Beatles Anthologies ....Largely Forgotten?

Outtakes usually means outtake for a reason. It did not take the A1, A2, or A3 to reveal this fact. It was never about 6 long CDs that were supposed to be as great as the original issued recordings.

I think that there are some stunners in the collection, some gems, or oddities. I can't get over how cool that alt take of "Come Together" is. So cool to hear that never booted item.

 

I'm not familiar with Zenne's book, but the "song" titles I recognize from everything else I read in the late 1970s. Question: when did "You Know What To Do" start to be discussed? I don't remember hearing a thing about it until Anthology I.

 

Not heard this for a while, so can't remember any mix differences, but from memory it has an extra verse, which is cool to hear

 

Indeed:

Nice to have the time
To take this opportunity
Time for me to look at you
And you to look at me.

Very George.

 

Thanks

 

The version I have runs 8 minutes. A lot of great extended jamming, chanting, etc. Not just repetition of what was already presented in the official release.


I'll take any extra Beatles music I can get, even if it is just a minute or so.

 

"enormous proportion."

 

Yes, should have been on Anthology. I've always wondered if someone forgot about it.

 

I play them fairly often too. Since their core catalog is burned into my memory banks, I love having this alternate look at their works.

There's basically almost an entire Get Back album in there -- the white album tracks are stunners. Just about all of the live tracks are great. I love the alternate Eight Days a Week, I'm Looking Trough You, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, all of them, etc.

If this is "scraping the bottom of the barrel" then please scrape some more! There were FOUR Beatles -- there needs to be FOUR Anthology discs!!

 

The Beatles - Anthology Plus »


The Beatles - Anthology More »


The Beatles - Anthology 2000 »

 

This is the set that I have. I posted a few days ago the track listing but that also happened to come from a site that was selling a copy. So my post was removed. Search around you can find the tracks. Absolutely incredible.

The Beatles - The Complete Recording Sessions Anthology Boxed Set »

 

I don't think a Beatles collection is complete without them. There really are some incredible songs in there. When you consider that Strawberry Fields and Obla-di-Obla-da had 100s of takes, hearing a few of the discarded is really special.

 

This has VERY much piqued my interest. Is there tons of stuff I probably haven't heard? Or is it mostly just alternate takes that sound basically the same but rougher? Is there any material that I definitely need to hear? My opinion of Beatles stuff has generally been that the released takes are clearly the best version of a tune and the works-in-progress aren't incredibly interesting, but I'd definitely be willing to revisit those notions.

 

Coming off another thread about Now and Then the unfinished third Threetle track, it occurred to me that Anthology, as a project, was a bit of a very successful mess.
It achieved the original aim which was to get some of the Beatle success that Apple/The Beatles had not shared in during seventies legal odyssey, during which everybody else was making money off them!
But there was a lot of confusion in it because the project had essentially remained as per its original orientation as the unreleased The Long and Winding Road documentary (now with owned elements).
The story of George Martin's conversion from 'everything worth releasing was released' to 'here's six cds of great unreleased material' has to be some kind of qualifier in the idea that it was a project the principals really felt (which may influence how they feel about it even now).
The production delays meant that book didn't even make it into the same millennium as the CD/Doc components so that was another major bug in things.
And then there was the most contentious bit, the making and marketing of the 'new' tracks which didn't end well with the band being embroiled in the 'changing of the old guard' at the BBC in terms of playlisting policy and age-target demographics.

Overall, therefore, the Anthology project had an artistic aspect of finishing an idea that came at the end of the band, putting down an account on the record from the band, but many more aspects which were more commercial like supporting the project with albums, (which finally occasioned archival extractions for release) and promoting the albums with singles.

Despite all of that, I am certain that by the time of the DVD version, Apple were rightly proud of it and all items in the protracted campaign, including the iTunes recently, have much more than 'returned on investment'

And I do expect it will (probably soon) have a new lease of life.
The thing about Anthology is that it came when Beatles stock was at a low ebb. Others have written at length on how it put them back on radio in the USA for the first time in a decade.
This 'outage' was the result of a scenario we're again near the end of...too much Beatle anniversarying and repackaging.

So I think 'Anthology' will once again have the potential to reinvigorate stock at a future date, particularly as McCartney is possibly going to provide some marketing potential again by finishing that third Threetle track.
I'm sure there's plenty of cutting room floor that could make it and that a lot of it is currently in Ron Howard's studio

I'd like to think it'll be before somebody dies but with other items in the chain of production/release, that may not be the case but the easy money is on networks buying rebroadcast rights at some point even if they're not repackaged meanwhile. I think I'd be right in assuming that a network could rebroadcast it at any time.

 

"Enormus", "Unknown", he still overhyped the bejesus outta that take

 

this is the correct answer

 

This site has links to all the discs in this massive set, with the song listings......

BootlegZone : The Beatles »

 

Rubber Soul had only THREE tracks of his sessions, really non sense.

 

quick question about anthologies on CD, 1st Pressings was released in BIG longboxes or Normal longboxes? I see both.

normal


big

 

Both size boxes were released at the same time and are “first editions.” They were simply used by different types of retailers. At the time, “Anthology” was being offered for sale at drug stores and grocery stores. They seemed to favor the smaller long boxes while the bigger boxes were favored by record stores. (This was true for the cassette version, too: Two size boxes, both issued on the release date.

 

I also like this volume 3 very much! But I can see how others might prefer vol. 2 with the psych period nicely represented.

 

I listen to the Anthology CDs regularly. I really enjoy the first cd with the tracks they did in someone's living room, That'll Be The Day, et al.

 

Anthology 1 had some spoken word,prefer 2&3. You don't here much about Beatles Live at the BBC(better cover).

 

I'm still waiting for the third bloody new song ! Let's see, 22 years, 23 years, soon to be 24.

 

I doubt they got very far with it (it was "Now And Then", right?) if they did anything at all of note.