Finally got hold of an Australian, two-disc, BluRay/DVD edition of the 50th anniversary release of A Hard Day’s Night.
Not much to show really. We here in “Region B” get a low-cost, very basic set in a standard BluRay blue plastic box….not even a booklet or insert inside:
The BluRay special features are The Beatles: The Road to A Hard Day’s Night – An Interview with author Mark Lewisohn; In their Own Voices – The Beatles on A Hard Day’s Night; Anotomy of a Style – a piece on Richard Lester’s methods; Picturwise – A featurette on Richard Lester; Audio Commentary – by the cast and crew; and a new trailer for the film.
The DVD adds: You Can’t Do That! – the making of AHDN; TheRunning Jumping Standing Still Film – Richard Lester’s 1960 short film; Things They Said Today – a 2002 documentary; Audio Commentary – by the cast and crew; and the new trailer for the film.
Beatles 101 – The Need-to-Know Guide by Richard Buskin is an impressive new Beatles book for anyone just starting out on the Beatle knowledege journey, or for die-hard fans who want to know more. It is a genuine one-stop-shop containing all the vital facts about the band:
There is so much information and research in here. There are individual chapters which could have been whole books, for example the eight-page chapter on The Beatles Anthology. It’s a great example of Buskin succinctly summarising every aspect of this significant Beatle project. Everything in the rest of the book is similarly very nicely distilled and concise. It is also very easy to read.
Beatles 101 is not presented as a purely chronological walk-through of the career. Topics are tackled more by categories of interest. That means you can easily dip in at various points and read very well-written and well-informed articles across a wide range of different aspects detailing the life and works of the Beatles. At the back of the book, for example, are a series of great, original interviews with some of the key people who worked with the band in the studio. There’s George Martin of course, but also the likes of Norman “Hurricane” Smith, Ken Scott, Glyn Johns, Alan Parsons and Eddie Kramer. We guarantee that even the most knowledgable fan will find something they didn’t know here.
This book also has some great photos – many not previously seen (especially of people and places) which all help to illustrate the wealth of information the book contains. This includes one very early shot of author Buskin standing beside another mad Beatle fan – who just happens to be a young Mark Lewisohn. The two didn’t know each other at the time – it is just a co-incidental snap of two fans, taken outside the gates of Strawberry Fields in Liverpool….
But perhaps the greatest and most unique visual element to Beatles 101 is the many colour plates depicting original artworks by Eric Cash:
These are terrific. We should also say that the company which produced the book is marketing a range of iPad, iPad Mini and iPhone covers featuring some of the best Beatle images painted by Cash and used in this book. They look great and you can order them online at Eric’s site, or through Amazon:
As well as being an author, Richard Buskin co-hosts (with Robert Rodriguez) a great new Beatles podcast called Something About the Beatles. This, in our humble opinion, is one of the best podcasts going around.
Beatles 101 – The Need-to-Know Guide is published by Parading Press.
If you’d like to hear an informative and fun interview with Richard Buskin about Beatles 101, have a listen to the podcast Fab4Free4All. Download Episode 94 in which the guys spend a good hour with Buskin discussing the book. It’s well worth a listen.
Our box set of the Beatles’Japan Box came with this postcard insert:
On the other side there are spaces to fill out your name and address details, attach a postage stamp. We thought it looks like an offer to send it off to receive an additional CD single.
We wanted to confirm this and so we sent a photo of the card to a Japanese friend who has kindly had a look. While not offering a complete translation he writes: “The text reads that you can enter a draw to win a special, one-song promo CD (not for sale) of “I Want To Hold Your Hand” – complete with the original Japanese 7-inch cover reproduced for the CD sleeve. The deadline is postmarked 9 July (in Japan) though….”
Sadly, the CD Japan site also says that this special offer/application postcard is valid only for purchases in Japan….
So, it looks like only a few lucky Japanese Beatle fans will be getting what undoubtably will become a collectors item to add to their Japan Box box sets.
Our Japanese copy of the Beatles five CD Japan Box arrived in the post this morning and so we thought we’d upload an “unboxing” series of photos and show you the contents in some detail.
This has been devised and issued in Japan as part of that country’s activities to mark the Beatles 50th anniversary celebrations this year.
