I'm sitting on the fence. I have the 30th Anniv. Remaster, where Harrison writes in the liner notes he was "very tempted to remix because there is too much echo", but decided against it for historical accuracy. And I have this 50th Anniv. Remaster & Remix now. I've listened to them both side by side. Yes, George's voice is more prominent on the new mix (but I'm not really a fan of vocals pushed forward in the mix, devalues the music in my ears) and whenever you take reverb and echo away, it benefits the bass. But to my ears, the new mix sounds a bit like demos to the original version; Spector's work - like it or not (and I'm certainly no fan) - sounded more 'produced'. That billowing sound which can give you headaches if you listen to all of All Things Must Pass in one go
, is also an intrinsic part of the album's charm/mystique.
Hear for yourself:
30th Anniv. Remaster
50th Anniv. Remix
I think for a song longing for a closeness to God, the new version just doesn't sound as 'spherical' (in the sense of sphere as an otherworldly region) or ethereal to me, that grand Phil Spector halo (not really a "wall of sound", more a "shroud" or "haze of sound") around voice and instrumentation is missing, George sounds more forlorn and yearning to me on the original mix. And I seriously doubt whether humble George Harrison of all people would have liked his voice that upfront had he been alive to oversee this (of course, these days he's regarded as a deity himself, so reverence might have played a role in the mix or maybe Dhani Harrison just wanted to hear his dad real loud and intimate). But for a generation listening to music mostly with earbuds and accustomed to how vocals have become progressively louder in pop music, it's perhaps perfectly right. Or if you want the illusion of George Harrison singing My Sweet Lord to you in the privacy of your living room. All that said, the 50th Anniv. Remix is not bad, just very different, maybe I just need to get used to it.
I will in any case keep both versions. All Things Must Pass is certainly good enough to have it twice. But Harrison's milestone of an album without the Spector element - a difficult man whose production methods were always divisive and who fell from grace through his own doing and ended as a sentenced murderer - isn't quite the same for me.
And for completeness' sake, here is Harrison's 2000
rerecording of it (with Sam Brown
*** being the female voice towards the end, her parents were neighbors of George's Henley-on-Thames mansion, she tragically lost her singing voice in 2007 for unknown reasons and can no longer hold a note). Even in that rerecording which he still oversaw, his voice isn't as prominent as in the 50th Anniv. Remix above (I was gonna write "overbearing" rather than prominent, but can you really use that description with a voice as gentle as George's?)
I only realize now that he didn't even make it to 60 - so sad.
And btw: He was always the most handsome Beatle to me (my wife thinks so too!).
***That Sam Brown here, 80ies oversinging, true, but it was the times ...