Christmas edition

Christmas for me includes things like teddy bears  and here's a picture of one

Happy Christmas people.

The Beatles CD EP collection

I remember buying this must of been 2007 but actually I had owed on vinyl a number of these titles such as Yesterday which I got in December 1979 and Extracts from the film "A Hard Day's Night" in March of 1980 as I loved the covers and the mono mixes.

This is collection is a little dear but is strongly recommended for it's sound quality.
Basically it comprises of 13 original EP's re-issued on CD and the 1981 bonus disc from that years vinyl EP collection.
Because nearly all the EP's were only issued in mono that's how most of the EP's are presented.
For a variety of reasons including tape head misalignment, use of stereo tape equipment to play mono tapes and primitive analogue to digital mastering equipment, the 1987 CD versions of Please Please Me, With The Beatles, A Hard day's Night and Beatles for Sale had very poor sounding mono sound (and no stereo).
This set contains 12 of the 14 tracks from the UK Please Please Me album including Misery and There's A Place in high quality mono.
From With The Beatles only Money and All My Loving are featured.
8 out of the 13 songs from A Hard Day's Night are featured on two dedicated CD's as are 8 of the 14 from Beatles For Sale.
This set is currently only one of two only official sources of Yesterday, Act Naturally, It's Only Love, You Like Me Too Much, Nowhere Man, Michelle and two other tracks from the UK Rubber soul and Help albums in mono (the other being the 2009 limited edition "The Beatles in Mono" box set which is a lot more expensive).
This EP set contains Magical Mystery Tour, which originally was only issued as a double EP set on vinyl in mono and stereo.
The stereo version has different mixes compared to the 1971 mix done for the German market which was issued in 1987 on CD all around the world.
I would have to say it sounds very good with lots of presence and is to be preferred over the '87 CD.
It has the original mono versions which otherwise are not available and has the 24 page booklet which the CD issue dispensed with too. Grrr!
The bonus stereo CD: The stereo version of She's A Woman has the “one, two three four” count in missed out on the version on the Past Masters 1 CD, This Boy sounds a lot fuller and Baby You're A Rich Man from Magical Mystery Tour album sounds much better.
I'd recommend this set to anybody looking for good mono sound and the best Magical Mystery Tour you can get.

*Text updated Sept 2009 by Caro

Record buying and me

Today I've been looking though both my pocket notebooks and my published lists on a certain website of all my music purchases so far this year and it's really so amazingly addictive this really is.
There are a lot of reasons why compared to many people I buy so much one being the breadth of my music likes, I don't just care for say one artist or one style and often when I'm into a artist I am also in deep into whole catalogues.
So for instance I have complete 70's and 80's album catalogues by people like David Bowie, Paul McCartney and Abba where many might have perhaps the odd compilation and a favourite studio album.
Another reason I spent so much is because over the years some of the records and especially cd issues of albums were not the best sounding ones, just what either I could find or afford and since joining last year one music site, I have learned a lot about how recordings are put out on record and  cd and critically why it is sometimes I've felt disappointed with how they've sounded.
This had lead me to spend a lot of money on sourcing better replacements both new but increasingly used.
My original buying habits in my teens were more 45 orientated outside of 'evergreens' and albums bought by  family and friends so I've also been discovering the albums or artists where my collections have been historically 45's