The box set, which will also be issued in the UK and the US, comes in a re-sealable, clear plastic outer. Inside this is a red, yellow and blue paper insert which wraps around the box from part-way at the front and completely covers the rear: On the outside of the box is a circular sticker attached to the clear plastic cover. Not sure what it says – so if anyone can read Japanese please let us know: We think that the sticker has something to do with a small paper insert which is included inside the box (see more on this below).
Here’s the rear of the box with the wrap-around paper insert still in place:
Once you take the box set from it’s plastic cover this is what it looks like, front and rear:
The Japanese are obviously very good at doing high quality glossy cardboard. This set has a really luxurious lustre to it. The sides of the box look like this:
Like previous Beatle CD box sets released in this style (The Beatles In Mono and The US Albums) there’s a slide-out inner draw which holds the contents:
Each of the five CDs comes in it’s own protective clear plastic, re-sealable outer sleeve. There’s a thick booklet included in the box as well as a small, clear plastic sachet containing mini replicas of five Japanese OBI strips. These would have been attached to the original LPs back in the day and are an indicator that Universal Music in Japan have gone to great lengths to accurately recreate the original album artwork:
The 96-page booklet looks like this:Continuing on the design elements established with The Beatles in Mono and The US Albums box sets, each CD comes packaged just like the original 1960’s Japanese LP sleeves for these albums. This attention to detail extends to the external tabs on the rear of the covers, right through to what’s inside as well:
Inside there are authentic paper inner sleeves – exactly as they would have been for the vinyl editions. Meet the Beatles, for example, has a plain white paper sleeve:
There are also the original paper inserts with the lyrics for each song. And the original Odeon Records labels are printed on the CD:
This sort of detail is continued throughout each of the five CDs:
The Beatles No.5 cover loses the external rear tabs and just has a photograph of the band on the rear cover with no song titles:
Inside there’s a printed paper inner sleeve with advertising for other artists who would have been on the Japanese Odeon label at the time, as well as the paper insert with lyrics, etc:
Help! comes in a gatefold sleeve. Here’s the front cover:Here is the rear:And here’s the inside of the gatefold:
Help! also gets a printed paper inner sleeve with advertising, plus the insert with lyrics:It also gets a colour photo of the band as an additional insert:
One mystery object included with the box set is this thin paper postcard. We can’t read Japanese, but it looks like you can fill out your details on the other side, attach a postage stamp and send it off to receive an additional CD single. Possibly “I Want to Hold Your Hand”, the first Japanese single from 1964? If anyone can assist with translating this please do!
All-in-all this box is beautifully done, and it sits nicely alongside The Beatles in Mono and The US Albums box sets as it is exactly the same proportions and style.
The official Beatles site has today announced that, at long last, there will be a 14-LP box set of the mono vinyl releases.
This has been on the cards since the stereo and mono CD’s were remastered in 2009, and the stereo vinyl box set came out in 2012. Fans have been patiently waiting for the vinyl mono’s ever since…..
Here’s the official press release:
THE BEATLES GET BACK TO MONO
The Beatles’ original mono studio albums, remastered at Abbey Road directly from the analogue masters for vinyl release on 180-Gram LPs will be available on September 8, individually and in a limited, 14-LP Boxed Edition with Hardbound Book.
London – June 12, 2014 – The Beatles in mono: This is how most listeners first heard the group in the 1960s, when mono was the predominant audio format. Up until 1968, each Beatles album was given a unique mono and stereo mix, but the group always regarded the mono as primary.
On September 8 (September 9 in North America), The Beatles’ nine U.K. albums, the American-compiled Magical Mystery Tour, and the Mono Masters collection of non-album tracks will be released in mono on 180-gram vinyl LPs with faithfully replicated artwork. Newly mastered from the analogue master tapes, each album will be available both individually and within a lavish, limited 14-LP boxed edition, The Beatles In Mono, which also includes a 108-page hardbound book.
In an audiophile-minded undertaking, The Beatles’ acclaimed mono albums have been newly mastered for vinyl from quarter-inch master tapes at Abbey Road Studios by GRAMMY®-winning engineer Sean Magee and GRAMMY®-winning mastering supervisor Steve Berkowitz. While The Beatles In Mono CD boxed set released in 2009 was created from digital remasters, for this new vinyl project, Magee and Berkowitz cut the records without using any digital technology. Instead, they employed the same procedures used in the 1960s, guided by the original albums and by detailed transfer notes made by the original cutting engineers.
