The Music Will Never Stop 50

I ran Noise Removal and Amplify with the next chunk, and I think it’s a net improvement, but the noise removal seems to have resulted in a slight crackling effect a few places.

That next chunk was “The Early Beatles.” Again, I never owned a copy, must’ve borrowed it somewhere. No twisted tapes or other problems this time.

Two down, and an awful lot of tape left.

“Beatles VI” was next, and it was been successfully and uneventfully transferred to MP3.

The soundtrack album of “Help!” was next, followed by “Rubber Soul.” I recorded “Help!” and Side 1 of “Rubber Soul,” but didn’t edit/convert them immediately.

And there was still a good bit of tape left on Side 1 — these are all fairly short albums, and you can fit several of them in three hours and twelve minutes (which is what fits on one side of this tape).

And I have no idea where I borrowed all these. I never owned any of them. My late sister Jody had a couple of early Beatles albums, but not these; I know she had “Meet the Beatles,” which isn’t on here, not sure what else.

My own collection started with “Revolver.”

“Help!” is now done. There are some minor quality issues — the beginning of “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away” sounds muffled, and there are some of those noise-reduction artifacts scattered around — but mostly it’s fine.

“Rubber Soul” (US edition — these are all US editions) is done as well, and very similar in quality. “Michelle” has the worst noise-reduction buzzes, unfortunately.

Next up is “Yesterday and Today,” sometimes called “Yesterday… and Today,” though I don’t see a justification for punctuating it that way. After that Side 1 ended with Side 1 of the original “Yellow Submarine” soundtrack, which I decided I don’t need, since I have the 1999 “songtrack” album. Everything from Side 1 of the soundtrack is on the songtrack. So I deleted that from Audacity untransferred.

So, I got “Yesterday and Today” done, and then went to see what’s on Side 2, but… well, Side 1 had “Something New,” “The Early Beatles,” “Beatles VI,” “Help!”, “Rubber Soul,” “Yesterday and Today,” and half of “Yellow Submarine.” A tape this long holds a lot.

Side 2 of the tape was next. It didn’t have Side 2 of the “Yellow Submarine” soundtrack, though, which was George Martin’s score. It starts out with “Hey Jude” — the album, not the single — and then “Let It Be.”

I already have “Let It Be,” so that’s no problem. “Hey, Jude,” though — the recording messed up on “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Hey, Jude,” and “The Ballad of John and Yoko,” because the tape’s so old and thin it keeps twisting. I’m not sure why it didn’t do it more often on Side 1; maybe because it wasn’t wound as tight.

I’m considering just buying the damn album on CD.

After that comes “Revolver,” which is also already in my collection.

Then “Sgt. Pepper,” likewise.

And after that we find the white album, “The Beatles.” Which I suspected might take up the rest of the tape, and which I already had. (I got it for Christmas, 1968.)

…and the tape ran out in the middle of “Sexy Sadie.”

There wasn’t anything else on there I care about, so the only question is whether I should go back and take another shot at “Hey Jude” or not.

Right now I’m leaning toward not.

That leaves thirty-nine tapes to go.

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