Beatles track selection differences between UK & Capitol versions. & What about redoing them again ?

... got mine for free from my dad!!

 

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Dexter had no part in Yesterday and Today.
He was gone by then.
And they took the 3 John Revolver songs because they were the only new tracks completed at the time.
Capitol didn't care if they were all John or all all Paul.
They took the new stuff George Martin gave them.
They knew the sessions they were from would still render enough tracks for a new American album release later on.
Not realizing it hindered John's presence on the next album.

 

While I appreciate the distinction you make between the US and UK single/album markets, I find it hard to believe that US Beatles fans who bought their albums would wait for singles to appear on an album instead of buying them on release, or that US Beatles fans who bought the singles wouldn’t want to hear the albums as well.

More to the point is Capitol’s rationale for releasing albums with 11 tracks instead of the UK’s 14. While this may have been - and, indeed, was - common practice in the US record industry, the policy was dictated by the amount of royalties payable, and certainly not by a desire to give fans value for money.

 

I ripped the U.S. Rubber Soul for my MP3 player ... mono of course ... added in Nowhere Man after You Won't See Me and We Can Work It Out after Girl, and I'm good to go. I could care less it wasn't their artistic vision. It works to my ears.

 

I guess what I've been suggesting, without fully realizing my point, until now.

A new theory of everything.

The UK versions are superior by & large, except Mystery Tour. But Capitol had a good idea squeezing out a few extra albums. So at this late date, what would be nice. Keep the UK albums & USA Mystery Tour, & recreate 3-4 Capitol style extra albums. But redo the tracklists, using non LP tracks, singles + B sides, the higher quality outtakes like Not Guilty, Leave My Kitten alone... And depending on the specifics of the tracklists, you might end up with something like "Beatles 2nd album", "Yesterday & Today", "Yellow Submarine"- but as a full 11-12 song album. & Some type of rehashed Hey Jude tracklist..

How would something like that benefit anyone ?

Well, it gives fans new & old 16 studio albums to listen to, instead of 12. Of course 4 of those, are really compilations, but each being culled from a short 12-18 month time frame, they flow like a regular album ( hopefully )... Historically it preserves the integrity of the UK albums, but uses the idea of Capitol records to create a few extra albums from the overflow. Simply altering the Capitol tracklists to use good outtakes & non LP tracks.

Do I think this will actually happen ? Not really, maybe 20-40 years from now when I'm dead. Why is it important ? I'm not sure it is, it is to me, but the material is still there, it's just packaged in a less streamlined way.

Honestly when I learned Yesterday & Today wasn't a real album, I was torqued. Crestfallen. It had been one of my favorite Beatle albums.

The Capitol versions made the Beatles seem like Supermen, they were releasing more albums & hits faster than biscuits !!, As a kid-young adult I reckoned the Beatles had nearly 20 studio albums in about 7-8 years. Heroes indeed. Of course Capitol was doing this with The Beach Boys & other groups too, but I didn't realize it then.

The Beatles quit in mid 69, never to perform or record together again, so the idea of 16 studio like albums instead of 12 is appealing to me. With new modified tracklists on the ( hypothetically ) 4 extra albums.

As many have said, we can do these types of things at home, ourselves. Or just buy the Capitol albums now if we want. But the USA Capitol & UK albums cancel each other out with enormous duplication. It's one or the other really, & they both miss a ton of songs from Past masters & Anthology. Yellow Submarine sucks too, with only 4 new songs + 2 songs available on Mystery Tour & Revolver. The George Martin orchestral tracks are cool, but it would be a lot more satisfying instead if say side 2 was Lady Madonna, Across The Universe, Inner Light, Paperback Writer & Rain, or whatever is available.

Listening to a compiled faux studio album , that's plausible, culled from just 1-2 years, is going to be more pleasing, than Hodge podge compilations that zip all over the place with nearly a decade of unrelated songs. There's an opportunity to create the pre Ringo Decca album too, why not ? Dumping the 4 weakest Decca tracks, & subbing in with say Ain't She Sweet, Cry For A Shadow, & the early EMI versions of Love Me Do & Besame Mucho, that turns the Decca sessions into a credible album, with 5-6 Beatles original songs.

You can still create unrelated Beatles comp albums, like The White album demos, or Dick James Beatles demos, or a 2nd disc of Let it Be Twickenham outtakes, or remixed versions of Beatles albums.

