Sgt Pepper Rockband Mixes (Rattlesnake RS241)
(41:45): Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band / With A Little Help From My Friends, Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds, Getting Better, Fixing A Hole, She’s Leaving Home, Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite, Within You Without You, When I’m Sixty-Four, Lovely Rita, Good Morning Good Morning, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise), A Day In The Life
Sgt Peppers Rockband Mixes contains the whole Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band LP extracted from the video game. Released at the same time as the remastered catalogue by EMI, the sound quality of these tracks is outstanding. And like the others from the video game contains some studio chat before each of the songs.
The disc begins with some studio tuning and Ringo complaining “it will be another day singing it” while Lennon strums his guitar before “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Band.” The segue into “With A Little Help From My Friends” is identical to the released version.
Before “Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds” there is an acoustic guitar strum, Paul practicing the keyboard part, John Lennon coughing, and Paul telling John: “now concentrate singing…John, sing ‘cellophane flowers of yellow and green…yellow and green” Lennon replying, “Okay.” The version is the same as on the LP but comes to a stop instead of fading out.
Before “Getting Better” the band practices the melody and John discusses when to come in with the verses. The studio chat before “Fixing A Hole” contains Paul saying “see all the shapes around the studio. And all those bubbles. Think plastic, baby.”
“She’s Leaving Home” has just a bit of tuning before the track and before “For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite” Lennon laughs, asks for ice water and tells Paul to “smack ‘em.” The rest of the album’s introductions become less interesting after this.
“Within You Without You” has nothing and “When I’m Sixty-Four” has a simple count-in. The ending of “Good Morning Good Morning” is longer since it doesn’t fade and there is no segue from “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (reprise)” into “Day In The Life.”
Unlike the Misterclaudel, RattleSnake didn’t include the little radio programme as a bonus. The artwork however is much better than the earlier release with many photos from the era in a nice booklet.
