We haven’t heard anything of Beatles band and its members for oh, ages now, so the prospect of a four part reissue of Anthology, the book and a nine-part rebooted version of the TV series by Peter Jackson coming this autumn might be of interest to some of us here.
The Beatles – Anthology Collection (2025 Edition): 12LP Boxset
The Anthology Collection 12LP set includes the 3 groundbreaking Anthology albums from the mid-90s, remastered in 2025 by Giles Martin, plus a new compilation, Anthology 4. Containing 191 tracks, the collection’s studio outtakes, live performances, broadcasts and demos reveal the development of The Beatles from 1958 to 2023’s final single, “Now And Then.” Anthology 4 features 13 unreleased tracks and 17 songs selected from Super Deluxe versions of 5 classic albums. In addition to fascinating outtakes from 1963-1969, the album includes new 2025 mixes by Jeff Lynne of “Free As A Bird,” and “Real Love.” Furthermore, Anthology 4 presents 26 tracks previously unavailable on vinyl. Pressed on 180g vinyl, each 3LP set is housed in a triple-gatefold sleeve featuring original art, sleeve notes by Mark Lewisohn, and restored photos for Anthology 1-3. Anthology 4 has new sleeve notes by Kevin Howlett, plus photos. The outer slipcase features the original Klaus Voorman triptych art.
ANTHOLOGY 4
LP1 – Side 1
1: I Saw Her Standing There (Take 2)
2: Money (That’s What I Want) (RM7 undubbed)
3: This Boy (Takes 12 and 13)
4: Tell Me Why (Takes 4 and 5)
5: If I Fell (Take 11) 6: Matchbox (Take 1) 7: Every Little Thing (Takes 6 and 7) 8: I Need You (Take 1)
LP1 – Side 2
1: I’ve Just Seen A Face (Take 3)
2: In My Life (Take 1)
3: Nowhere Man (First version – Take 2) 4: Got To Get You Into My Life (Second version – unnumbered mix) 5: Love You To (Take 7) 6: Strawberry Fields Forever (Take 26) 7: She’s Leaving Home (Take 1 – instrumental)
LP2 – Side 3
1: Baby, You’re A Rich Man (Takes 11 and 12)
2: All You Need Is Love (Rehearsal for BBC broadcast)
3: The Fool On The Hill (Take 5 – Instrumental)
4: I Am The Walrus (Take 19 – strings, brass, clarinet overdub)
LP2 – Side 4
1: Hey Bulldog (Take 4 – instrumental)
2: Good Night (Take 10 with a guitar part from Take 5)
3: While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Third Version – Take 27)
4: (You’re So Square) Baby I Don’t Care (Studio jam) 5: Helter Skelter (Second version – Take 17) 6: I Will (Take 29) 7: Can You Take Me Back? (Take 1) 8: Julia (Two rehearsals)
LP3 – Side 5
1: Get Back (Take 8)
2: Octopus’s Garden (Rehearsal)
3: Don’t Let Me Down (First rooftop performance) 4: You Never Give Me Your Money (Take 36) 5: Here Comes The Sun (Take 9) 6: Something (Take 39 – instrumental – strings only)
LP3 – Side 6
1: Free As A Bird (2025 mix)
2: Real Love (2025 mix)
3: Now And Then
I like selected songs from half a dozen of their LP’s so perhaps I’m not the intended market.
Even if they were still my favourite band, as they were when I was twelve, I wouldn’t buy it. Life is too short really.
Does that mean A4 is a compilation of bonus tracks from the SDEs, or yet more unreleased takes from the bottom of the barrel?
I recall quite liking Free As A Bird when it came out.
seems a bit of both from what I can see.
I remember reading something in which Mark Lewisohn said he’d heard Carnival of Light and it was utter shit.
Side three, for example, has all been on the SDEs apart from Octopus’s Garden rehearsal.
That track listing looks quite definitive. Isn’t this still all speculation at this stage? I’m assuming there will be a remastered CD version.
No, this is off Amazon US. I believe the formal announcement comes later today
I’m waiting for the Anthology that includes Carnival Of Light.
Not really interested. I never play the original CDs/LPs. I got the vinyl a few years ago. The new video episode might be interesting but it’s probably just an expansion of the extra content on the DVD set that came out 20 years ago or so. I will however listen to the new remixes of Free as a Bird and Real Love to see if they sound better
I’m puzzled. I bought Anthologies 1, 2 and 3 on the day of release, and I recall really liking 2 and finding 3 a good listen. 1 had its moments but the spoken word bits jarred.
