Giles Martin Details Beatles’ ‘Revolver’ Deluxe Edition and Remix: In 1966 Sessions, ‘You Can Hear Them Unwrapping Their Presents’

variety.com:

Chris Willman Senior Music Writer and Chief Music Critic When the deluxe edition and remix of the Beatles’ “Revolver” were officially announced Wednesday — with everything set to arrive in physical and digital formats Oct.

28 — many fans assumed that a plus-sized, boxed-set celebration of the group’s 1966 turning point was a given, as far as Beatles projects that would inevitably pass through the pipeline on this scale.

But these things shouldn’t always be so taken for granted, as Giles Martin points out. “At the end of last year when I was finishing ‘Get Back,’ I went, ‘Oh, God, I better listen to these outtakes and start going through them to see whether we’ve got enough to do this’,” says Martin, who oversaw not just the remix but the two CDs’ worth of previously unheard recordings of early versions and alternate takes. “Because we always want to make sure that we’re not scraping the bottom of the barrel, and you want to make sure that there’s enough outtakes for a ‘Revolver’ boxed set.

If not, do we think about doing ‘Revolver’ and ‘Rubber Soul’ all together and just have outtakes from both?” The very thought of a set combining two such favorite albums might send a shiver down some Beatles fans’ spines, but fortunately, both records had enough top-quality alternate versions that everyone felt fine, as it were, about moving ahead.