BDJ's Cellar Full of Remixes

Wit a voice like Freddie Mercury's, what else do you need to make music? Not a lot, just enough to support his vocals. Such is the philosophy of this remix of Bohemian Rhapsody: gone are the 160 layered voices, back is Freddie Mercury's amazing voice in your ears. Queen rehearsed Bohemian Rhapsody for 3 weeks before even starting to record it. It took us a similar time to deconstruct it and lift F...

Listen to Let It Be as you've never heard it before! After brave attempts by Glyn Johns (4x), George Martin and Giles Martin, the definitive mix of the Let It Be album has finally arrived. True to their motto of "Less is More", the BDJ engineers have taken the songs apart and put them back together - in a surprising way. Discover nuances and subtleties you never knew were there, and enjoy Let It B...

The Beatles recorded this blues jam on the last day of the Get Back sessions, 31st of January 1969. In 1964 John Lennon had told an English music paper that his favourite album of the year was the great folk album, Lots More Blues, Rags and Hollers by Koerner, Ray & Glover (1963). This album contains the Black Dog Blues. Obviously, the backing track of Koemer et al. comes in handy to spice up...

The Beatles are not known as great Blues musicians. Otherwise, they are fine but the blues seems to elude them.  Still, they produced a few attempts at playing an instrumental blues, including ’12 Bar Original’ (Anthology), "Flying" (Magical Mystery Tour), "Cayenne" and "Cry for a Shadow" (Anthology). These are all interesting tracks,  and they demonstrate that the blues is not their thing. In par...

The so-called Medley occupies most the Beatles' final album, Abbey Road. It is collection of Lennon and McCartney songettes, artfully strung together by arrangements of McCartney and George Martin. The whole album Abbey Road stands out for its beautiful and complex vocal harmonies, sometimes extending into 3-part harmony. We were treated to a 'vocal isolation' of Because on the Anthology CD, and t...

The 'Moonlight Sonata' by van Beethoven was made famous by John Lennon, when he said that his song 'Because' was inspired by Yoko Ono playing this sonata backwards. While debunking this myth, I found that van Beethoven himself never referred to this composition as the 'Moonlight Sonata"; for him, it was a 'quasi-fantasie'. After van Beethoven's death, a music critic wrote an article in a newspaper...

“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” is a rock song with dark, eccentric lyrics about a person named Maxwell who commits murders with a hammer, although the lyrics are disguised by the upbeat, catchy, and rather “childlike” sound of the song. Paul McCartney has never played this song in concert. However.....McCartney read the lyrics as a poem, once. Enough for the BDJ engineers to construct this 'Avant-garde...

We all know Come Together, it is one of the most popular tracks on Abbey Road. Due in no small part to the tremendous bass line, the riffs on the electronic piano....all McCartney contributions to a Lennon song. We know that Lennon started out with Come Together as a much faster song, inspired by a Chuck Berry Song: You Can't Catch Me. We have no recordings or demos of this Ur version of Come Toge...

It is the time of the year to remember those who escaped from this virus ridden Earth. We present a few of those departed who played a role in the Beatles history. Paul McCartney improvises on the piano on a theme by Samuel Barber, "Adagio for Strings'. Peter Green, guitarist of Fleetwood Mac and composer of 'Albatross' is remembered by Mac Fleetwood. Albatross was the inspiration for the Beatles...

It was forty years ago today (more or less), so a good moment to commemorate Lennon's final single. Woman was chosen by Lennon to be the second single released from the Double Fantasy album. The lyrics are not among Lennon's best, but it is nicely Beatlesque that the last words are "I love you, yeah, yeah"..... The lyrics seem to be inspired by McCartney's song 'Woman', which was made a hit by Pet...

“Just Fun” is one of the very first songs written by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, in late 1957 or 1958. It remained rather obscure for decades. The Beatles played a rough version during the 'Get Back' sessions in January 1969. It only lasts for 20 or 30 seconds. As part of the John Lennon 80th birthday celebrations on 9 October, Paul McCartney has announced that he would play the unreleased Bea...

'Her Majesty’ was first performed at the Get Back/Let It Be sessions in January 1969. McCartney brought the song to the band in Twickenham on 9 January. But it lasted until July 2nd before McCartney recorded the takes on Abbey Road that we all know and love. Or do we? Her Majesty is the least popular Beatles track on Spotify. In defence of Her Majesty, the statistics may lead us astray since Her M...

McCartney sang Yesterday accompanied by his Epiphone Texan guitar on the evening of 14th June. A score for string quartet — George Martin's first major arranging contribution to The Beatles - was over-dubbed three days later. A string quartet, in the pop world of those days, was quite a step to take. It was with ‘Yesterday’ that George Martin started breaking out of the phase of using just four in...

It doesn't happen every day that you get to hear a new Beatles song; but today is that day! We proudly present the premiere (as a complete song) of 'You Won't Get Me That Way', as recorded by the Beatles on 27 January 1969 in Apple Studios, Savile Row. You Won't Get Me That Way is a swinging blues, in classic McCartney rocker style. Soulful vocals by McCartney, in excellent voice that day. Some ne...

A three-minute sample from a tape auctioned in the '90s and purchased by the Beatles, featuring selections from various 1962 TV appearances has hit the Internet in December 2019. The samples consist of songs performed on October 17th, October 29th, and December 29th, 1962 — “Some Other Guy,” “Love Me Do,” A Taste of Honey,” and “Twist and Shout.” As this performance went out live on TV, it wasn't...

The Abbey Road box released in 2019 marks the first time that Beatles songs are released in ATMOS format (on the Blue-ray disc). Since the 'One' DVD, all subsequent releases featured Dolby 5.1 mixes, but these were mostly rather underwhelming. But the 5.1 and Atmos mixes of Abbey Road mark a turning point; I can imagine that these mixes will become the preferred way to listen to Abbey Road, relega...

The vocals shine in this remix. Does Paul sing on Come Together? Sure he does, harmonizes with John during the first half of the song. In the latter half, John harmonizes with John. The vocals in the outro can be heard clearly, perhaps it was a good thing they were no so clear in 1969?

This remix just begged to be produced. The vocals from the centre channel, as pure as you can get (no reverb), supported by the (stereo) orchestra from CD3.

We scan through the channels to highlight piano, guitars, and - yes- the Moog synthesizer.

Paul playing his characteristic Piano style. The Oooh aah chorus stands out well.

George's solo guitar is right in your face, and then John joins in with his telltale "Julia riffing".

Great guitar amplifier sound, funky and bluesy shines clearly now. The Hammond Organ -- played by Billy Preston -- is super clear now! His previously buried-in-the-mix solo is fantastic. Lennon's voice rasps supercool when he comes in with "Yeeaaaaaaaah" (without the distortion that spoiled the 2009 remasters version).

We can now fully appreciate George's singing. The Moog Synthesizer comes in with a bang, and the acoustic guitar sounds lifelike.

We scan through the channels and hear some beautiful vocals, and the Moog Synth. Still, the feeling lingers that Giles Martin could have done more with this track, e.g. separate the vocals more?

Listen to Paul's vocals up close. Double tracked. Then some honkytonk piano by George Martin. The rhythm guitar could be John,. the solo guitar probably George? Some nice aaaahh's and oooh's, followed by the countdown 1234567.