Meet The Beatles - last copy!

End of week, one more week left in the month and we are back with what might be the last part in the Beatles story where it began for the United States with what was the first issued album and unlike in the UK Stereo and mono copies were available immediately as the United States had a higher take up of stereo systems than the UK.

Pop records in the U.K. were generally the province of teenagers with shoe box mono portable record players.

It was common place to cut pop records with more an eye to avoiding any issues with cheap equipment with returns to shops and that tended to show with less "top" and limited bass and this was very much the case in the United States so cheap players wouldn't skip the groove.

As time went on, the records would be recut to higher standards but what was on your record was  often a matter of what "Stampers" somebody in the pressing plant "pulled" when more discs needed pressing.

By the late 1970's overall you'd stand a chance of getting an okay copy, okay compared with the U.K. With The Beatles but not that great.

That's where this, the last recut version comes in as by now fair more detail had made it so it was cleaner than any previous version just as the Beatles were to come to Compact Disc with titles from the UK catalogue

The front cover was based on the UK With The Beatles cover with a bluey tint becoming black towards the end with the title bodly showing at the top so it could be spotted easily in the shop record racks at a distance.

The rear cover was an attempt to explain by way of an essay who and where these "Beatles" came from and talks about their upcoming appearence on the must see Ed Sullivan popular entertainment show on CBS Tv.

I have had a number of copies over the decades, from a early 80's Purple label one to 2024's mono reissue but this is the 1986 edit that was only out for about 18 months at the most from the last new cutting.

The iconic "Rainbow Rim" label returned with the text newly typeset which was common feature of many 80's Capitol releases.

This copy sounds as good as can, featuring the the new single and it's U.K .and U.S. which for some of takes us more back to those times than the british With The Beatles album regardless of that albums technical superiority.