When talk of this re-release project came up, i went to my digital library and noticed that
a) I don’t have Anthology 2 and the only reason for this is that for some reason i never ripped it to MP3 and
b) I did all the ripping to MP3 of my CD back collection in the summer of 2006 when a load of stuff went up to the attic.
Thus, it’s almost certainly AT LEAST 19 years since i’ve found myself wanting to listen to Anthology 2 – you know – the one that I ‘really liked’.
So, I dunno is ‘ennui’ the word here (and this is somebody who ponied up for the Mono vinyl set a few months ago) but from where is the demand coming for this? I gather, alright, that there’s a reboot of some kind of the TV show but that had its flaws 30 years ago and I’m not sure any of those will get ironed out much.
Here’s the problem. I could tell My Darling Wife that I wanted, say, the Abbey Road deluxe box for Christmas and when it arrived, even if the pickings were relatively slim on it, I could make a decent fist of looking excited about it. I’m not sure I’ve got the dramatic chops to pull it off for anything to do with the Anthology project.
I know what you mean. When any of the canonical albums were being remastered, reboxed, remixed, I was champing at the bit to hand over absurd sums of cash so I could get every false start of “Ob La Di Ob La Da” or whatever. But this – and at nearly 400 quid for the vinyl edition – even as dementedly beholden to the Fabs as I am, I am not gonna bite.
While i was typing, the announcement went live and €350 for the vinyl plus customs if you’re not in the UK.
I think the base price for the mono box was *around* €580 but for that you got 14 slabs of vinyl, that gorgeous box/book *and* the fact that there was a degree of exclusivity about the package. Put simply, it was quite difficult to hear anywhere else She’s Leaving Home, in mono, at the pitch it is on the Mono LP.
Putting a price on these things is a tricky game but straight re-releases with a bit of, no doubt, Peter Jackson/Giles Martin fairy dust is nice but I’m not sure it’s THAT nice.
I may be given the CD set but that’ll be it…
Pepper SDE was great, as was White Album, Abbey Rd and Let it Be were pretty average and Revolver was extremely disappointing for me. I didn’t buy it (got all the others at very reduced prices).
If you want the 12 disc vinyl box set WITH POSTCARDS!! that’ll set you back EUR370. Sheesh
https://ukstore.thebeatles.com/products/anthology-collection-2025-edition-limited-numbered-photo-art-card-set-12lp-boxset
Revamped TV series I’ll watch.
Anthology 4 on CD – reasonable price – maybe. Has to be separate, I’m sure not buying 1-3 again.
No marbles or other cheap, disposable gewgaws – I’ll pass
Can’t remember the last time I played the Anthology albums, did however watch the box set a few years back and forked out for the Red and Blue vinyl sets
If you pay more, you get some nice postcards.
😀
Too spendy for me, even as a buyer of previous HJH box sets. I’ll watch the vids, of course, especially as my copies of the original DVS are such low resolution, but the audio will be via streaming.
I still think the best place for all these outtakes would have been at the end of the original albums. Wrote an email saying as much about twenty years ago, and was met with “Oh no, the albums have to stand alone”. Thought that was tosh at the time and, of course, it turned out to be tosh (see: all the box sets mentioned above). You can’t kid a kidder.
I’ve definitely played the equivalent ‘extras’ on Kinks’, Monkees’ and Byrds’ reissues, which all came out at about the same time, far more than I’ve listened to the Anthologies, and spent more money on those acts in the process.
Well Kinks extras for one on early releases were often superior to the actual albums. As they put more effort into A and B sides (and EPs) than the rather quickly recorded albums. At least the first 3 I would say
I think original albums should be left alone. My reissued “Tapestry” by Carole King on pristine vinyl is ruined by an uninvited live version of “Smackwater Jack” tacked on the end. Put all the barrel scrapings on a separate disk, there to be appropriately ignored.
Agreed.
No reason not to do it at -and included in – the absurd prices such sets often carry
The version of The Last Record Album on streaming is harder to track down without All That You Dream being the version with Linda Ronstadt. Whether that’s an improvement or not, it’s not the original album version.
This is why I stick to my own ripped copies unless I really can’t for some reason.
Erm…wasn’t she always on backing vocals, just not initially credited?
Possibly, but it’s not the same version
I didn’t know that! I play my CD or vinyl. That is appalling. The Lowell version is fabulous. Why can’t people leave things alone?
The Byrds reissues from the 1990s were indeed full of marvelous bonus tracks and at no extra cost: also meant the CDs had more than the 30 minutes or so of LP music on them.