Working in the same room at Abbey Road where most of The Beatles’ albums were initially cut, the pair first dedicated weeks to concentrated listening, fastidiously comparing the master tapes with first pressings of the mono records made in the 1960s. Using a rigorously tested Studer A80 machine to play back the precious tapes, the new vinyl was cut on a 1980s-era VMS80 lathe.
Manufactured for the world at Optimal Media in Germany, The Beatles’ albums are presented in their original glory, both sonically and in their packaging. The boxed collection’s exclusive 12-inch by 12-inch hardbound book features new essays and a detailed history of the mastering process by award-winning radio producer and author Kevin Howlett. The book is illustrated with many rare studio photos of The Beatles, fascinating archive documents, and articles and advertisements sourced from 1960s publications.
The Beatles In Mono: Available individually and collected in a limited 14-LP boxed edition, accompanied by an exclusive 108-page hardbound book.
Please Please Me
With The Beatles
A Hard Day’s Night
Beatles For Sale
Help!
Rubber Soul
Revolver
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
Magical Mystery Tour
The Beatles (2-LP)
Mono Masters (3-LP)
Here in Australia the celebrations for the 50th anniversary of the Beatles one-and-only tour Down Under are beginning to get exciting.
The Beatles arrived in Sydney on June 11, 1964 and EMI Australia has today posted a great Australian tour highlights video on its official YouTube site:
The site publicises Australia’s contribution to the 50th anniversary – a 2 CD set called Then & Now – Australia Salutes The Beatles. It’s a compilation of some of Australia’s finest artists covering classic Beatle songs:
It has to be said it is a bit underwhelming with the news that this was actually EMI Australia’s second choice as a way to mark the historic visit. Initially the company was working on a unique two-disc set which was to have included a DVD of the complete Melbourne concert (which was filmed live and broadcast nationally at the time), with extra songs and partial songs included. This was to be partnered with a CD containing the studio recordings of those particular songs from the concert. It could have been a nice double-disc package, complete with a booklet – a real collectors item, unique to Australia. By comparison the double CD’s of Aussie cover versions is a real let-down.
EMI Australia was apparently told by Apple head office that as they are working on a live project of their own the local project could not possibly proceed…..
There’ll be more news on other Australian celebrations to mark the anniversary across June – including a major television documentary produced by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and a “pop-up” digital radio station which will run for a week and play ’64 Beatles tour music as well as rare audio from the archives. This will also be streamed live around the world – so more on these broadcasts soon in future posts.
The new 4K digital restoration on BluRay and DVD of the Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night, approved by director Richard Lester and with 5.1 surround mix supervised by Giles Martin at Abbey Road Studios, is not officially out in the US until June 24.
And it’ll be July 21 until you can buy it on disc in the UK….
But AHDN is already up and available to buy or rent right now at the US iTunes store (click on image to see full size):
The key part of the page is here. All you need is a US iTunes account:
Interestingly when the film is released in hard copy it will have different covers for the US and European markets. It will also have different special features included for each version too – see Wog Blogs post on this here.
If the image quality seen in the official trailer is anything to go by this newly restored version will be well worth getting:
For those Beatle collectors who just have to have everything…..another collectable in now in the shops in Japan.
Timed to coincide with Paul McCartney’s concert performances there (which start in Tokyo tonight and continue tomorrow night and on May 21, followed by Osaka on May 24), it’s a special limited edition of New, the album he released last year.
