So, after weeks of speculation and worrying rumours of "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" being inserted into the running order of this most iconic of albums, The Beatles' have released the track listing for the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 50th Anniversary Edition.




There will be a stand alone single CD version, a double CD deluxe version, and a super-deluxe 6 disc version in a box with a hardback book and other goodies. Needless to say, the 6 disc edition will be mine!

I'm relieved to see that, actually, they aren't going to insert "Strawberry Fields Forever" and "Penny Lane" -- which were recorded during the Pepper sessions, but which were issued as a stand alone single -- into the running order of the album. In fact, from the look of the published track listing, the two songs won't appear on the single disc version at all. The album will be a newly remixed stereo version, which I'm not sure how I feel about. The original George Martin stereo mix is perfectly fine -- I can't help thinking that this is just an ego trip for Giles Martin to try and improve on his father's work. Maybe that's mean of me, but that's kind of what I suspect.

Anyway, there's loads of previously unreleased outtakes from the sessions available on the 2CD and super-deluxe box set versions, which, for me, are the real selling points of this edition. Here's the link to the article on consequenceofsound.com and a full track listing below...

consequenceofsound.net/2017/04/the-beatles-to-release-massive-50th-anniversary-reissue-of-sgt-peppers-lonely-hearts-club-band/

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band Reissue Tracklist:

CD
(Sgt. Pepper 2017 Stereo Mix)
01. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
02. With A Little Help From My Friends
03. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds
04. Getting Better
05. Fixing A Hole
06. She’s Leaving Home
07. Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite!
08. Within You Without You
09. When I’m Sixty-Four
10. Lovely Rita
11. Good Morning Good Morning
12. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)
13. A Day In The Life


Deluxe [2CD, digital]
CD 1
Sgt. Pepper 2017 Stereo Mix

CD 2
01. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band [Take 9]
02. With A Little Help From My Friends [Take 1 – False Start And Take 2 – Instrumental]
03. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds [Take 1]
04. Getting Better [Take 1 – Instrumental And Speech At The End]
05. Fixing A Hole [Speech And Take 3]
06. She’s Leaving Home [Take 1 – Instrumental]
07. Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite! [Take 4]
08. Within You Without You [Take 1 – Indian Instruments]
09. When I’m Sixty-Four [Take 2]
10. Lovely Rita [Speech And Take 9]
11. Good Morning Good Morning [Take 8]
12. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) [Take 8]
13. A Day In The Life [Take 1 With Hummed Last Chord]
14. Strawberry Fields Forever [Take 7]
15. Strawberry Fields Forever [Take 26]
16. Strawberry Fields Forever [Stereo Mix – 2015]
17. Penny Lane [Take 6 – Instrumental]
18. Penny Lane [Stereo Mix – 2017]


Deluxe Vinyl
LP 1
Sgt. Pepper 2017 Stereo Mix

LP 2 (Complete early takes from the sessions in the same sequence as the album)
Side A
01. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band [Take 9 And Speech]
02. With A Little Help From My Friends [Take 1 – False Start And Take 2 – Instrumental]
03. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds [Take 1]
04. Getting Better [Take 1 – Instrumental And Speech At The End]
05. Fixing A Hole [Speech And Take 3]
06. She’s Leaving Home [Take 1 – Instrumental]
07. Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite! [Take 4]

Side B
01. Within You Without You [Take 1 – Indian Instruments]
02. When I’m Sixty-Four [Take 2]
03. Lovely Rita [Speech And Take 9]
04. Good Morning Good Morning [Take 8]
05. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) [Take 8]
06. A Day In The Life [Take 1 With Hummed Last Chord]


Super Deluxe [4CD/DVD/Blu-ray box set]
CD 1
Sgt. Pepper 2017 Stereo Mix

CD 2 (Complete early takes from the sessions, sequenced in chronological order of their first recording dates)
01. Strawberry Fields Forever [Take 1]
02. Strawberry Fields Forever [Take 4]
03. Strawberry Fields Forever [Take 7]
04. Strawberry Fields Forever [Take 26]
05. Strawberry Fields Forever [Stereo Mix – 2015]
06. When I’m Sixty-Four [Take 2]
07. Penny Lane [Take 6 – Instrumental]
08. Penny Lane [Vocal Overdubs And Speech]
09. Penny Lane [Stereo Mix – 2017]
10. A Day In The Life [Take 1]
11. A Day In The Life [Take 2]
12. A Day In The Life [Orchestra Overdub]
13. A Day In The Life (Hummed Last Chord) [Takes 8, 9, 10 and 11]
14. A Day In The Life (The Last Chord)
15. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band [Take 1 – Instrumental]
16. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band [Take 9 And Speech]
17. Good Morning Good Morning [Take 1 – Instrumental, Breakdown]
18. Good Morning Good Morning [Take 8]

