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The Beatles - Unique Australian Singles (Needledrop)(Qcumbaman)

Track listing:
  1. I Want To Hold Your Hand (1963 Stereo) 2:26
  2. The Ballad Of John And Yoko (Mono) 2:59
  3. Old Brown Shoe (Mono) 3:19

Notes


1 - I Want To Hold Your Hand (1963 stereo mix; rhythm left channel, vocals right channel, like a twintrack mix)
2 - The Ballad Of John And Yoko (folddown of the standard UK stereo single mix)
3 - Old Brown Shoe (folddown of the standard UK stereo single mix)

Source: "Australian 20th Anniversary Singles Collection"


==Vinyl transfer and 24bit mastering by Q==

Some of you may have seen and/or downloaded my "Australian 20th Anniversary Singles Collection - Vol 1" torrent. It was my intention to continue the series by upping volumes 2 and 3--encompassing the remaining 22 singles--however, the quality of the majority of singles is not up to acceptable standard. For the 1982 box set, EMI Australia chose to recut a number of the more worn singles, but budget constraints meant that they stopped about halfway through. Thus, most singles are pressed from the original 1960's or 1976 stampers, which were cut from UK tape dubs at that, so as you can imagine the sound is not that great.

I decided that the effort spent on cleaning up the tracks when there are far better sources of the same mixes already available was simply not worth it...

...EXCEPT for the few tracks that have mixes or mastering unique to Australia. So I decided to put my best effort into 3 tracks that you are not likely to find elsewhere easily, and present them in one small torrent.

I wanted to add the other two folddown singles, viz "Something/Come Together" and "The Long And Winding Road/For You Blue" as well, but they sounded dreadful. Even "Old Brown Shoe" is starting to stretch it a bit. I'm fairly certain that the distortion you hear is in the pressing, but I can't be sure until someone else with the same boxset checks theirs for me (hint anyone?).

All the other singles from the "Australian 20th Anniversary Singles Collection" have mixes which can be obtained either officially, or via better sources like Dr Ebbetts.

FWIW I must admit that I have always preferred the "mono" versions of "The Ballad Of John And Yoko" and "Old Brown Shoe". They're well worth a listen!