The Beach Boys – Today!(Hybrid Stereo SACD)

Analogue Productions is pleased to announce that they will be reissuing 14 of the most classic, best-sounding Beach Boystitles, each expertly mastered by Kevin Gray at Cohearant Audio and presented in “old style” Stoughton Printing tip-on jackets. 200g Mono editions of Surfin’ Safari, Surfin’ USA, Surfer Girl, Little Deuce Coupe and Shut Down Vol. 2 will be issued in December 2014 followed by 200g Stereo editions of Surfin’ USA, Surfer Girl, Little Deuce Coupe and Shut Down Vol. 2 in January 2015. 200g Mono & Stereo editions of All Summer Long, Today!, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), Beach Boys’ Party!, Pet Sounds and Smiley Smile plus 200g Stereo editions of Sunflower, Surf’s Up andHolland will follow later in 2015. Hybrid SACD editions of each album will also be available.

Apart from Surfin’ Safari, which was mono only, the Beach Boys did turn in stereo masters on all of their early albums up until 1965. Today! was the first LP for which they only delivered a mono master. But there’s no disputing that the close harmonies and one-of-a-kind rhythms of hits like “Surfer Girl,” “In My Room,” “Little Deuce Coupe” and more lend themselves naturally to stereo. So Analogue Productions has got your 2-channel needs covered with prime stereo mix versions of 13 titles as well.

The stereo editions of Surfin’ USA, Surfer Girl, Little Deuce Coupe, Shut Down Vol. 2 and All Summer Long were all mixed in stereo by their own preferred engineer, Chuck Britz, ostensibly under the group’s supervision. All of the newer stereo mixes on these remastered albums (Today!, Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!), Beach Boys’ Party!, Pet Sounds andSmiley Smile) were all done by Mark Linett on behalf of the Beach Boys.

“Brian may or may not have been present for those mixing sessions – evidence suggests that he trusted Chuck’s skills enough to let him prepare those mixes on his own – but the group held onto their multitrack tapes and delivered stereo masters to Capitol, rather than allowing Capitol to prepare their own stereo versions. Later, when Brian was only delivering mono masters, Capitol would prepare the Duophonic pseudo stereo editions for the stereo market,” says Alan Boyd, producer and Beach Boys’ archivist.