Apple has announced it will re-issue Badfinger’s Magic Christian Music on a striking blue vinyl as part of National Album Day in the UK.

You might recall last year the theme was ‘Great British Groups’ and The Beatles A Hard Day’s Night was issued on white vinyl to celebrate.

Well, this year the theme is ‘Rock’:

Magic Christian Music is the second album released by Welsh rock band, Badfinger. They recorded 5 albums for Apple Records, and were the first non-Beatle recording artists signed to the label.

This release will be the first time the 2010 remasters of Magic Christian Music are available on vinyl, and the first time the album has been re-pressed since 1996.

Magic Christian Music includes the band’s first international hit, ‘Come And Get It’, written and produced for them by Paul McCartney. Of the fourteen tracks, seven were newly recorded for the album while the remaining songs were lifted from their first album Maybe Tomorrow, which had seen only a limited release. Three of the new tracks were featured in the film The Magic Christian (starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr). They were produced by Paul, and the strings on ‘Carry On Till Tomorrow’ were arranged and conducted by George Martin. SIx tracks were produced by Tony Visconti and five by Mal Evans.

This 180g blue vinyl version, out on October 18, is housed in a single sleeve featuring the original artwork, with poly-lined white inner sleeves.

In other Beatle-related release news, the push by BMG to get more George Harrison/Dark Horse Records titles officially onto their catalogue continues. On October 24 they will release the next batch including the self-titled George Harrison (from early 1979) on both vinyl and CD:

The CD has one bonus track, ‘Here Comes The Moon (Demo)’:

Then in June 1981 came Somewhere In England. It too gets a vinyl and CD re-issue on Dark Horse:

The CD is interesting. It comes in the original album concept artwork and has one bonus track, a demo of ‘Save The World’:

And then comes 1982’s Gone Troppo:

The Gone Troppo CD also comes with a single bonus track, the demo version of ‘Mystical One’:

Also due for an October 24 release are CD versions of Brainwashed; Cloud Nine; and Thirty Three and 1/3. Each of these has already seen a vinyl release under the BMG distribution deal. This just makes a CD version available to collectors:

All CD’s are in Digipak packaging. You can get all the details on all these releases, and place pre-orders, at the Official George Harrison Store.

Interestingly, also listed there (for an October 3 release) is a 3LP set of All Things Must Pass. This too is to bring that classic title in under the BMG/Dark Horse Records banner as a vinyl issue (there’s already been a CD released).

The question is, will it come out with Dark Horse Records labels, or will it be on the traditional orange Apple and Apple Jam labels? The pack shot has a prominent Dark Horse hype sticker (click on the image to see a larger version):

This vinyl is the 50th anniversary mix by Paul Hicks and the set includes the original poster – but with the back of the poster containing notes by Dhani Harrison and Hicks about remixing the album.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see if the LPs have the Dark Horse label. For some reason our money is on Apple labels……look very closely at that hype sticker and you’ll see in the small print the words “Apple and the Apple logo are exclusively licensed to Apple Corps Ltd and used with permission.” So maybe it won’t have Dark Horse labels after all….