They should just get to the point and call them “Beatles for Dummies”.
Ever since their announcement, the recently released CD remasters of the Beatles’ studio albums have caused great excitement amongst the musical community. Selling out in countless stores within hours, few CD releases have received this much hype, and the countless positive reviews and remarks have secured that this hype will not die down any time soon. However, after purchasing and listening to them myself, I cannot help but question why they have been received so positively. I can understand the sales and commercial success, but the critical reception still manages to baffle me.
The main issue with them is the complete lack of subtlety present in the songs. In order to make all of the parts to the songs more noticeable, they have seriously reduced the gap in volume between the different instruments, making things like bass or piano much louder, and quieting up things like vocals and electric guitar. However, it’s not exactly like these parts were not noticeable before: if you actually paid attention to the songs, you could very easily notice them… they just weren’t overpowering or in-your-face, like the remasters have made them. Now that these parts have been brought to the foreground, they have lost all of the subtlety that has made them so beautiful: when everything’s obvious, it leaves no layers for you to discover, and no depth to the song. A nice piano in the background that you can hear slightly if you listen for it gives a much better support to a song than an overpowering piano that jumps out at you. Having every instrument be the main feature is a horrible decision for these remasters, as there is now nothing in the background to support the music.
Now, it makes sense that these masters would be very commercially successful. By making every part in the song obvious, casual listeners are now noticing things they didn’t notice before, and the songs are sounding better to them. However, this almost makes the remasters basically “Beatles for Dummies: the recordings for people who don’t want to bother listening too hard”. Everything that people are noticing now has always been there, and if you listen for it, you can hear it in the old masters, so these ‘new discoveries’ are mostly from lazy listeners who need things to jump at them before they can notice them.
Exactly what I don’t understand is the critical praise these masters have gotten. For someone taking the time to listen to an album enough to review it, the remasters are simply too weak and two-dimensional to satisfy. It’s like taking an orchestra, and telling every instrument to play the exact same volume, regardless of what part they have, and is not something that should receive any props from critics. Maybe there’s something I’m just not getting here, but I just do not think these remasters deserve any consideration from serious Beatles fans.