In 1967, the Beatles continued perfecting their pre-holiday shopping release strategy.
The Beatles - Magical Mystery Tour - MAL 2835 / MAL-X-1-2835, 1967)
Those Beatle boys sure knew how to take advantage of the pre-Christmas holiday shopping season (and still do). Released during the holiday season of 1967 - at least in full length LP form - the album has always been one of my favorites. Call it an album, call it a compilation, soundtrack, whatever…it’s the Beatles second best “album” of 1967 and that’s saying an awful lot. Is “Hello, Goodbye” their finest moment? I’m here to argue with you about it.
This particular album pictured is an original USA mono “x matrix” copy pressed in Jacksonville, Illinois. I don’t know what the “x matrix” has that the regular matrix has other than and “x” being added, so if you know, please tell me. This pressing sounds better than it has any right to. It’s not the cleanest disc in the world, but my stylus deftly finds its way around its half-century old grooves. I’m still on the hunt for a German HÖR ZU SHZE 327 pressing in true stereo (mint copies of which are currently hovering around $250.00), but I’ve got a few other copies of MMT to keep me busy in the meanwhile.
If I’m being honest, Magical Mystery Tour was an album I first discovered under my childhood Christmas tree, albeit in the form of a compact disc in the ubiquitous 1990s longbox. These were the early pressings of Beatles CDs, and having my very own copy was a thrill, an opportunity to explore the psychedelic wilderness of The Beatles to my heart's delight.
It wasn’t long before the rift between digital and analog formats became clear, especially when I compared the visual and auditory experience. The vinyl album, with its larger format, offered a level of detail that CDs just couldn’t match—visually for sure, and maybe sonically too. Longboxes teased at the album’s visual grandeur, but once you opened them and revealed the jewel case, well...is deflated the word to use?
First, some of the artwork—slightly larger on the longbox—was reduced in scale for the jewel case. The result? Certain images and designs lost their impact. And then there was the jewel case itself: love it or hate it, there was no escaping the impersonal industrial grade plastic.
Second, what on Earth were we supposed to do with the longbox? As record collectors, we’re conditioned to revere cardboard packaging, but CD longboxes were a different beast. There was no practical way to preserve them and they didn’t feel worth saving. In my case, I salvaged what I could, carefully cutting out the artwork I liked and pinning it to the corkboard in my bedroom. The rest? Straight to the dustbin.
Looking back, it was an odd moment in music history—a fleeting, slightly awkward transition from analog charm to digital convenience. And here we are again.
Moreover, revisiting MMT in context with the newly released box set highlighting 1964 is a bizarre exercise as it reminds us that this was what the Beatles sounded like a mere 3 years later after they burst into the American consciousness. It’s a magically mysterious album with strange sounds and weirdness at every turn and little strange things tucked into the background (and lots and lots of flange, so much flange), a fun album to unpack.
Is it “I buried Paul” or “cranberry sauce”? Who knows? Happy Christmas and Merry Holidays!
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