I remember those Bowie reissues that tacked a few bonus tracks on the end. Was good in terms of value for money, but threw the whole album out of whack, especially like putting the cheery “Bombers” after the Bewlay Brothers shuffled slowly away
The 8 CD set is £90 from Badlands, which isn’t too crazy these days, but sticking 4 in the set and not as a standalone release is a bit naughty. From memory, 1 2 and 3 were priced at £19.99 in 1995/6 to give it some perspective. Of course the amount of new material is disappointing given what is ‘available’ – just look at what is on the Anthology More and Anthology Plus bootlegs, plus the ability to now clean up all the live stuff – why not at least a disc of live performances given the MAL treatment?
I’m sure the TV series will look and sound great though.
Having bought the Anthology series twice ( CD and Vinyl ), I will be giving the new versions a miss. Pity that vol 4 will not be released separately.
Now if the Hamburg tapes had the fairy dust sprinkled on them and they had “the treatment “ applied to the sound I would be first in the queue for this purchase.
The new mix of Free As A Bird is a interesting listen (it’s already on Spotify etc). I’m so used to the vocal sound of the ’95 version, hearing it cleaned up is a striking difference.
The “remasters” of 1-3 are streaming. It definitely sounds lovelier. I’m fond of quite a lot, particularly 2.
I’m Down, You’ve Got To Hide Your Love Away, It’s Only Love, Yesterday, Norwegian Wood, Strawberry Fields take 7, Penny Lane, Good Morning Good Morning, I Am The Walrus, Fool On The Hill take 4, Hello Goodbye, Across The Universe all bear repeated listens in their early versions. Those boys could sing.
The chat spoils it though. It’s the kind of thing worth hearing once or twice. Is there any way to edit it out from a streaming playlist?
The chat is only on Anthology 1 I think. They are (or were) listed as separate tracks so just don’t include them in a playlist.
I have Anthology 2 when it was released, bought on a whim while picking up a couple of other things. It’s terrific but Take 1 of ‘Yesterday’ is a real goosebumps/teary eyed moment. Paul obviously having just written the song and explaining the chords to the others. When the song starts I always wonder to myself if they realized what was about to happen. I sometimes drop it into playlists for guests. It’s a remarkable thing.
The big puzzle for me about that is why Macca is explaining the chords when he is the only person playing on it..?
Maybe the solo rendition wasn’t the original plan…? For example, one might imagine an “And I Love Her” type backing, rejected in favour of the solo version.
I read somewhere they tried it with an organ accompaniment, drums etc. Paul even asked George Martin to get Delia Derbyshire in to do a bleepy backing. Sir G talked him out of it, and got the strings in sharpish.
Is this genuine?
Why wouldn’t it be? Yes, they performed it live as a group on a number of occasions.
The trick is to walk away with what is not mugging you off… it’s a buyer’s market.
In this case, the ‘TV option’ seems to be the equivalent of the ‘TV option and cinema option’ (especially the cinema option, that was FANTASTIC) of Get Back.
I sometimes wonder if the big acts and their ‘people’ – and the Beatles are ‘the’ biggest act – realise that there is a whole lot of other stuff out there that us chaps can be happily getting on with?
Just a vague recent shuffle around the various chazzers has got me a whole load of CDs that I’d need a whole day to listen to… all quality, all cheap as chips, and all from the same era as the Beatles.
So why can’t I deposit £25 into Paul’s bank account for an Anthology 4 CD?
I’m all ready to go with the readies.
I know they’re rich beyond belief, but I’d have made more money for them over the years, it would be hard to see how anyone couldn’t.
So I’m thinking to myself “do I need this?”, and then today I heard the new mix of Free As A Bird.
So the answer is “Yes, I do need Anthology 4”.
Please can I have it as a stand alone to put next to the others.
(I’m even prepared to accept the different packaging/cd case)
What stood out for you in the new mix? (I’ve not had the chance to listen properly yet)
Increased clarity.
The original sounded too much like a Jeff Lynne production (damn near every Jeff Lynne production at the time had that claustrophobic squashed sound).
This mix is a lot brighter, Lennons vocal clearer, harmonies more pronounced, and the guitar solo above the mix rather than slightly buried.
oh – have listened. Indeed, sounds a lot brighter and cleaner. Nice to hear some buried detail in the harmonies
The Anthology 4 set is to be available separately as a 2cd or 3lp set apparently due to public demand.
A rare climbdown from Apple
If it’s a climbdown, it’s only the announcement.
They must’ve planned a separate edition all along, otherwise it wouldn’t be available in November – waiting time at vinyl manufacturers currently is 6 months (unless you do a 500 copies pressing at some shed in Romania).