CD 3 (Complete early takes from the sessions, sequenced in chronological order of their first recording dates)
01. Fixing A Hole [Take 1]
02. Fixing A Hole [Speech And Take 3]
03. Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite! [Speech From Before Take 1; Take 4 And Speech At End]
04. Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite! [Take 7]
05. Lovely Rita [Speech And Take 9]
06. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds [Take 1 And Speech At The End]
07. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds [Speech, False Start And Take 5]
08. Getting Better [Take 1 – Instrumental And Speech At The End]
09. Getting Better [Take 12]
10. Within You Without You [Take 1 – Indian Instruments Only]
11. Within You Without You [George Coaching The Musicians]
12. She’s Leaving Home [Take 1 – Instrumental]
13. She’s Leaving Home [Take 6 – Instrumental]
14. With A Little Help From My Friends [Take 1 – False Start And Take 2 – Instrumental]
15. Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise) [Speech And Take 8]

CD 4 (Sgt. Pepper and bonus tracks in Mono)
1-13: 2017 Direct Transfer of Sgt. Pepper Original Mono Mix
14. Strawberry Fields Forever [Original Mono Mix]
15. Penny Lane [Original Mono Mix]
16. A Day In The Life [Unreleased First Mono Mix]
17. Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds [Unreleased Mono Mix – No. 11]
18. She’s Leaving Home [Unreleased First Mono Mix]
19. Penny Lane [Capitol Records U.S. Promo Single – Mono Mix]

DISCS 5 & 6 (Blu-ray & DVD)
Audio Features (both discs):
– New 5.1 Surround Audio mixes of ‘Sgt. Pepper’ album and “Penny Lane,” plus 2015 5.1 Surround mix of “Strawberry Fields Forever” (Blu-ray: DTS HD Master Audio 5.1, Dolby True HD 5.1 / DVD: DTS Dolby Digital 5.1)
– High Resolution Audio versions of 2017 ‘Sgt. Pepper’ stereo mix and 2017 “Penny Lane” stereo mix, plus 2015 “Strawberry Fields Forever” hi res stereo mix (Blu-ray: LPCM Stereo 96KHz/24bit / DVD: LPCM Stereo)
Video Features (both discs):
– The Making of Sgt. Pepper [restored 1992 documentary film, previously unreleased]
– Promotional Films: “A Day In The Life;” “Strawberry Fields Forever;” “Penny Lane” [4K restored]

Oh yes, keep your original stereo mix CD.

I notice that neither the original stereo or mono mixes are on this 50th Anniversary edition. That's a shame and it's also a bit of a shame that they haven't seen fit to include the long sought after track "Carnival of Light", which The Beatles created for a psychedelic show at the Roundhouse in Camden in January 1967. I guess that ultimately, although it fits the time frame of these sessions, "Carnival of Light" was never intended to be part of the Sgt. Pepper album, so I can understand why they wouldn't include it. But leaving it off the box set does look a bit like a missed opportunity.

Nobody outside of The Beatles' inner circle, a select few E.M.I. employees, authors Mark Lewisohn and Barry Miles, and anyone who was at the event at the Roundhouse have ever heard it. It's never been bootlegged or anything.

Edit: "Carnival of Light" was slated to appear on the Anthology 2 album, but George Harrison apparently vetoed it because he thought it was rubbish. To be fair, the Beatles had unerringly good judgement when it came to what they released and what they didn't: there's nothing that was left in the tape archive that was better than the songs that were released in the '60s. They and George Martin always chose the best take of a particular song to release too. So, I can quite believe that "Carnival of Light", which is apparently closer to an avant-garde sound collage than an actual song, is pretty dire. But I still want to hear it!

I quite agree that some of the early takes sound great, but the finished versions are even better. All of the band's unreleased songs (as opposed to outtake versions of songs which were released) are substandard, in my view. As you say, the Beatles for Sale "lost" song, "Leave My Kitten Alone", is really lacklustre and dull, while the Help! sessions' "If You've Got Trouble" and "That Means a Lot" are both really, really sub-standard Lennon/McCartney songs.

The one that really blows my mind though, is "What's the New Mary Jane". Recorded during the White Album sessions, this slice of Lennon and Ono weirdness was forever being announced as, or talked about in interviews as, the Beatles' next single, all the way through 1969. Thankfully, it never was released (until 1996's Anthology 3). Can you imagine living in a world where this song was actually seriously offered up as a new Beatles single in 1969? Just imagine it had come out in May '69 instead of "The Ballad of John & Yoko", with Harrison's "Old Brown Shoe" on the B-side. That would've done irreparable damage to the Beatles' reputation, I think.

