Offered for sale is a still sealed German pressing of Magical Mystery Tour by the Beatles, featuring all of the songs in true stereo* as well as a cover that was unique to the German release.
About this copy: This copy of Magical Mystery Tour is a 1977 or possibly a 1981 German pressing on the Apple label. This is the scarce later pressing and not the more common early 1970s pressing with the “Hor Zu” logo on the label and cover.
As the album is still sealed, the record is presumably new and unplayed. As we cannot examine the record, the stamper numbers are unknown and we cannot definitively determine if this is the 1977 pressing or the very similar 1981 pressing, which had an identical cover. This may or may not be the rare “hot” pressing with A1/B1 stampers, though the cover is identical to copies of that pressing that we’ve had for sale in the past.
The wrap is fully intact with no rips tears, or holes. There is a tiny corner dent in the upper left hand corner. It’s more visible from the back; it’s barely noticeable from the front.
An exceptionally copy of a terrific record that has become quite scarce in recent years.
Background: Released in 1967, Magical Mystery Tour was a collection of songs from the film of the same name combined with some singles that had been released shortly before the album.
In the UK, the material from the film was released as a double EP set, but in Japan, the album was released in the U.S. format. The album reached #1 in the U.S. The album was not released in the UK until 1976.
*The album was not released in Germany until 1971; the German release used different master tapes that used true stereo mixes for all the tracks except “I Am the Walrus,” which is true stereo for the first half of the song and artificial stereo for the last half of the song.
Allmusic.com gave Magical Mystery Tour a 5 star review:
The U.S. version of the soundtrack for the Beatles’ ill-fated British television special embellished the six songs that were found on the British Magical Mystery Tour double EP with five other cuts from their 1967 singles. The psychedelic sound is very much in the vein of Sgt. Pepper’s, and even spacier in parts (especially the sound collages of “I Am the Walrus”). Unlike Sgt. Pepper’s, there’s no vague overall conceptual/thematic unity to the material, which has made Magical Mystery Tour suffer slightly in comparison. Still, the music is mostly great.
As Magical Mystery Tour was a soundtrack to a film that contained only six new songs, EMI Records in Britain decided to release the material as a set of two 7″ EPs. In the U.S., Capitol Records issued the material as a full album, by combining A and B sides of then-current singles. As there were no true stereo mixes of those singles at the time, most of the second side of the album was issued in the United States in Capitol’s “Duophonic” fake stereo.
In the early 1970s, true stereo mixes of those songs became available, and Apple Records released the full LP in Germany using those stereo mixes. On this version, the entire album was in true stereo with the exception of the second half of “I Am the Walrus,” for which no true stereo mix exists.
The German album was also issued with a unique cover, though without the gatefold cover and book that accompanied the U.S. album and the UK EP release.
Most of the German copies of Magical Mystery Tour that we’ve seen over the years were sold through Hörzu, a German television listings magazine. These copies have the Hörzu logo on both the cover and record label, and seem to be more common than those purchased elsewhere.
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| Country of origin: |
Germany |
| Size: |
12″ |
| Record Label: |
Apple |
Catalog Number:
|
1C 072-04 449 |
| Year of Release: |
1977 or 1981 |
| Format: |
Stereo |
| Share: |
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