Posted on my infrequently-updated blog middle8.blogspot.com, but pasted here for your convenience/comment:
I don't know what your sense of Sgt Peppers is, but before about 40 minutes ago, I would have put it in the "important to be sure, but not really all that great song-for-song" category. My experience was based pretty much completely on the '87 cd, of course. While the album is front- and back-loaded with undisputed masterpieces, the middle wavered much more than an album with such a classic reputation probably should. I mean, no one ever put "Good Morning, Good Morning" or "Fixing A Hole" in their top ten list. Gimmicky, needlessly shrill, too in love with goofy effects over genuine emotion. That's pretty much my old opinion of this album.
Well, I also read that quote variously attributed to John and George Martin that "if you haven't heard Pepper in mono, then you haven't heard Pepper," and thought, "well, maybe, but that's a bit of hyperbole." It's not. The mono version of this album is A. Whole. New. Ballgame. For the first time in my life, this record feels utterly revolutionary today, not retro-revolutionary. There is so much more going on here, and it's not just a case of hearing new effects. Take "Good Morning, Good Morning." The old CD made the horns so shrill sounding, that I usually rushed to forward to the next track. Now I feel like the song may hold the key to the whole record. In this mono mix, those "shrill" horns are really over-saturated and kind of slowed down. You know what this song is? It's the perfect morning song between the twin classic John's "I'm Only Sleeping" and "I'm So Tired." It's got the same sense of woozy disorientation and hits me emotionally in an entirely new place.
This happens at least 7 more times in different places, but I don't want to spoil it for you. I'll point out a couple more tiny bits: the background vocals (for the first time throughout you get to hear separate voices, and it's obvious that the Beatles did not deploy their vocals cavalierly) in "When I'm Sixty-Four" no longer descend from space. Now they sound like their coming from over Paul's shoulder, right where they would be if it was sung by the old-timey band they meant it to sound like. The only thing more fucked-up sounding than the "tape solos" in "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite," is the slower, heavier ending to "Lovely Rita." The "each song is played by a different band, none of them the Beatles" conceit makes complete sense for the first time.
Before I go, let me just say a quick word about the sense of presence I get here. This record feels so made, so labored over. It's not just about the clarity of mix, but the spaces you can now hear around the voices and instruments make you feel the clarity of purpose. The difference is like seeing a photo of a painting on the one hand, and then seeing the original. What looked flat (but colorful and framed well and all that) in the photo, now looks like what it is: layers of paint painstakingly (or maybe even haphazardly, but still) put there by someone.
I don't really know what this is meant to signify yet, but I feel like I can hear this thing the way it must have sounded the summer of '67. I don't mean the "pop music used to sound like this, now it sounds like THIS" thing that I've always imagined. I mean emotionally. A real revolution in the head. What was once over-rated is now, finally, earning (sorry) its stripes. I cannot fucking believe it.