0:40: Double tracking error on the phrase
February 25, 2005 5:33 PM   Subscribe

What Goes On: The Beatles Anomalies List. A wonderfully obsessive list of every missed lyric and beat, audible background noise and other sounds that aren't supposed to be there.
posted by Quartermass (24 comments total)
 
[Via .:DataWhat:.]
posted by Quartermass at 5:35 PM on February 25, 2005


and via AskMe...
posted by rooftop secrets at 5:43 PM on February 25, 2005


But still a very cool site. Reminds me of the Beatles class I took in college where we deconstructed the recordings of a number of their songs. I'm still a Beatles nerd.
posted by rooftop secrets at 5:46 PM on February 25, 2005


Hmm... The Internet becomes more insular every day! I didn't even see that askme post, which is a shame cuz it is pretty cool. Oh well.
posted by Quartermass at 5:59 PM on February 25, 2005


pretty cool, but a list of some of the more intentional weirdness on some songs would have been nice ... the source tapes used on rev no 9, for instance
posted by pyramid termite at 6:01 PM on February 25, 2005


pyramid - From what I recall, nobody knows exactly what most of the tape sources are . They were cut up at different times and some even came from unmarked editing tapes. But you can get a minute by minute account of all of the sounds in revolution 9 to help decipher some of the spoken bits and isolate some of the noise.
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 6:13 PM on February 25, 2005


What? Humans used to *gasp* make music?
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:14 PM on February 25, 2005


I didn't see this in AskMe. Thanks!
posted by DrJohnEvans at 6:17 PM on February 25, 2005


Can you imagine having everything you've ever produced examined like this?
posted by Jairus at 11:25 PM on February 25, 2005


It's a shame that these kind of anomalies don't really happen anymore. I think many of these unintentional noises, clicks, chatter, etc can add depth to a recording.
posted by dodgygeezer at 3:08 AM on February 26, 2005


Misery

Throughout
Kick drum pedal squeaking.


heh.
posted by mokey at 3:18 AM on February 26, 2005


I wish I could see a highlights page, just listing the really cool ones.
posted by NickDouglas at 7:24 AM on February 26, 2005


Can you imagine having everything you've ever produced examined like this?

If I was the Beatles... then yes.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 7:36 AM on February 26, 2005


Wow, I love this page, thanks for the link!

(Huge Beatles nerd here)
posted by mabelcolby at 9:47 AM on February 26, 2005


Yep, I saw it in AskMe, but it merits appearing here. Quite cool.
posted by pmurray63 at 10:15 AM on February 26, 2005


I think a lot of these "anomalies", particularly those from the middle period of the band's recording lifetime, are more noticeable because of what we'd now consider very unconventional use of stereo separation. For more than a few songs - particularly on Yellow Submarine - it's possible to listen to one stereo channel and, say, not hear any vocals until the chorus of a song, or hear nothing but bass and a lead guitar track.
posted by torregrassa at 12:42 PM on February 26, 2005


You mean stereo sound?
posted by xammerboy at 2:37 PM on February 26, 2005


This is cool.

I was at a store the other day and heard a Beatle song I had never heard before--I'll Get You.I thought I had heard every Beatle song there was at least a hundred times apiece. I don't know how in the hell I missed that one but the experience of hearing it was like being in a Philip K. Dick novel or something. I thought I had been thrust into an alternate reality there for a second.

On a side note, I once had a dream where someone played me the Dylan album Bob Dylan would have recorded after Blonde On Blonde had he not had his motorcycle accident in 1967. It was like Sooner Or Later (One Of Us Must Know) to the tenth power. It was a very vivid dream--too bad I don't know how to read or write music, I could have been the next Procol Harum or something.
posted by y2karl at 3:43 PM on February 26, 2005


"I thought I had been thrust into an alternate reality there for a second. "

Heh. That reminds me of a time when I was sitting in Pizzeria Pagliacci on the Ave and they were playing one of the tapes (from Muzak?) that they used to play. This one was all Beatles. Except for the one Rutles song someone sneaked into the middle. I just about choked when I realized it wasn't really the Beatles. It fooled me for a few seconds, and then when I recognized it, I laughed and laughed.

How could you have never heard "I'll Get You," though? Wow. I mean, it's not that obscure. Now if it was "You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)" I wouldn't be surprised, but the "Oh yeah, Oh yeah" of "I'll Get You" is just so darned familiar. It's amazing you could have missed it. :)

Regarding the Anomalies page -- I was somewhat surprised to see how many of the anomalies were familiar. I mean that I had heard them many times, but just didn't really think of them as anomalies. A squeak here, a bad edit there -- they are just part of the song as far as I'm concerned. I'm so used to them. Looking at them as recording anomalies is a whole different perspective, and it made me feel a lot better about the anomalies in my own recordings. I mean, heck, look how many mistakes the Beatles actually released, and they're the Beatles!
posted by litlnemo at 7:01 PM on February 26, 2005


it made me feel a lot better about the anomalies in my own recordings.

What it comes down to is that it's the song, not the recording, that matters (no matter what the audio-obsessed engineers tell you...)
posted by rooftop secrets at 7:21 PM on February 26, 2005


I cant believe there aren't any Faul references.
posted by Suparnova at 8:17 PM on February 26, 2005


Both "I'll Get You" and "You Know My Name (look up the number)" are on a version of The Beatles 'Rarities', which was the first Beatles album I ever received (for my 8th birthday). Presumably because my Dad liked f*ing with my head and making sure nobody else would know what I was talking about when I mentioned some beatles song I was currently into. Haha, Dad. The therapy bills are in the mail.
posted by Sparx at 12:39 PM on February 27, 2005


What it comes down to is that it's the song, not the recording, that matters (no matter what the audio-obsessed engineers tell you...)


Coming out of the DIY punk recording ethos, I always took this for granted.
posted by Quartermass at 7:35 PM on February 27, 2005


Wow, what a load of flubs, glitches and overall up-fuckery.

How did this band ever make it in the music biz?
posted by soyjoy at 10:10 AM on February 28, 2005


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