High-end audiophile 50th Anniversary edition with restored original lenticular cover and bespoke fold out packaging. Stunning four disc deluxe package. Features both 180-gram LP and hybrid SACD versions of the mono and stereo album. Both recordings newly remastered by Bob Ludwig at Gateway Mastering. Lacquer cutting by Sean Magee at Abbey Road Studios. 20-page book with essay and photos from Michael Cooper’s original cover photo session. Limited edition pressing and hand-numbered sleeves.
- This is the 50th-anniversary special edition of the classic album, originally released in December 1967.
- Recorded at London’s legendary Olympic Studios during the heady days of the ‘Summer of Love’, in a landscape of fervent creativity – Pet Sounds, Sgt Pepper, Hendrix, the Velvet Underground and The Who – Satanic Majestiesstands out as a dramatic landmark.
- The band’s first full venture into the world of ‘psychedelia’, it may have split critical opinion at the time but is long overdue for reassessment – an innovative and experimental piece, as much influenced by Coltrane, John Barry’s spy thriller scores and classical composers as the Blues and R’n’B of previous releases.
- Produced by the band, engineered by Glyn Johns and with string arrangements by John Paul Jones it features some of their most imaginative soundscapes, which included African rhythms, mellotrons, ‘found voices’ and full orchestration.
- Amongst the song highlights are beautiful She's A Rainbow with its elegant harmonies, piano intro and strings, the powerful, riff-driven Citadel and the imposingly dark cosmic rocker 2000 Light Years From Home.
- It also features Bill Wyman’s debut writing and singing credit on a Stones release – In Another Land.
- The pioneering packaging – a ‘lenticular’ sleeve with a 3D-style Michael Cooper image of the band and the album’s title (an adaptation of the wording, ‘Her Britannic Majesty Request and Requires …’ on British passports), both confirmed the group’s creative intent and also its satirical attitude.
- Uncut magazine recently called it a“a neglected psychedelic masterpiece”