BEATLES - HELP! (180GM) VINYL

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For years the most anticipated vinyl reissues have been from the one, the only Beatles catalog. Finally, after a delay due to the meticulousness of the remastering process and asso rted other hurdles, that day has come. The Beatles catalog is getting the audiophile treatment! 180-gram vinyl pressings cut at Abbey Road Studios using the non-limited 24-bit digital masters sourced from the original master tapes! Help! was the soundtrack to the Beatles' second feature film. But more than that, the 1965 soundtrack helped carve out new musical directions for the band and served up dramatic strides in production technology. Help! explored a tumultuous emotional bill of fare: Estrangement, sexual longing, uncertainty, infatuation and innocence. The group pounced on armada of available instruments — acoustic guitars, bongos, electric pianos, flutes and even strings — to deliver one of the greatest pop albums ever. And now it sounds bloody brilliant! For its Beatles' Stereo Albums series on LP, Capitol/Apple turned to a crack team of engineers to remaster Help! from the original sources. The team, including Guy Massey, Steve Rooke and Sam Okell with Paul Hicks and Sean Magee undertook a four-year restoration process for the LP versions, combining state-of-the-art equipment, vintage studio gear and rigorous testing to meet the highest fidelity standards and produce authentic unsurpassed sound rivaling the original LPs. There is no longer any need to pay hundreds of dollars for Japanese pressings! Yes, that means the timeless poignancy of "Yesterday" comes across with truly unimaginable heartbreaking sincerity. It means that the volume pedal George Harrison uses for the first time on "I Need You" and "Yes It Is" is fully discernible. It means that you can hear the woody cavity of he back of the acoustic Gibson guitar Ringo beats to add percussion to "I Need You." And yes, the fuzz-pedal bass track Paul McCartney added to the original on "Think for Yourself" — his first overdub on record — is preeminent. As is the soulfulness of the falsetto voices. The advances in sonics were largely made possible by new Studer J-37 four-track recorders. Not only does this new LP pressing present these enhancements like never before, it adds to our enjoyment and insight of the music, allowing listeners to, in a sense, get as close to what went down as possible. So, at the 1:10 mark of "I Need You," the moment when Lennon hits the rim of the snare drum comes alive, the happy accident possessing the same amount of body, richness, detail, and depth as the rest of the landmark music on this set. Capitol has outdone itself. Show more