Monday, February 28, 2011

Beatles Rarity Of The Week – Penny Lane (mono mix RM10)

Beatles Rarity Of The Week – Penny Lane (mono mix RM10)

Beatles Rarity Of The Week – Penny Lane (mono mix RM10)

Posted: 28 Feb 2011 05:14 AM PST

Welcome to the Beatles Rarity of the Week. Back in 1967, pop and rock singles were released in mono. Stereophonic sound, as a general rule anyway, was limited to LPs. On December 8th of that year, the six Magical Mystery Tour film songs were released to vinyl as a double EP set in the UK. Since EPs did not usually sell well in the US, Capitol Records opted to create a full Magical Mystery Tour album by adding five 1967 singles tracks to these six songs to fill it out. For three of these five singles tracks (Penny Lane, Baby You're A Rich Man and All You Need Is Love), Capitol had no stereo mixes of the songs on hand and used the mono mixes to create 'fake stereo' mixes of these songs for the stereo edition of the album. This is no longer an acceptable practice but was fairly common in those days. The US album was issued on November 22, 1967. The current 2009 remastered CD edition of Magical Mystery Tour (as well as the original 1987 issued CD) has true stereo mixes on all tracks.

Another common practice that was done then and is still done today, is the issuance of a promo single to be issued to radio and other media outlets to play and create public awareness of new releases, so that sells will be better once they are in the stores. In the case of the Penny Lane single (commercially released on Feb. 13, 1967 as a double A-sided disc b/w Strawberry Fields Forever), the promo single issued in the US and Canada contained an earlier mono mix of the song than the mix heard on the commercial release. This mix (known as mix RM11) featured a trumpet overdub over the ending of the song that was shaved off of later mixes, including the mix heard on the commercial single and the Magical Mystery Tour EP set in the UK and LP in the US. For a 1980 US compilation by Capitol, titled The Beatles Rarities, a forged stereo mix of this version was created by editing in the trumpet riff ending on a newer stereo mix of the song, however this Rarities LP was never released on CD and is now long out of print. Follow this link for more info and this Rarities versions and even another earlier mix of Penny Lane.

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