09: Christmas Comes Early For Superfans Of The Beatles

On 9/9/9 new remastered mixes for each of the 13 original UK studio albums that The Beatles recorded in the 1960s will be coming out.

In 1987 when The Beatles first released their albums in the CD format, the technology was still new. The mastering job done on those CDs is considered sub par and that’s why Beatles fans have long been clamoring for remastered CDs.

But the excitement from 9/9/9 doesn’t just come from the fact that the albums are being remastered for the first time since their original release on CD, it also comes from the mono box set that is being released on that day.

This will be the first time ever that the original mono mixes of all of The Beatles albums (at least those that had an original mono mix) are going to be released on CD.

Why should we care about mono mixes in 2009? Isn’t this an outdated way of listening to music? Well certainly nobody is mixing in mono these days, but it is worth hearing these original mixes because that’s how the albums were originally intended to be heard.

The mono mixes are what The Beatles (along with the bands producers and engineers) were mainly focused on. The stereo mixes were done as an after thought with little (if any) input from the band, while the mono mixes were worked on until they were considered to be perfect.

Some claim that the mono versions of Sgt. Pepper & Revolver are far better than the stereo mixes. Those of us who grew up with the stereo versions find that hard to believe, but I think we are very curious to hear what these old timers are talking about, too.

The new Beatles Rock Band game also comes out on 9/9/9. I’m not a huge video game guy but I do love the Rock Band games, they are fun. And the Beatles game should really take it to the next level.

The “instruments” for the game even look like the real Beatles instruments (check out Ringo’s drums!) This will the first Rock Band game which allows for harmony singing (with three microphones you can actually do three part harmonies!)