So maybe I'm nearly alone in this madcap belief, but if tomorrow I could purchase an adjusted Yesterday & Today album, with a running order say hypothetically

1. Day Tripper
2. Leave My Kitten
3. I'm Down
4. We Can Work it out
5. Bad Boy
6. Yes It is
7. That Means A Lot
8. If you've got trouble
9. 12 Bar Original
10

Yellow Submarine
1. Yellow Submarine
2. Lady Madonna
3. Inner Light
4. All Together Now
5. Only A Northern Song
6. Hey Bulldog
7. Across The Universe
8. Paperback Writer
9. Rain
10 Xmas time is here new mix
11 It's all too much

Beatles 2nd album
1. She Loves You
2. One After 909
3. I'll get You
4. How Do You Do It
5. Thank You Girl
6. From Me To You
7. This Boy
8. IWTH your hand
9*
10*
11*

If they could put stuff like that together with 11-13 song non duplicated tracklists I'd buy 2 copies of each the first day, give my past masters away & play them for weeks !!

 

Introducing... The Beatles - Wikipedia

that's cool you remember the time and place...I LOVE THAT ALBUM! Still play it today in Stereo of course. : )

 

LOL...yea I remember the days of saving my pennies for the things I wanted...then I was excited to get a paper route and made some "real money" for more records!..HA!
I'd frame that album and put it up on the wall...you are lucky to still have it!

 

Was it the studio City store, I think that one is still there. Are they Rite aid now ?

I vaguely remember a record section.

 

I remember that store too, part of my family lived nearby on Van Alden. I can't remember when they discontinued records, had to be in the 70s or sooner.

 

Question. If a Capitol style "extra" Beatles album was recreated, with adjustment to the tracklist, so it didn't steal tracks from the UK versions. Which one is closest or would be easiest to compile with 11-12 tracks not found on a studio album ?

Yesterday & Today or Hey Jude or The Beatles 2nd album or which one ?

 

There’s a heavily unsubstantiated rumor that if you carefully peel off the cover slick of this 1965 release:



it reveals the infamous withdrawn “Bedroom” cover, which record stores refused to stock:



Of course, it may be just a rumor.

 

Just give me a twelve inch single of Carnival Of Light.

 

This now flows better with a few adjustments:

1. Day Tripper
2. Leave My Kitten Outside Tonight
3. Riot In Cell Block Number 9
4. We Can Work it out
5. War Pigs
6. Roundabout
7. That Means A Lot
8. If you've got trouble
9. 12 Bar Original
10. I Heard Her Call My Name

Yellow Submarine
1. Pink Flag
2. Lady Madonna
3. Outer Limits
4. All Together Now
5. Only A Northern Song
6. Hey Bulldog
7. Across The Universe
8. Why'd Ya Do It?
9. Hold The Line
10 Xmas time is here (Old mix)
11 It's all too much

Beatles 2nd album
1. She Loves You
2. Androgynous Shuffle
3. I'll get You
4. How Do You Do It
5. Love Beach
6. From Me To You
7.The Pina Colada Song
8. Put Your Hand In The hand
9. I've Never Been To Me
10. Nine After 101
11. This Boy

 

Yeah. And thread crapping is against the forum rules ffs, so cut it out.

OP, I loved your idea. I might just copy your album track listing

 

COMPS ARE FUN, BUT PERSONAL..and may look weird to others. ;>)

 

I'll take a CD...

 

it's not...I may have one. :- )

 

If you can see Freddie’s teeth showing through blue Freddie’s knee, then you definitely have one.

 

HEY! I think I remember that now, but wait! I thought it was his hairy nostrils...

 

Well I made a post about Dave Dexter, using Wikipedia as the primary source & I guess it was censored & removed.

So no one reading your post will know what you're responding to.

Basically I just paraphrased portions of Wikipedia's segment on Dexter's Beatle work with Capitol.

Someone made the point a few posts back, that comp albums are personal & often seem odd to anyone that isin't involved in the selection of tracks.

While that observation might be true sometimes, the idea of using part of the 1960's Capitol records paradigm of assembling extra albums is a nice idea for many, even most fans. But with 45-55 years of hindsight, & now having both the USA & UK versions available as standard canon albums. I don't think it's controversial at all, to consider revisiting the Capitol tracklistings on Yesterday & Today, The Beatles 2nd album, Hey Jude-Beatles Again, Yellow Submarine, & even considering adding the pre Ringo Decca tracks & the other Pete Best tracks. Configured as an additional album.

Everyone would have a personal opinion on the best way to do it, which tracks to use & where. But I think most people would agree to try & use only songs from singles, B sides, outtakes, alternates, & leave the 12 canon albums intact if possible.

