It was released today (Friday, September 2) in Australia:
This is the re-issue, in newly remastered form, of “The Beatles 1” compilation which first came out in the year 2000. As the sticker on the front cover says: “27 Classic Number 1 Singles – Remastered”. Here’s the rear cover:
These are the remasters done at the same time as the big release of all the albums back in 2009. It comes in a cardboard gatefold sleeve that’s in the same format as all the 2009 re-issues.
Below is the front cover of the booklet, which despite some speculation that it would be different, has exactly the same 30 pages and layout as the 2000 issue:
Each page is dedicated to a particular song and gives the recording place and date, chart information and full colour photographs of various record sleeves of that single from around the world. Even the CD printing is the same as the 2000 issue:
(click on images to see a large version)
A bit disappointing really….
It comes out on September 13 in the US, on September 5 in the UK, and is also expected on iTunes as a digital download on September 6th.
See also: The Beatles Number 1 Vinyl and The Beatles Number 1 – Taiwan Variation and Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Flattery
The Beatles official site has this promotional video for “1” now on the front page:
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Buying the new Beatles 1 reminds me of a joke once told by Freddie Prinze:”I once bought a stereo that was originally MINE! the guy says hey buy it again you know it works”.
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That’s funny. And so true!
I was thinking today I might change the name of my blog the Crazy Beatles Completists Page.
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Hi. Is the newly remastered cd sonically different from the earlier version?
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Hi James,
These are the remasters from the same crew at Abbey Road who did the major work remastering the entire Beatles catalogue back in 2009 – and so they are really tastefully cleaned up and fresh sounding. You’ll notice, if you have the original CD version of “1”, that it too says “Digital Remasters” on the back cover, and so that disc also sounds pretty good too – but it was done using the year 2000 technology which is more than ten years ago now. I think that the combination of remastering techniques improving in that time, plus the real “labour of love” approach that the team assembled by the Beatles took more recently probably means that these 2011 versions in fact are the best we have to date. However, I think that you’d need to listening on a halfway decent system to hear the real differences. Its probably not going to be audible on a cheap boom-box! Cheers.
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