Meet the Beatles...Again

Beatlemaniacs who grew up listening to the Americanized version of the Fab Four's recordings will be able to get back to where they once belonged.

Capitol Records has announced plans to issue a box set on Nov. 16 comprised of The Beatles' first four albums as they originally sounded when they hit the U.S. market back in 1964.

The Capitol Albums Vol. 1 will feature all of the group's releases from that year: Meet the Beatles, The Beatles Second Album, Something New and Beatles '65. The quartet of discs include such Beatles classics as "I Want to Hold Your Hand," "I Saw Her Standing There," "She Loves You," "Roll Over Beethoven" and "I Feel Fine," among others.

"These are the records that introduced The Beatles to America 40 years ago. Remastered from the original American master tapes, these were the audio mixes and sequences of songs that found their way into our homes," said Capitol Records president Andrew Slater in a release.

Each disc will offer two takes of each song--one in stereo followed by a mono version--and be packaged in a miniature replica of the original album cover. The set will also contain a 48--page booklet featuring photos, original artwork and clippings from that year commemorating the close of the 40th anniversary of their American invasion.

The Capitol Albums Vol. 1 will retail for about $70, though it's expected to be available for much less as big box retailers slash prices for the cutthroat holiday season.

The Beatles' Capitol-era U.S. recordings have been available on CD since 1987, however, to please surviving band members and their producer, George Martin, the label and its parent company, EMI, decided to only release the original British albums, which had different track listings and were in mono.

U.S. fans had been used to the vinyl versions, which were compressed and equalized in stereo, or simulated stereo (aka duophonic) with added reverberation.

The U.S. recordings also contained fewer songs than their British counterparts, which allowed Capitol to milk the band for 10 albums between 1964 and 1966, as opposed to the seven that were released in England at the time.

"In the '60s, American record labels often chose to reformat British records to suit the needs of the U.S. market," Slater said. "In America, singles were generally included on current albums, where in the U.K., albums and singles were most often separate releases. Higher music publishing costs in the U.S. also made it impractical to include as many songs on American albums."

It wasn't until 1967's Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band that the Beatles insisted on the same tracks appearing on both sides of the Atlantic.

Slater says that Capitol decision to release the U.S. albums, which the band considered to be bastardized versions of the original British LPs, was to appease baby boomers who wanted to hear, for better or worse, the albums in the same format they grew up with.

Chris Carter, the deejay who hosts the popular Breakfast with the Beatles radio show on Los Angeles' 97.1 KLSX-FM, said the Capitol cuts will certainly satisfy collectors who did not yet have the stereo versions from their youth. But for purists, mono has always been where it's at.

"Obviously [the Capitol set is] interesting for people who grew up with those records," Carter tells E! Online. "For Beatles guys like myself, though,?the American albums to me always seemed a bit confusing. The whole purpose originally was to make them friendly for American buyers, thus the duophonic stereo sound."

Carter notes that the reason John, Paul, George and Ringo stuck to mono was because it sounded better than stereo, which was still a nascent technology.

"Once we got past the early days of the Beatles, when we got into more studio production...albums like Revolver, Sgt. Pepper and especially The White Album, the Beatles, when they mixed these albums, mixed them in mono, that was the way they wanted you to hear them," Carter says. "When [Capitol's engineers] did the stereo mixes, the Beatles weren't even around."

For some fans, however, there's not much difference.

"Although this sounds cool, I'm not sure I'll be plopping down cash for a four disc set just for stereo and mono releases of the same songs," a user named Tkitna writes on DM's Beatles Forum. "It's been my experience that the early stereo mixes haven't differentiated too much from the monos. Maybe its me though."

The '64 albums aren't the only ones Capitol has in its vaults that vary from the British catalog. The record company's U.S.-only editions also included The Early Beatles, Beatles VI, Help!, Rubber Soul, Yesterday...and Today, Revolver and Hey Jude, a 1970 singles compilation. (The soundtrack to A Hard Day's Night, which varies from the British version, was released in 1964 by United Artists, not Capitol--it is not known whether Capitol plans on reissuing the album, which included instrumental versions of several Beatles tunes.)

"I hope they follow this up properly," says Carter. "It would be great to give us [U.S. versions of] Rubber Soul and Revolver. You've got to keep it going."

The Capitol box set is the first new Beatles release since Let It Be...Naked hit stores last year.