Of course that could be offensive to fans of the original Capitol albums, who like them as they are. But the original Capitol albums are mostly redundant when placed side by side with the EMI UK versions, because the tracklists are 80% the same. Most people except collectors & lunatic fringe Beatles fans like you & me & us here. On these types of forums, are probably the only people that want all the UK & Capitol albums side by side, because they're too similar. What's the point of having near duplicates of 12-14 albums, where the majority of tracks is the same ?

But if at this late date, you reconfigured the Capitol releases to have mostly or all songs not on the 12 original Capitol albums, they'd be worth buying again. Or could be. As far as good tracklists being personal, there are only a finite number of non canon LP tracks available. If you were making an adjusted tracklist for a revamped Yesterday & Today hypothetically. There are only so many tracks from the 65-66 period, that weren't on Help, Rubber Soul & Revolver.

Anyway it's a nice idea, but I don't see it happening for decades. But eventually the Capitol albums will go out of print in favor of the UK versions. Unless they redo the tracklists that make them good additions to the UK versions.

I imagine that's what they'll finally end up doing. Adding Day Tripper-We Can Work it Out as Rubber Soul deluxe bonus tracks, & Lady Madonna, Inner Light & Across The Universe as Yellow Submarine deluxe bonus tracks & so on. Ballad of John & Yoko & Old Brown Shoe to either Abbey Road or Let it Be.

The bonus tracks to the corresponding album is an ok way to do it. But the Capitol records idea of creating 3-4 or 5 extra studio album like compilations is a heckuva lot more exciting imo.

Sorry for the long post, the simplest things can be difficult to explain sometimes.

 

Believe it. Adults bought albums. Teenagers bought singles. [Typically.]

Adults tend to be more patient than teenagers. Adults had more disposable cash to buy albums, which were more expensive than singles [obviously].

My brother and I grew up on albums [because that's what our Dad and his friends bought]. It was a realization that came later that the versions on the singles might be different, or even [heaven forbid] might have a song that was *not* on an album.

The US system dictated that royalties were paid by the song. In the UK there was a set rate per album that would be sub-divided by number of songs on the album.

So, if the rate was [just making up numbers for purpose of example] $0.10 per song in US and [UK-pound-equivalent-of] $1.00 per album:
An 11-track album would cost Capitol $1.10 in royalties, whereas a 14-track album would be $1.40.
In the UK, regardless of how many tracks were on the album, EMI paid $1.00 in royalties. It didn't cost them anything to be more generous with the number of songs.

Now on an album like Shazam by the Move, the US record company only had to pay $0.60 because there are only 6 tracks. Are they providing less value with that album because it has longer songs on it? I wouldn't say so, but they certainly would not be pushing to add more songs to it...

 

Another mental experiment I've thought about again recently.

On Beatles albums 63-65 remove the cover songs, compile those on 2 seperate covers albums, & offer Please Please Me, With The Beatles & Beatles For Sale, as all original albums, in the same way A Hard Day's Night was released with no covers. For the 2 Help covers I just replaced them with I'm Down & Yes It Is.

I still like the idea of A Yesterday & Today type album, to create a 2nd studio album for 1966, & likewise for a 3rd 1963 studio album Beatles 2nd album or Long Tall Sally, whatever someone chooses to call it.

But of course my tracklists don't raid songs from the UK albums, I just use singles, B sides & the better quality outtakes from Anthology-Sessions.

I think the 3rd & final hole in the discography, is to turn Yellow Submarine into a regular 11-12 song album, or just create an early 68 studio album from the available songs.... The Allen Klein idea of the Hey Jude album I just dropped, songs from 64 mixed with songs from 68-69 doesn't sound like a studio album to me..and I don't think there's enough stray songs from 68-69 to fill a 10-12 song album.

 

We will have to agree to disagree on this one. Despite it being an ABKCO production, I grew up with Hey Jude [or as it was titled on the version we had "The Beatles Again"] and have always loved it as a collection.

Just as Capitol's tweaks to Rubber Soul give that album a more folk-rock feel, kicking Hey Jude off with the one-two punch of Can't Buy Me Love and I Should Have Known Better sets up the album with a kind of bluesy/R&B feel [reinforced by tracks like Lady Madonna, Hey Jude, Old Brown Shoe, and Don't Let Me Down].

I would rank it higher than, say Magical Mystery Tour, because I don't think there's a bad track on it. [I would say OBS is probably the weakest, and even one is not too bad...] Of course, MMT was only *half* compilation of singles whereas HJ was *all* singles so it's got a natural edge...

That being said, I would suggest if you want to do your "reimagining of Capitol versions", replace the first two tracks of HJ with a couple of the Yellow Submarine songs and you've got a *great* compilation. [Of course, it's all opinion.... duh.]