But will it happen?
There were plans for a 40th Anniversary re-release that was kiboshed by those at The Apple Top Table.
Hopefully it will see the light of day – a huge box set please of original film, (proposed) re-edit, and a stack of unused footage
Let It Be To Get 50th Anniversary Release
by 40 Comments
I read somewhere that it was the Lennon and Harrison estates that put the kybosh on the last re-release, but surely they will do something now with the impetus of the Pepper and White album reissues, and God knows there’s plenty of material. There was talk of a recut of the film a while ago too. I have a bootleg DVD of the film and it’s not nearly as dreadful as memory serves.
Meanwhile….White album news…
cd1/cd 2 new stereo, cd 3 demos, cd 4,5, 6 outtakes plus blu ray.
Nothing’s been officially announced yet has it? Not while Paul is relentlessly shilling ‘Egypt Station’ and they’re trying to knock out Yellow Submarine tents (hurry while stocks linger)
https://www.thebeatlesonline.co.uk/thebeatles/thebeatles/Yellow-Submarine-two-person-camping-tent/5UB70000000
-edit – just checked the HJHs site and it’s gone to all white static page with just the band logo – nothing else. Big update coming??
I’ve heard the official announcement is 26th Sept,, with the release date 9th November. Someone posted the above on a Facebook page and they seemed very confident!
I’m also hearing that there will be a 3CD set (new mix on 2 discs and a CD of demos) and a 4LP set of the same content.
Had an email saying the new Mojo won’t arrive until Sept 25 as it contains exclusive material that can’t be revealed before then – possibly connected?
Track list, regular 3 disc version:
CD 1: The Beatles, side 1 and 2 New stereo mix
CD 2: The Beatles, side 3 and 4 New stereo mix
CD 3: Esher Demos:
Back in the U.S.S.R.
Dear Prudence
Glass Onion
Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da
The Continuing Story of Bungalow Bill
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
Happiness is a Warm Gun
I’m so tired
Blackbird
Piggies
Rocky Raccoon
Julia
Yer Blues
Mother Nature’s Son
Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey
Sexy Sadie
Revolution
Honey Pie
Cry Baby Cry
Sour Milk Sea
Junk
Child of Nature
Circles
Mean Mr. Mustard
Polythene Pam
Not Guilty
What’s the New Mary Jane
WHITE ALBUM SUPER DELUXE 50TH anniversary: 6 CDS + BLU RAY:
CDs 1 & 2: 2018 Stereo Album Mix
CD3: Esher demos
CDs 4, 5 & 6: Sessions – 50 additional recordings, mostly unpublished, from the studio sessions of the ‘White Album’; all remixed from the four-track and eight-track session bands, sorted by their recording start dates. Includes hitherto unknown white album recording of the song “Let It Be”!
Blu-ray Audio:
– 2018 album mix in high-resolution PCM stereo
– 2018 DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Album mix
– 2018 Dolby True HD 5.1 album mix
– 2018 direct transfer of the original monomix of the album
Are we getting Hey Jude/Revolution? Lady Madonna/The Inner Light? Hey Bulldog/Across The Universe? All recorded in 1968 but only the first two during the White album sessions.
I can’t think we won’t get Hey Jude and Revolution outtakes, but it doesn’t look like they’re getting the remix treatment.
50 recordings over 3CDs though…? Maybe 50 songs in various outtakes….or 50 very long ones!!
I don’t like monomix as a single word. Although I suppose it makes more sense than it being two.
Macca recently said he wouldn’t have a problem with it being released as is, but hinted the issue may well lie with Yoko and Olivia
“Look I’ll release it anyway you want me to! Or I won’t release it at all! Whatever PLEASES you” etc etc
Does Macca really want “Commonwealth Song” to get wider exposure in this day and age?
“A new phase BEATLES album… a phase during which they can’t bear to be in the same room as each other”
“Does Macca really want “Commonwealth Song” to get wider exposure in this day and age?”
Why not? It’s a song, later discarded/reworked, nothing more. It certainly wasn’t a public service announcement where McCartney asked people to sign up to something.
I’m looking forward to 5 discs of studio chatter and bickering.
We know that. I just mean what will happen when the tabloid press and 24/7 news media get hold of it. Look at what a meal they’ve made of the wanking story.
It’s reasonably well known, though, isn’t it. I mean its been pretty well written about, ‘don’t dig no Pakistanis’ etc (a “satire”). Wonder what Hari G made of it.
Well-known to people like us. The awareness of anything in the past shown by modern British journalists is absolutely pitiful – cf. Private Eye this week on the “Michael Foot-as Soviet-Spy” story being rehashed this summer for about the fourth time in 30 years.
It would just be nice to have the Glyn Johns’ version with the updated “Please Please Me” sleeve.
However, if this all does go ahead the back catalogue is going to be so top heavy it’ll look like the Stax piled up discs logo.
Boxes for Pepper/White/Let It Be, diddley squat for With the Beatles/Rubber Soul/ Revolver.
Why didn’t they start from the beginning?
My grade C O-Level in Maths could have told you in 2002 or 2004 or 2006 that 2013 would be the 50th Anniversary of “Please Please Me.”