In this package you get the 15 track Japan-only version of New which, like the 2013 Japanese edition, has the extra track “Struggle” included – making it different to the both the Standard and Deluxe versions of the album released in all other countries. Plus you get a bonus DVD containing:
1. Save Us (Live at Tokyo Dome 2013)
2. Everybody out There (Live at Tokyo Dome 2013)
3. A Rendezvous With Paul McCartney (a Canadian documentary)
4. New (Lyric video)
5. Queenie Eye (Music Video)
6. Something New (the documentary on the making of the album New)
Presented in a clear plastic protective sleeve with an Obi strip on the left and an orange and white sticker on the outside, this new CD/DVD set looks like this:
When you open it up it turns out that hybrid cover joining the images from the covers of the Standard (orange/pink) and the Deluxe (blue/pink) editions together is actually a single, separate cardboard sleeve containing the bonus DVD:
The CD disc of the New album is contained in a separate, triple gatefold cover. Interestingly, this comes in the orange/pink colouring of the Standard editions released worldwide last year, despite the fact that it’s actually a Japanese Deluxe version:
This makes it unique as the 2013 Japanese Deluxe version (like other versions around the world) is normally presented in the blue/pink tinted New cover which makes it identifiable as the Deluxe. When it came out last year in Japan it looked like this:
Inside this new 2014 limited edition you get the CD booklet that is common to all versions:
Plus you get a Japanese booklet containing the album and DVD credits, track listings, information on the “Out There” Japan tour in 2013, and song lyrics both in Japanese and English. The cover of this second booklet is black and white:
Meanwhile, a new video for the song “Appreciate”, taken from the New album, was premiered in Japan during the week and has since been released globally:
The press release says “Paul teams up with Newman the robot for his NEW video ‘Appreciate’ & Japanese tour dates.
Introducing Newman…
Paul has collaborated with some of the biggest names in the world. In recent years his videos have featured a stellar line up of guests including Meryl Streep, Johnny Depp, Kate Moss, Jude Law, Tom Ford, Sean Penn and Natalie Portman.
Today, Paul announced his first artistic collaboration with a robot. Newman, the robot, has teamed up with Paul for his new music video for the song ‘Appreciate’. ‘Appreciate’ is taken from Paul’s latest studio album NEW, which was launched last year.
The video sees Newman on patrol in a museum of humans. Newman is drawn to one exhibition in particular. In a dimly lit sound studio he sees Paul sitting on a stool holding his iconic Höfner bass guitar. Paul twitches making a sound on the guitar and to Newman’s astonishment he starts to come to life as the song ‘Appreciate’ starts up. Paul comes closer to Newman staring at him through a force field that encloses him. Newman reaches through the force field and pulls Paul out of his exhibition. As the two of them move around the museum all the exhibitions start coming to life too.
Speaking about Newman, Paul said: “I woke up one morning with an image in my head of me standing with a large robot. I thought it might be something that could be used for the cover of my album NEW but instead the idea turned out to be for my music video for ‘Appreciate’. Together with the people who had done the puppetry for the worldwide hit ‘War Horse’ we developed the robot who became Newman.”
We know. Seems odd in the Beatles 50th anniversary year to be writing about what was done in the UK for the 20th anniversaries of each of their single releases, but as we recently acquired a complete set of those anniversary singles here goes…
Back in 1982, to mark the 20th anniversary of the release of “Love Me Do” – the Beatles first UK single, EMI released the record in a special picture sleeve. (They also released it as a picture discs as well, but that’s another story).Then over the following eight years, on the 20th anniversary release date of each the official UK singles, they continued to do the same for each and every disc. That means it took some collectors eight years to complete the set! All singles were released on black vinyl and, as already mentioned, in picture disc versions too. (A 12″ single of “Love Me Do” was also released to correct an error made by EMI in choosing the wrong version for the 7″ single. Sound familiar?). They are all either on the Parlophone label (a red label for “Love Me Do”, and then in black and silver for the remainder), or on the green Apple label.
