THE BEATLES/REVOLVER SMO 74161 (-66) GERMAN EXPORT

Collecting German Beatles issues can be confusing. Many of them were issued on both Hörzu and Odeon labels with a large number of variations through the years, sometimes even cross contaminated having main Odeon label and cover with various Hörzu logos attached - as with early pressings of this. Through the years I've got that very first release was on Odeon gold label with a black Hörzu logo on top and later with red on the sides, while the "clean" label design was somewhat later - and that's how I bought it a while ago. But when checking apparently reliable sources on the net it seems this is also a first press - an export mainly aimed for Switzerland and Austria - so that's what I go with here. Label has both UK (YEX 605/606) and German (ZTOX 5623) matrix numbers, but only the UK stamped on the run-off (here 605-1/606-1 with different fonts than UK showing it wasn't the same matrixes). Side 2 label also with the initial "I Want To Love You" mistitling. Cover has Odeon logos only with laminated front (later fully laminated). As I understand some of the later issues suffer from bad audio - seen it described as flat or too compact - but that's not the case here. I don't have a UK stereo press to compare with at the moment, but doubt it can beat this. Apart from the rather unbalanced "Taxman" mix it sounds almost natural and pure joy to my ears - loud, clear and very close. Good stuff. (BÄ*) (GÖXÄ*) (LGÅ*)