John Lennon - Mind Games (2024 Box Set coming in July!)

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Slightly off topic, but can someone remind me if the Ultimate 5.1 and/or Atmos mixes from “Imagine” were reused on the “Gimme Some Truth” compilation?

Wondering if the compilation mixes of the track “Mind Games” will be the same as what will appear on the Ultimate reissue.
 
I don’t think it’s that bad a price. We’re always begging for physical releases, we get them and then half of everyone complain.
A physical release is nice, but all that extra crap is what I’m griping about. I really won’t wver listen to all the out-takes and cutting-room floor stuff, so I won’t buy it either.

Give me a clean copy of the original album, maybe with a multi-channel mix that doesn’t distract, and I’m gold.

I like frosting, but it ought to have enough cake under it.
 
With the caveat that John Lennon as a solo artist only holds marginal to moderate interest for me, I have to say that while you can quibble with the price points these sets are being offered at (and quibble a lot) I think we can all agree that we'd love to have a favourite classic album or artist as the subject of a reissue campaign like this. From the phenomenal web write-up which (like the Imagine box set before it) is full of great information, videos, images and more - something I wish more reissues had instead of a three-paragraph press release and a tracklist - to the variety of mixes (by no less than three different engineers, a great way to offer alternate perspectives on the same material) and the huge variety of visual and text material I really think this sets something of a standard. Being able to work on a box set like this for a band that I loved would be stuff-of-dreams type material for me.

Regarding the non-inclusion (or non-existence) of a vintage quad mix, it's disappointing (though ameliorated by the amount of new surround material included) but not entirely surprising. Both of the labels (Capitol in the US, and EMI in the UK) that released Lennon's solo material were having a weird "quad lull" in 1973, and with the understanding that labels back then were in the business of releasing new music (and not year/years-old quad remixes) it sort of makes sense that they didn't spring for a quad mix, which would've cost north of 50 grand (and maybe more, given Lennon's "big act" status) when they had no immediate intention of releasing it. EMI did a bunch of pop quad releases in 1972 (Deep Purple's Machine Head, ELO, Lennon's Imagine, etc.) but then seemed to adopt a 'wait and see' attitude that didn't amount to much, aside from Pink Floyd's Atom Heart Mother and Dark Side of the Moon in 1974, and outside of easy listening releases (Sounds of the '70s Orchestra, San Fernando Brass, etc.) from their Special Products division, Capitol in the US didn't get into quad until late 1974 when they started releasing Q8 tapes (Grand Funk, Helen Reddy, Steve Miller, and the Apple Records solo projects from Paul McCartney, Ringo, etc.) By that point Mind Games had already come and gone, and Lennon was working on Walls & Bridges so they probably figured they'd just wait and have that one remixed for quad (which it was, by Carmine Rubino) and release it, which it was, as a Q8 in the US.

Now, if a Walls & Bridges box set comes out next year without the quad mix then we can start to have suspicions that they're sitting on an unreleased quad mix of Mind Games, but as it stands now I think it's a relatively safe assumption to believe the mix was never done.
 
A physical release is nice, but all that extra crap is what I’m griping about. I really won’t wver listen to all the out-takes and cutting-room floor stuff, so I won’t buy it either.

Give me a clean copy of the original album, maybe with a multi-channel mix that doesn’t distract, and I’m gold.

I like frosting, but it ought to have enough cake under it.
I totally agree. Who needs all these other mixes?
 
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