I'm thinking about the Beatles lately because I recently got "Beatles for Sale" on cd. Up until "Sgt. Pepper," Capitol records would take the records the Beatles made and release them in Britain, then cut out some songs and release them in the USA, saving songs for future albums (and manufacturing entire albums in this way, like "Yesterday and Today") and sometimes adding songs from singles, so the albums in the US were different than their British counterparts.
Recently, my wife decided we should get all the Beatles albums so our daughter could hear them. I think a lot of people probably still prefer the American versions because it is what they grew up on.
The situation with me, however, is as follows: When I first heard the Beatles, at least when I first really dug them, was when I was four years old. I remember two albums from that period, both American artifacts: "The Beatles' Second Album" and "Something New." My entire world changed upon hearing this music. I instantly became a Beatles fanatic, and eventually a rock music fanatic, and eventually a fanatic of other kinds of music. "Fanatic" seems a perfectly apt word; there was and is something not quite balanced about my attachment to music.
Anyway, I listened to the Beatles so much that I was largely burnt out on them by the time I was 16, and I have rarely listened to them voluntarily since I was 19 or so.
When I was a school child it was considered uncool to like the Beatles, and people mocked me for it. But they caught up around 9th grade, when it became respectable.
Anyway I decided to go for the British versions because it will give me a fresh take on some of the music, and perhaps in a new context I can again appreciate some of the music freshly.
I went for "Beatles for Sale" because I never owned "Beatles '65," the American analog. Hence I was never really burnt out on a lot of the songs.
I will try to say more about the album in a future post.
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