Thursday 22 October 2015

Hello Goodbye #1



Today's free video by The Beatles is a version of "Hello Goodbye". Directed by Paul McCartney at the Saville theatre in London, three different videos were made on the 10th of November 1967. Film no. 1 saw the Beatles dressed up in their Sgt Pepper uniforms, and Ringo's drum kit was rather small. For film no. 2 they wore their everyday clothes, and film no 3 was put together of outtakes from the first two, with the Beatles hamming it up for the camera. Here's a snippet of film no. 3, courtesy of the Beatles' own YouTube channel:



All three of these will be published as part of the Beatles 1+ package. Videos 1 and 2 are quite commonly found, thanks to having been aired more frequently on TV. Number 1 was shown on Norwegian TV once in the eighties.
Video no. 2 was distributed to TV stations when the Red and Blue albums were released on CD for the first time, in 1993.
Apple also made a fourth version in the nineties, which was shown on the Anthology TV series. This was merely video no. 1 until the coda, then it switched to footage from video no. 3. For some reason, the Anthology edit also rendered the opening footage of the film in black and white.

The third full length video will be released by Mashable, and the two remaining ones by other outlets.

Tuesday 20 October 2015

Official Revolution video



Today, the full video of "Revolution", directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg was published on YouTube and Vevo. This is the first of five full length music videos to be published as promotion for the upcoming new editions of Beatles 1 and the DeLuxe Beatles 1+.
"Revolution" was filmed in tandem with "Hey Jude" on Wednesday 4 September 1968 at Twickenham film studios. Whereas "Hey Jude" was introduced by David Frost to be part of his television programme Frost on Sunday, "Revolution" was filmed to act as a music video to promote John's side of the single. There were three versions of "Hey Jude" and two of "Revolution" recorded and filmed. The songs all had live vocals on top of pre-recorded elements, a method that may have been inspired by the "All You Need Is Love" session for the satellite broadcast of "Our World". As a result of this, the audio tracks to the finished versions of each video are all unique and haven't previously been released in an official capacity.

The version of "Revolution" featured here is the one where it looks like George is saying to Paul, "John smells like sh*t!"

The Beatles arrived at the studios at 1.30pm and worked until evening.  For the "Revolution" clips, Paul McCartney performed the scream during the introduction, and the 'shoo-be doo-wop' backing vocals were ad-libbed from the slower, then-unreleased "Revolution 1".

The only contemporary UK screening of the "Revolution" clip was on the BBC's "Top Of The Pops" on Thursday 19 September.

Long time Beatles video collector and expert Steve Shorten informs us that when he watched this side-by-side with the original clip, he noticed some changes. In addition to trimming the beginning and end of the clip, a roughly 10-second segment of alternate footage has been inserted into the original edit of the promo at around the 1:30 mark. Shorten suspects we will be seeing several other changes of this nature throughout the disc(s).

As far as the sound is concerned, this is a new mono mix, with Nicky Hopkins' piano track added. It's a well known fact that John Lennon preferred the mono "Revolution", he didn't like the stereo mix which they released on "the blue album", Beatles 1967-1970. So it seems they have honoured his wish. Or perhaps they never had the live vocals taped separately, they may have only been recorded as part of the full mix including the backing track. Back in 1992 when Ron Furmanek remastered and remixed the promo videos for the first time, he also went with mono for "Revolution".

The next video is coming up in two days, on 22 October.

Thursday 8 October 2015

Restoration of The Beatles 1 Collection



The Beatles' YouTube account has premiered episode 1 in a series of 5 about the restoration and remastering/remixing of the 2015 "Beatles 1" and "Beatles 1+".

Wednesday 7 October 2015

McCartney's collaborations

Say Say Say 2015 remix


Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson 'Say Say Say [2015 Remix]'
Song taken from 'Pipes of Peace 2015 Remaster' - video finished too late to make it to the DVD.
This video was directed by Ryan Heffington