I had all the eighties CDs but bought the Capitol sets for the sonic improvements. There was a lot of echo added (or was it reverb? One or the other, maybe both). And there was that cool false start on the stereo "I'm Looking Through You".
I ordered the Mono box set when I heard Amazon had sold out of them. I couldn't bear the thought of not being able to get one later if I decided I had to have it.
On 9/9/9, I was going to buy the stereo albums not included in the mono set at my local music store. In the next few days I ended up going back until I had them all. Hey. the stereo versions are what I wanted to begin with.
So I loaded the stereo versions on my PC so I could listen to them on my zune. And when I get my mono versions, I can click back and forths to hear the differences. I'm not going to miss out, I'm plugging the discs into my car player to hear the full quality.
So, when the mono set arrived, I started copying them to my PC.
They are copying down like normal. But when I switched to Library, a few of the discs loaded as "The Beatles Mono Box Set". Of the discs that did not use the box title, only the first track seemed to be there. Looking at the download date, only the first song downloaded.
But...., listening to the tracks, they sound mono. The mono tracks appear to have over-written the stereo tracks but did not change the date.
As I started this page, I'm not sure how this works. Some kind of space/time continuem thing, no doubt.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
The Beatles' New Sound
While listening to the Beatles' new mono box set, I started thinking it might be nice to list the differences between the mono set recordings and the stereo recordings.
I read somewhere that most likely people will begin listening to the tracks and hearing things that they did not hear before, even things that were already there. I've heard one instance of this already. In a Beatles Remixers Group, someone said that in the mono Taxman, Paul bass starts going nuts starting at the line "If you drive a car ...". Suprise, it's on your eighties version too.
The most obvious difference is there is no return from the fadeout on Helter Skelter and no "I've got blisters on my fingers!" That doesn't hardly seem right.
The first time I heard the mono "She's Leaving Home" I was suprised at how diferent it sounded, much faster. The whole Sgt Pepper album itself was the most different. The transition from the title track to "With a Little Help From My Friends" seems awkward, not as smooth and you can barely hear the "Billy Shears ..." line. The Sgt Pepper Reprise chicken sound that starts the song is different. The crowd noises fade in and out.
The mono versions were supposed to be the versions we grew up with, but for Americans, they are not. That would be the Capitol Albums releases. But I got so used to listening to the UK versions on CD that the Capitol Album sound strange to me.
I'm ready for the remixes now. I just hope they don't go nuts with it. Actually I'm more ready for Let it Be, the Delux Blu-ray edition. Or, Magical Mystery Tour, the Delux Blu-ray edition. Or, at least, give me Beatles 1, the promotional videos.
I read somewhere that most likely people will begin listening to the tracks and hearing things that they did not hear before, even things that were already there. I've heard one instance of this already. In a Beatles Remixers Group, someone said that in the mono Taxman, Paul bass starts going nuts starting at the line "If you drive a car ...". Suprise, it's on your eighties version too.
The most obvious difference is there is no return from the fadeout on Helter Skelter and no "I've got blisters on my fingers!" That doesn't hardly seem right.
The first time I heard the mono "She's Leaving Home" I was suprised at how diferent it sounded, much faster. The whole Sgt Pepper album itself was the most different. The transition from the title track to "With a Little Help From My Friends" seems awkward, not as smooth and you can barely hear the "Billy Shears ..." line. The Sgt Pepper Reprise chicken sound that starts the song is different. The crowd noises fade in and out.
The mono versions were supposed to be the versions we grew up with, but for Americans, they are not. That would be the Capitol Albums releases. But I got so used to listening to the UK versions on CD that the Capitol Album sound strange to me.
I'm ready for the remixes now. I just hope they don't go nuts with it. Actually I'm more ready for Let it Be, the Delux Blu-ray edition. Or, Magical Mystery Tour, the Delux Blu-ray edition. Or, at least, give me Beatles 1, the promotional videos.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
