Greg Kot has an interview with Paul McCartney this week. There’s a quote in it on whether he’s an audiophile that just about made me erupt into apoplexy:

“I’m used to hearing things on the radio. OK, I’ve got a sound system on my car. But we used to listen on the beach. As kids, in the summer, you’d listen to a little mono radio. It sounded great to me. The joke was when George Martin first announced this new thing called stereophonic and we walked into the studio and there were two speakers, we went, ‘Great, twice as loud!’ I still think like that. That’s what stereo should’ve been. Never mind all these putting things in funny places. It sounds OK on iPod. Those little headphones come out of my ears all too readily. Obviously, I love to hear the music on a great big system straight off the master. But if you’re in a car, or on the beach, or somebody’s playing it on a railway station, it still sounds good.” (emphasis mine)

So there you have it. The man who – for most people – earned co-credit for the sound experience that is Sgt. Pepper’s and the 2nd half of Abbey Road is saying that such groundbreaking studio wizardry was little more than “putting things in funny places.”

Also, when is the last time you suppose Paul McCartney spent significant time in a railway station? Was he waiting for the one after 909?