Here’s a small selection of the covers and labels used:
The release program for this set of singles was as follows:
Love Me Do / P.S. I Love You (Parlophone/October 4, 1982)
Please Please Me / Ask Me Why (Parlophone/January 10, 1983)
From Me To You / Thank You Girl (Parlophone/April 11, 1983)
She Loves You / I’ll Get You (Parlophone/August 22, 1983)
I Want To Hold Your Hand / This Boy (Parlophone/November 28, 1983)
Can’t Buy Me Love / You Can’t Do That (Parlophone/March 19, 1984)
A Hard Day’s Night / Things We Said Today (Parlophone/July 9, 1984)
I Feel Fine / She’s A Woman (Parlophone/November 26, 1984)
Ticket To Ride / Yes It Is (Parlophone/April 9, 1985)
Help / I’m Down (Parlophone/July 23, 1985)
We Can Work It Out/ Day Tripper (Parlophone/December 2, 1985)
Paperback Writer / Rain (Parlophone/June 9, 1986)
Yellow Submarine/ Eleanor Rigby (Parlophone/August 5, 1986)
Strawberry Fields Forever / Penny Lane (Parlophone/February 16, 1987)
All You Need Is Love / Baby You’re A Rich Man (Parlophone/July 6, 1987)
Hello Goodbye / I Am The Walrus (Parlophone/November 23, 1987)
Lady Madonna / The Inner Light (Parlophone/March 14, 1988)
Hey Jude /Revolution (Apple/August 30, 1988)
Get Back / Don’t Let Me Down (Apple/April 10, 1989)
The Ballad Of John And Yoko / Old Brown Shoe (Apple/May 30, 1989)
Something / Come Together (Apple/October 30, 1989)
Let It Be / You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)(Apple/March 3, 1990)
Of course if you had the ready cash back in December 1982 you could have purchased all these singles at once in a blue and gold box set called The Beatles Singles Collection which contained each single with the same unique picture covers. The box was a limited issue and held twenty-six vinyl 7″ singles in all – each of the standard twenty two UK singles listed above, plus another four singles that had been released since 1976. These were: “Yesterday/ I Should Have Known Better”, “Back In The U.S.S.R./ Twist and Shout”, “Sgt.Peppers/With A Little Help From My Friends/ A DAy in the Life”, and “The Movie Medley”.
This box was different to the 1976 black and gold UK singles box set (which had a different set of picture covers) and was only ever available via mail order. We have the 3rd edition of that particular box, which was issued containing 25 singles in 1978:
Another Beatles book has come into the collection. It is an impressive one which we are surprised we missed when it was released just last year. Maybe it became overshadowed by Lewisohns’ massive Tune In, and Howlett’s Beatles BBC Archive books – also released last year and both with great publicity and much fanfare.
All The Songs – The Story of Every Beatles Release is up there with them as a reference work and a piece of research. Principally the work of two Frenchmen, Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon (assisted by American Scott Freiman, and with a Preface by the legendary Patti Smith), this book huge and is pretty much as it states in the title – each album and each song on that album dissected and explained in great detail.
Here’s the rear cover:
It is a big, heavy book – 671 pages in all – and with a great layout, lots of photos, memorabilia, and artistic flair in the design and layout:
There is a good amount of detail too, plus lots of snippets of information if you just want to casually browse:
Some background on All the Songs from the official press release:
Drawing on decades of research, the authors recount the circumstances that led to the composition of every song, the recording process, and the instruments used. Organized chronologically by album release and illustrated with 600 black & white and color photographs, this information-packed book provides readers a comprehensive look at how The Beatles changed music forever.
Throughout the song-by-song recording history are informative details such as John Lennon’s purchase of a 1958 Rickenbacker 325 Capri for £100 in Hamburg, in 1960. Diving into The Beatles’ song and album recording process, readers discover that The Beatles’ first album, Please Please Me, was recorded in one epic 12-hour session in 1963 for £400. In contrast, they spent month after month in 1967 layering sounds on a four-track recorder to create their masterpiece, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Praise for All the Songs:
“Enough technical tables to please everyone’s inner nerd” — The Wall Street Journal
“[This] doorstop collects a galaxy of Beatles song data into impressively simple and digestible form. Beautifully illustrated.” — SPIN
“If you’re looking for yet another attractive book to place with a Beatles coffee-table tableaux, there’s Jean-Michel Guesdon and Philippe Margotin’s ‘All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Beatles Release’ ”— Chicago Tribune
“[All the Songs] should delight casual listeners and make even hard-core Beatlemaniacs smile.” — The Dallas Morning News
There are more reviews here, and here, and there’s an interesting Q&A with the authors here.
You can see the first 21 pages in high quality on the publishers (Black Dog & Leventhal) website, and Amazon has a “Look Inside” if you would like to see more.
The BluRay special features are The Beatles: The Road to A Hard Day’s Night – An Interview with author Mark Lewisohn; In their Own Voices – The Beatles on A Hard Day’s Night; Anotomy of a Style – a piece on Richard Lester’s methods; Picturwise – A featurette on Richard Lester; Audio Commentary – by the cast and crew; and a new trailer for the film.
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