I get the feeling I’ll be writing about the Beatles till the day I die and one of the things that I’ll be writing is the UK album releases from Please Please Me to Revolver are much better than the US album releases from With The Beatles to Revolver. The butchering of the Beatles opus is such a cultural slaughter that to this day people who should know better have the audacity to prefer the US Versions. How anybody can even begin to begin A Hard Day’s Night, UK to US where the US version is half incidental music, is way beyond me. All discussion should come to a complete end right there.
Still, I come to praise the US Releases not to bury them and when they were released in Mono-Stereo form a number of years ago with the original (albeit somewhat smaller) packaging I went the bucks. Sure I did.
Just in time for the 50 th year anniversary of the day the Beatles landed at JFK February 7 th, 1994 (50 years, wow, the mind boggles), a box set of all 13 US only releases, some of which are making it to CD for the first time, will be available January 21 ST. These are the albums according to Billboard:
Meet The Beatles! (1964)
The Beatles’ Second Album (1964)
A Hard Day’s Night (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (1964) *
Something New (1964)
The Beatles’ Story (1964) *
Beatles ’65 (1965)
The Early Beatles (1965)
Beatles VI (1965)
Help! (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (1965)
Rubber Soul (1965)
Yesterday And Today (1966) *
Revolver (1966) *
Hey Jude (1970) *
* American version previously unavailable on CD
Also: “The 13 CDs come with carefully-replicated album art (including the albums’ inner sleeves), along with a 64-page booklet with photos and original LP artwork. All titles come in mono and stereo, except “The Beatles’ Story” and “Hey Jude,” which are stereo only.”
Is it worth growling rip off one more time? Probably not.