Capitol Records - Record Altering

Record Altering

Capitol has been criticised many times for the heavy modification of albums being released in other countries before being released in the USA by Capitol. Possibly most infamous is the company's creation of "new" albums by The Beatles. This began with Capitol's release of Meet the Beatles!, the first album by the group to be released by Capitol in the USA. It was quite literally the British album With the Beatles, with five tracks ("Money", "You've Really Got A Hold On Me", "Devil In Her Heart", "Please Mister Postman", and "Roll Over Beethoven") removed in favor of both sides of the band's first American hit single, which consisted of "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There." They also added on the British version of the single's B-Side, "This Boy." Also notable is the issuing of "duophonic" stereo releases of some recordings where the original master was monophonic. Capitol engineers split the single master monaural track into two, boosted the bass on the right channel, boosted treble on the left channel and add a split-second delay between channels to produce a "fake stereo" release. This Duophonic process meant that the Beatles' American fans would often hear a slightly different song from that heard by the rest of the world.

When With the Beatles was initially released in Brazil by EMI-Odeon, as well as in Canada, the title was at first modified to Beatlemania.

This trend continued through the Beatles' American discography, until the albums had little relation to their original British counterparts. The Beatles' albums were finally released unmodified starting with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. This was thanks to a renegotiation of the Beatles' complicated management and recording contracts. Tired of the way Capitol in the US and other companies around the world were issuing their work in almost unrecognizable pieces, beginning in 1967, they had full approval of all album titles and cover art, track listing and running order, worldwide. Their first order of business was to stop the issuing of 45 RPM singles featuring tracks taken from their albums. Instead they would issue non-album tracks as singles in between album releases. This policy changed in late 1969 when a severe cash crunch hit the Beatles company, Apple Corps., and the band was forced (at the urgent behest of new manager Allen B. Klein) to issue a single immediately in conjunction with the Abbey Road album ("Something"/"Come Together") in order to pay bills. Four months later Apple allowed Capitol Records to issue the singles compilation Hey Jude (aka The Beatles Again) to keep cash flowing to the company.

This continued with other bands:

• Pink Floyd's first album, The Piper at the Gates of Dawn (on the Tower label), had several tracks removed in favor of their first hit single "See Emily Play". This was criticized because the removed tracks combined ("Flaming", "Bike", and "Astronomy Domine") were much longer than "Emily", making the removal of the three completely unnecessary for reasons of running time.

• Iron Maiden's first two albums, Iron Maiden and Killers, had additional tracks as opposed to their UK counterparts. Iron Maiden's 1980 self-titled debut was released in the US a few months after its UK release with the track "Sanctuary" added on. Its follow-up, 1981's Killers, was also released a few months after later in the US after its initial UK release with the track "Twilight Zone" added to the album.

• Megadeth's "Risk" album was littered with samples and guitar pieces which Dave Mustaine never authorized, causing him to release one final album on Capitol, Capitol Punishment, and then move on to a new label Sanctuary Records. As of right now, Megadeth's future with Capitol seems very bright, as they have released all their Remastered discs and their most recent Greatest Hits albums with Capitol. After leaving Sanctuary Records, it was rumoured that Megadeth would return to Capitol, but the rumor turned out to be untrue as Megadeth have recently signed with Roadrunner Records.

The company has also had a history of making mistakes with album releases; the American release of Klaatu's debut album 3:47 EST had several spelling errors on the track list, and later Capitol pressings of CD versions of Klaatu's albums suffered severe quality problems. The poor sound quality of Duran Duran's May 1982 release Rio (on Capitol subsidiary Harvest), contributed to the lag in initial sales, until a remixed version of the album was released in November.