The Beatles Mono Box Set

For most of The Beatles career mono was the way that most people listened back to their albums, thus it made sense for the band and it's producers to focus their time and energy on the mono mixes of their songs.

Up until the band stopped mixing their songs in mono altogether (for their last three albums) they spent considerably more time on the mono mixes than they did on the stereo mixes. This is why a lot of hardcore Beatles fanatics think that these mono mixes are the "true" versions of The Beatles songs.

But it's not just a matter of purity, many have claimed that the mono mixes flat out sound better than the stereo mixes. This is because more time was spent on perfecting the mono mixes and also because stereo mixing was in it's infancy in the 1960s so a lot of The Beatles stereo mixes are quite weird sounding. Particularly when listening on headphones.

The Beatles Mono Box Set

On 9/9/9 The Beatles first 10 albums are going to be released in their original mono mixes on CD for the first time as a part of the limited edition Beatles Mono CD Box Set. These CDs are only included as a part of this box set and will not be available for individual purchase (only the remastered stereo mixes will be available individually.)

The band's last three albums (Yellow Submarine, Let It Be, & Abbey Road) are not included because there were never mono mixes made for those albums as by 1969 mono had been totally "phased out" and stereo was the standard.

There is a 2 CD set called Mono Masters which is included as a part of the box set. This is a mono mix version of the Past Masters set (which will be included in the Remastered Stereo Box Set.) It includes the original mono mixes for every song which had a mono mix done of it and which was never included on any of The Beatles albums.

Magical Mystery Tour

There's some controversy over the inclusion of Magical Mystery Tour as one of The Beatles "studio albums" because it was originally released in the UK in 1967 as an EP. The "album" version that is now included on CD and which is a part of both of the box sets was "cobbled together" for release in the US. It includes "Strawberry Fields Forever" & "Penny Lane" even though they had been released on a single about a year previously.

In 1976 the album version of Magical Mystery Tour was released in the UK because many people were importing it from the US. And when The Beatles catalog was put on CD in 1987, it was included as a part of their official UK catalog even though all of the other US LP versions were discarded.