John Lennon - Plastic Ono Band Censored Tracks

AUS Apple Stereo LP, PCSO 7124 
RSA Parlophone Stereo LP, PCSJ 7124 

- I Found Out
- Working Class Hero

==About the Aussie album==

With the interest in John Lennon raised by the recent remasters, I've had a few people ask me about the Aussie version of "Plastic Ono Band" and whether they could hear the long version of "I Found Out" or the censored versions of both it and "Working Class Hero". For various reasons, I wasn't going to transfer the whole album, however, I have decided to transfer these two tracks so people who haven't had the chance to hear them can.

Anyway, we all know the album, so I won't wax lyrical about it. I'm also sure most people are aware that EMI Australia, in its infinite wisdom, decided to protect our innocence here by taking the Abbey Road tape copies and literally hacking them to remove the one "C" and two "F" words. They didn't do a bad job on "I Found Out", but I'll let you score their talent on "Working Class Hero".

"I Found Out" also has the extended ending, with the "Well that must be my gal, yours don't look like that" line repeated twice before the fade out.

==About the South African album==

What many may not know is that EMI South Africa really took the knife to the album, not just editing out the swear words like EMI Australia did, but editing out whole lines! In "I Found Out", the line "Some of you sitting there with your c... in your hand" has been completely chopped out. Likewise, the lines containing the swears in "Working Class Hero" have been chopped out completely, and rather amatuerishly at that.

And "God" was removed from the album completely!

Like the Aussie, "I Found Out" has the extended ending, with the "Well that must be my gal, yours don't look like that" line repeated twice before the fade out.

==About this transfer==

I didn't spend too much time on these transfers. The Aussie transfers came out very nicely, given the pristine source used. Interestingly, however, the Aussie mastering has the stereo image just slightly left of centre (in comparison to the remasters).

The South African transfers came out fairly noise free. Having said that, it appears that EMI South Africa had a tape problem as there is a bit of "wow" scattered throughout the LP, most noticeably in the second half of "Working Class Hero". This is most likely due to the number of tape copies/generations required for the edits. Accordingly, the LP sounds hissy and rather dull compared to, at least, the Aussie issue and is definitely not one to seek out if you want good sound quality!

==Vinyl transfer and 24bit restoration by Q==

Source Matrices
YEX-827

Hardware
- Project Xpression III Turntable
- Ortofon 2M Blue Cartridge
- Project SpeedBox II Quartz-Generated Electronic Speed Regulator
- Denon PMA-700AE Integrated Amplifier
- Cakewalk FA-66 Audio Interface (set to 24bit/96kHz)

Software
- Audition 3.0.1 (audio capture and editing)
- iZotope RX 5 Advanced (resampling and dithering to Red Book audio specifications)

==THIS FILE INCLUDES BOTH 16bit (CD) AND 24bit (HiRes) VERSIONS==

No artwork included

Download
CD/Hi-Res quality (350mb)