Less they could do with the early tapes. The mono box is probably the best for pre-1967.
Wouldn’t Giles Martin be able to work his wonders..? Certainly Help! through to Revolver are crying out for decent stereo rejigs. From memory, the latest version of 1 had stereo remixes of the early singles.
I think this deluxe thing only really got going a couple of years ago so some anniversary possibilities passed them by, as well as the big tidy up of 2009 was quite recent. But….they’d better get on with it as the market is, presumably, fast dieing off.
Ok. You’ve convinced me.
GILES! Get on with it!!
Yep, I’m sure there’s far less to work on with regards to the early LPs but with “Please Please Me,” say, you’ve got alternate mixes of the 1st two 45s, the mono version, the stereo version and “From Me To You”/”Thank You Girl.”
These releases would have been events in themselves and would, in one stroke, have killed the out-of-copyright bootlegs that appeared in 2012.
They did put out a fairly underwhelming set of 1963 outtakes for download only. I don’t think these early albums are worthy of SDE sets. Revolver on, is more realistic, but I am pretty sure that in the case of The Beatles all the decent stuff has already been released.
No remixing worthy of the name possible, with the really early material.
Once they were using 8-track and 16-track etc. at Abbey Road then perhaps.
Out-takes are a different story, of course.
Although even then, were there many non-fluffed out-takes in the very early days? When pop music sessions were a 3 songs quickly in-and-out proposition?
“But….they’d better get on with it as the market is, presumably, fast dieing off.”
I was having this very conversation with a mate earlier this afternoon. I reckon the labels have got 10-15 years tops for the deluxe boxes of pre-1980 stuff, before the sales drop off to the point that it’s not worth making them. So all the labels, artists and living relatives of the deceased artists have one last chance to rake the money in!
That’s urban myth. There are always younger people interested in (more or less) historical stuff – nowadays even more than a few years ago. The biggest seller currently from Bear Family is not some budget-priced compilation, but a 20-CD box with recordings from mostly the 1940s, with a price around 250 euros.
The Fabs split before I was born*, but I still buy their records.
*I’ve just done a week of schools outreach careers presentations (audience: 15-year-olds) at Cambridge university Physics department, and none of my fellow colleague/presenters were born before I graduated. Jeez, that made me feel old.
Yes, but I’m not sure most of the younger generation are going to be as interested in buying boxed sets in physical format. I could be wrong though. I imagine that after another 1-15 years there isn’t going to be much left that record labels haven’t released anyway!
Oh god, a future without box sets? Daddy make it stop!!
There are a lot of new releases (with a much younger target audience) that come in “limited edition fan box sets” or similar, usually stuffed with vinyl copy, extra CDs or DVDs with unreleased tracks, cards, posters, T-shirts… They must be very popular because they’re always gone in a minute. From Taylor Swift to Marillion and yer favourite nu metal band – they’re all doing it, often from their own website without those evil record label devils. These fans will most likely spend their money on a 10th anniversary box (if there’s still “money” in 10 years time…).
Yes, my 15-y-o had to be persuaded against spending £75 on the forthcoming 21 Pilots box including non-album tracks on 10″ vinyl and a cassette.
Against? I would have thought that your house would be the ideal place for something that needs a turntable, cassette player and goodness knows what else is required of such a set.
My turntable is out of bounds to civilians.
I showed her last night how to use the CD player to play my copy of the Pale Waves album (bought for her, really).
The Glyn Johns version(s) is pretty awful. They took the right decision to reject it I think. We have already had revisionism with Let it Be Naked. The movie itself is depressing, disjointed and badly directed, only the last 30 minutes or so is worth watching. Put out a Blu-ray and then add all decent full performances filmed as extras. In the case of Let it Be, more is definitely not better.
You know…. in this case I don’t say less is more, I say more is MORE. I would like to have the opportunity to watch (if only once) a big long 10 hour cut of the rehearsal sessions , plus the full rooftop concert of course. It just seems weird it’s all been sitting in some vault for 50 years.
More than anyone else, even Dylan, there’s a demand for picking at every last thread of the Beatles legend (as the Lewisohn book has proven). 50 years! Just get it all out there. Carnival of Light? 20 minute Helter Skelter? Multitrack stems of all the four track tapes? Yep, gimme it all.
Well, yes, put it all out. Preferably as downloads that I can choose not to buy. But if you are curating a 4 or 5 disc box set then make it interesting enough for me (and presumably others) to want it and give it many listens/watches. I think they got close with Pepper and the White Album may be similar. However, if we have takes 1 to 99 of Not Guilty included then I may pass.
It’s been sitting in the vault all these years because it’s too near the knuckle for Macca, Yoko and the Harrisons. Too verite, too much bad stuff coming to the surface. A lot of it is like Pinter with rockabilly tunes.
‘Pinter with rockabilly tunes’! Genius.
Afterword T-shirt right there
Peter Jackson’s reworking of the film has now been pushed back to August of next year. Whether the music box set, which presumably wouldn’t have included the new film anyway, will still appear this year for the 50th anniversary remains to be seen.
😞
It is cursed.