Why Listen to The Beatles in Mono: Perks of Owning Your Music

Listening to The Beatles in Mono is a story of owning your music and why I don't like Spotify.

Everyone has their own way of listening their music but once you like an artist a little more than usual, you try to find different versions of their work. For Taylor Swift fans it maybe the Taylor's version songs compared to the original recordings. For Beatles fans there are a LOT of choices , from LP releases from 1980s, bootleg takes and yes, the coveted Mono mixes.

Background

The Beatles recorded from the 11 February 1963 to 20th August 1969. Now given the the time period, they were in the middle of a lot of technological innovations in the music industry. With them being the biggest act in the world, they had unparalleled access with all the money in the world to play around with.

Around the same time the term Stereo started popping allowing people to listen to music the way it is meant to with two separate audio tracks corresponding to each ear. The trade off was that this required a separate mix and a more expensive pressing process not to mention more expensive players. All these factors made stereo a more premium format at the time.

Some artists saw this as vehicle to experiment and challenge themselves. groups like The Beach Boys did layered vocals and instrumentals in their ground breaking album Pet Sounds. The Beatles also dabbled in this with their Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Present Times

Now when you go on Spotify or any streaming service you will most likely only find the stereo mixes of the originals. Most big artists whose master tapes are well preserved have gone back to remix the songs to a stereo mix for modern audiences.

But there is a secret at least when it comes to the Beatles, almost all of the stereo mixes were not supervised by The Beatles. While Beatles always were the ones for experimenting with new tools, this was not a priority making the Mono mixes the closest to "artistic intention". Even ignoring the complaints by the band members, you only have to listen to some of the Sgt Peppers songs with one earbud in to realize the problem.

This has been a running jokes for fans for over 50 years that you can find skits like this making fun of it.

The Stereo mixes are for the most part the producers putting vocals on one side and filliping each sound effect from one ear to the other. This makes for a rather distracting listening experience.

Worst Offenders:

I am not going to go through every single song that I could complain about, but I thought I'd share two of my standouts.

And Your Bird Can Sing is a highlight of the Revolver Album. The main attraction for me is the guitars which gives its whole vibe. But in the stereo the rhythm guitar is mushed in the background and hard to make out during most of the chorus and the first half. Compared to the mono mix where you can clearly hear all the instruments including the cool bass line more clearly and distinctly without drowning the voice. For myself I have the CDs for both mixes, and with the release of the deluxe editions finally it is on Spotify as well. Around 37 seconds, This is shown more where the rhythm part is drowned out by the vocals in the stereo mix. It is crazy you can hear more clarity in the the mono mixes compared to stereo which technically has more space for separation.

I think the problem still stands because the main song that shows up when you search this anywhere is the stereo mix and most people will never find the mono mix. One of the reasons I choose to own the CDs rather than stream the Beatles.

Magical Mystery Tour

This has to be one of the worst one for me because the song has so much going on every second. The brass, vocals and drums are so great. But again the vocals switching sides and only hearing one instrument only one side is distracting and gives an overall bad mix. It is more problematic when the panning happens middle of a chorus where you can tell the instrument is moving.

Also something to note are the adlibs that sounds alien in the stereo. The mono every voice sounds the same loudness and melts together without overpowering.

Conclusion

The later Beatles albums have been better on stereo like Abby Road, but if you want the best listening experience for Albums like Revolver and Rubber Soul, the Mono mix is the way to go. Some of the mixes are not even available on Spotify which is really annoying. You can search on YouTube or find a used CD. If you are a regular listener of the Beatles I think it makes all the sense in the world to ditch the stereo mixes from your daily life. If you own the CDs you can use your Jellyfin server to listen to these music from anywhere. Owning your data gives more choice on what you listen to and how you listen to them.

Check out my wiki on how I installed Jellyfin to stream movies and music from a 100$ palm size ARM computer.

Thanks for reading!

Citations:

Gould, Jonathan (2007). Can't Buy Me Love: The Beatles, Britain and America. New York: Three Rivers Press.

Abbey Road Deluxe Edition Booklet

Forrest, Ben. “George Harrison Explains What Ruined the Beatles Sound.” Far Out Magazine, 15 June 2024, faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-technical-innovation-george-harrison-said-ruined-the-beatles-sound/.