Found this recent YouTube upload and it's hysterical. 

Supposedly John Lennon invited a bunch of his friends back to his apartment after a session working on his final album, Double Fantasy.
He and his buddies started a sing-a-long in the living room consisting of Paul McCartney Wings songs. John always taped his home sessions and it's finally out




It's a great fake

There is a one-page write up in the latest Rolling Stone regarding the upcoming Sgt Pepper box set. it gives a description of about 5 of the unreleased early versions of the songs you'll hear. It goes on to say that it has been in the works for close to 2 years, especially on the new stereo mix, and George Martin was involved with it before he passed away. George Martin's son recounts that when the original album was under production, the Beatles and George Martin spent weeks on the mono mix and the stereo version was a rushed afterthought without the group's involvement.

That's quite a surprise to me since stereo at that time (1967) was on the brink of being the dominant format. In fact, in the U.S. at that time, the stereo version of the LP cost an extra dollar versus the mono version. Or is George Martin's son, who was not there at that time, just drumming up legitimacy for his own involvement?

I'm immediately suspiscious of this. George Martin's ears had been shot for a long time by the final years of his life -- that's why he had no involvement with the 2009 Beatles remasters or 2000's 1 album. In fact, there are those of the opinion that Martin's deteriorating hearing was one of the reasons that the original Beatles CDs from 1987 sounded so flat and lacking in bottom end. I wouldn't go quite that far, but, by his own admission, Martin's hearing had deteriorated to the point where he could no longer work as a producer by the early '90s.

This comment of Giles Martin's is, I suspect, just some cynical ploy to give the new remix some kind of legitimacy. I've no doubt that Giles discussed the remix with his father before his death and, depending on exactly when work on it started, may've even played him some of his rough mixes, but no way did George Martin have any substantial input into this new remix, other than having created the original stereo mix back in 1967, of course.




I feel like we've discussed this before in this thread, but maybe I'm mis-remembering. Anyway, essentially there's a lot of revisionist boll***s talked about the Beatles' mono & stereo mixes -- especially where Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is concerned. There's a vague insinuation from some that the band didn't consider the stereo versions of their mid-'60s albums to be the proper versions of those records, which is utter rubbish.

Yes, it's true that George Martin and the band spent much longer mixing the mono version of Pepper than he did the stereo, but this was partially because once the album had been mixed into mono a lot of the creative decisions about the mix had already been made because the band and producer now had a mix that "worked". The mono mix would then be used as a reference for the stereo mix -- hence why the Beatles weren't present for the stereo mixing session for Sgt. Pepper. There was simply no need for them to be there because Martin wasn't actually trying to make two distinct versions of the album; both the stereo and mono mixes were intended to sound the same or as close to the same as they possibly could.

Also, let's not forget that the reverse situation occured during the mixing of the Beatles' previous album, Revolver. Martin spent much longer on mixing the stereo version of that album than he did the mono, again because once the stereo mixes were done, Martin had them as a template for his mono mix. Make no mistake, the mono and stereo versions of the band's mid-60s albums were both equally legitimate versions of their albums.

For my money, the stereo mix of Sgt. Pepper is superior to the mono. Of course, I realise that that's an entirely subjective opinion, but to my ears the crossfades are smoother, the balance of instruments is more dynamic, and the music just has more room to breathe. I'll admit that there are a few instances where the mono mix has the edge -- like the psychedelic phasing on John Lennon's lead vocal in "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" that is all but absent from the stereo mix -- but for the most part, I think the stereo version is the stronger of the two. Ditto with Rubber Soul, Revolver and the White Album.

The other thing to say is that, yes Ish, you're absolutely right that by mid-1967 stereo mixes were widely becoming the preferred format within the music industry and within another couple of years, mono mixes would be a thing of the past. In fact, I know from several old hippies who were there when Sgt. Pepper came out, that the follow-up question to, "Hey, have you heard the new Beatles' album? It's amazing!" was, "Yeah, but have you heard it in stereo?". To the hip, pot smoking "heads" and hi-fi buffs of the late '60s, there was no doubt that the stereo version was the version of the record to own.

As for the four band members and Martin, to the best my knowledge, only George Harrison ever expressed any preference for the mono versions of their mid-60s albums. None of the others have ever really given an opinion one way or the other, as far as I know. So yeah, though it might sound unkind of me, this is, at best, just Giles Martin attempting to legitimise his own involvement with the remixing of Pepper, and at worst, the new stereo remix is nothing more than a massive ego trip for Martin Jr. to try and improve on his father's work.

Personally, I'm really looking forward to the 50th anniversary Sgt. Pepper set for the two CDs of outtakes and alternate versions, not for the new stereo mix. We already had a perfectly good stereo mix of the album -- the one George Martin did back in the day.