Beatles boost the CD

Fab Four set to prompt surge in CD sales with re-mastered back catalogue

09 September 2009 - The music industry is on track for a boost to the declining market of the CD, which has seen drop of 31.1% in the US since 2007.

More than 45 years after Beatlemania first struck, five million re-mastered CDs by the seminal pop band have been shipped to retailers.

Priced at $269, 50,000 box sets of mono versions of The Beatles recordings have already sold out.

As reported by the Financial Times, pre-sales show today's re-release of all 14 UK albums in their back catalogue should be the "biggest catalogue reissue ever conducted in the history of the music business", said Ernesto Schmitt, the head of EMI's global catalogue.

By midday yesterday (8 September) sales dominated seven of the top ten positions of the US music chart on Amazon.com.

Stereo and mono

A crew of engineers at London's Abbey Road Studios spent four years working on the re-masters using new technology and vintage equipment.

As well as their 12 studio LPs, from Please Please Me to Let It Be, two other albums are being re-released: the soundtrack to Magical Mystery Tour and the Past Masters compilation.

Two box sets of the albums have been created, in mono and stereo.

Sam Ingles, from Sound on Sound magazine, heard some of the new tracks at Abbey Road Studios and told 6 Music how they differ.

"With the mono albums their aim was to be as true as possible to the original recording, whereas, with the stereo albums, they've been a little bit more liberal with the process they've applied to try and improve things," he explained.

The albums include short video documentaries, historical notes and sleeve designs which imitate the originals.

Today also marks the release of The Beatles: Rock Band video game, which includes 45 of the re-mastered songs.

The game allows players to take on the role of each of the Fab Four and play along to their hits on guitar and drum-shaped controllers.

Georgie Rogers