Do you mean tracks that were previously included in albums? Then I wonder why "Yesterday" and "Michelle" were included, since they weren't even released as singles in UK, albeit they were very popular songs.
Steve, excellent post, and it hits the nail on the head on this release. In the late sixties, I managed a large record store here in Milwaukee, and we carried UK (and German) imports. And this album caught my attention right away. And for me, a stereo collector, it was a revelation getting so many tracks in true stereo. Was the sound quality all that great? Not really. But getting Paperback Writer in stereo for the first time (among others) was easily worth the price of admission....
Seeing the import LP's and 45's at Lewin's in the late 1960's was amazing to us. The different cover art (Aftermath), the different (and usually longer) track selection, the unknown songs (Bee Gees "Barker Of The UFO" 45 B side) and so on and so on. The problem? The stuff was just too much money. I got two dollars a week and so did my friend. A regular album was $2.98 and a British or German import was almost $8.00. That tapped us out so we decided to simply share. We bought the EP of MMT, British Aftermath, Help!, all the neat albums and some of the stereo German Odeon EP's. That was probably the last time I ever truly listened to a Capitol Beatles' record. Still cannot do it without curling my lip in disgust..
That's the availability bias. Now fans tend to talk about the greatness of "Paperback Writer" in mono. In my case, always give me stereo (excepting twin-track recordings).
My analysis is that you bought the album as an import and that the album features various hit songs as performed by The Beatles.
It looks like they're (Beatles) in a studio when the back cover of Revolver has one of the alternate color shots...when I was a kid, staring at the back cover as it played ("it", being the Capitol album in the late 60's on my RCA 6"-platter phonograph), it looked to me like they were sitting/standing in a dark parking lot. And just to add another tidbit of unrelenting excitement, the back cover photo of Oldies but Goldies in Greece was in black and white.
A Collection of Beatles Oldies… But Goldies was one of the first EMI LPs to have a colour back cover: Is this the first instance of lip hair on a Beatle issue?
a-collection-of-beatles-oldies-but.html For the rear cover a colour photograph by Robert Whitaker was chosen. It was taken on June 30, while on tour in Japan. Before the first show in the Nippon Budokan Hall they started an oil and watercolors painting on a large paper. A Collection of Beatles Oldies back cover - Robert Whitaker Bob Whitaker witnessed how, after the concert, the four of them continued working on the painting while listening to acetates of Revolver and smoking some pot. A different picture from the same evening is reprinted in 'The Beatles Anthology' book. The Beatles are painting in Japan - Robert Whitaker The finished painting was called "Images of a woman" In Japan, they realised that the photo was in reverse, so they reversed it back.
When I saw this for the first time in the record collection of one of my cousins, aged 12 or 13, I thought George was John, because Beatle + round glasses = John. It was my mom, not a Beatles fan and already 30 when the LP had come out, who had to break it to me that it's George. Cliff Richard's Summer Holiday LP had a colour back cover and a custom inner sleeve already in January 1963, more than three years before that.
I'm pretty sure (though not positive) that the Japanese AP pressing (from around 1969 or so) has the whispering intro to "I Feel Fine." Pretty rare that.
True. But due to the interior flipback construction of the gatefold cover, the interior of the gatefold was sort of like the rear. And that was black & white.
UK Aftermath was the first import LP I ever bought. Even though I lived near a huge Tower Records store, I don't recall them getting any imports until the mid-70's (though I may be mistaken about that).
Mine was Please Please Me…bought it the very first time my eyes laid sight on UK imports. A sunny Saturday afternoon in the very early 70’s…I didn’t even know it existed…great cover.
The only Capitol or EMI 60s Beatles LP I never bought. By the time I became aware of it the Red and Blue collections had made it pretty pointless as far as I could tell.
