First up is the next installment in the ongoing George Harrison/Zoetrope disc back-catalogue series, Living In The Material World:
Featuring the 2024 50th anniversary mix of the album, this will come in a numbered sleeve with an insert of the original cover art. Hopefully it will be easier to secure than the Zoetrope edition of All Things Must Pass from Record Store Day earlier this year! It quickly became as rare as hen’s teeth.
Also on Dark Horse is a Billy Idol 12″ single picture disc. It features the track ’77’ which was on his LP Dream Into Itfrom earlier this year. The song is a collaboration with Avril Lavigne, but the version with her has so far only been available as a digital download. She didn’t make the cut for the version on the physical release. Well, now we get both versions on this 2-sided picture. Side 1 features the duet with Lavigne, while Side 2 is the album version.
A third Dark Horse Records title for RSD Black Friday is only appearing (so far) on the UK list. It looks to be a follow-up to last year’s RSD collaboration between Dhani Harrison and Carmen Rizzo. That was called Dreamers In The Field and featured world music artists Huun-Huur-Tu. This time Ivan Shopov is also involved and special guests are the New Bulgarian Voices and composer/choir leader Georgi Petkov. The album is called Ascending Into Silence. Very interesting stuff:
And lastly, there’s also the now almost obligatory RSD Ringo Starr re-issue on coloured vinyl from Friday Music. It’s his Choose Love from 2005 and it is the first time this record has been available on vinyl, so that makes it interesting. It’ll be on ruby red vinyl:
UPDATE: Despite being published on early RSD Black Friday 2025 lists, this Ringo Starr release seems to have quietly slipped off those same lists in recent days. We’ll keep an eye on it to see if it re-appears and will let you know.
Liveright Books has just announced a special numbered, limited edition of Wings: The Story of a Band On The Run, signed by Paul McCartney. There will be 175 copies available for the US market, and 175 copies for the UK market.
These limited signed edition books are packaged in a deluxe cloth case featuring screen printing, including a 24-page full-colour bound-in booklet of Wings-era album and singles cover artwork (front and back). They also include an exclusive colour vinyl 1 LP (with unique labels) of the forthcoming Wings: The Definitive Collection release. There’s also a special enamel pin and a blue and white embroidered patch.
Each copy will be numbered and signed by Paul McCartney.
On sale from November 25, they’re available now for pre-order (if you can find one). The limited edition has a RRP of £2500 or US$4,000.
This is a lot of money, but they will sell out and become genuine collector’s items for sure.
As has become usual with these limited McCartney book releases various retailers undertake a variety of promotional activities to entice you to secure a copy – and they probably only get one copy each. This bookshop is asking you to enter a competition just to win the right to BUY the only copy they have for sale!
Check out this link for a full list of all US participating bookseller locations.
In Britain it’s the same. For example, the big Waterstones chain there is offering a chance to win the limited edition version in a prize draw. The competition is open to all customers who order the standard hardback online from them.
Meanwhile, here in Australia this record store has this super deluxe edition for sale at an incredible AUD$24,999.00. That’s around US$16,315.00, or £12,397.00 British Pounds, or €14,094.00 Euros. Blimey!
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….
Woke up this morning to a couple of intriguing emails.
First was big news from Apple. Seems they’ve listened to fan reaction and have decided to offer Anthology 4 as a separate purchase:
By popular demand, Anthology 4 is now available as a standalonetriple LP and double CD — 36 tracks including 13 previously-unreleased demos, rare sessions from 1963–69, the band’s 2023 final single ‘Now and Then’, and new mixes by Jeff Lynne of ‘Free As a Bird’ and ‘Real Love’.
This means collectors won’t have to buy the box set just to get the much sought after 4th installment in the Anthology series. Good news!
Then came a mysterious email from the official John Lennon Store saying that the ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ 7″ single on green vinyl was now available for pre-order:
A “What?”, closely followed by a “Why?” was heard. Hmmm. “Must investigate this some more. There has to be a reason this has randomly appeared out of nowhere.”
Then, scrolling further down the morning’s emails came this, with the headline: Introducing The Classic Holiday’s Singles Box Set!
Clicking through takes you to Universal’s udiscovermusic.com site and the announcement of a box set of 14 coloured vinyl Christmas singles from across the ages:
Of course it includes the John & Yoko/Plastic Ono Band green vinyl single, but also in there is the Paul McCartney holiday fave, ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ – on canary yellow vinyl:
The box set is kinda expensive but fortunately for those of you who collect coloured vinyl, as was just announced for Anthology 4, these too are available for purchase separately. Yay!
You can find ‘Happy Xmas (War Is Over)’ here or here, and ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ here or here. Release date is October 31.
And, while we’re on the subject of coloured vinyl, last week Apple announced there’s to be a green vinyl release of Abbey Road:
This comes on heavyweight 180g green vinyl and is pressed using the version remixed from the original 8-track tapes by Giles Martin in 2019. In the UK this is exclusive to HMV stores, Target in the US, JB HiFi in Australia, Bravado in Germany, FNAC in France, Tower Records in Japan, The Circle in Denmark, etc. In other words, there will be one retailer per territory. It is released on October 10.
Announced yesterday out of the blue a new Wings “best of” compilation to accompany the forthcoming book, Wings – The Story of a Band on the Run (and possibly the new documentary film, Man On The Run):
WINGS – The Definitive Collection will contain purely Wings songs (in other words no Paul McCartney solo, or Paul and Linda McCartney releases) and it will come in the shape of a 3LP set, a 2CD set, a 1CD, and there’ll be a separate, exclusive Blu-Ray Audio Disc with Atmos mixes for the first time.
This 3LP set will also be offered as a McCartney Official Store limited edition coloured vinyl exclusive:
If you don’t want to pay US$20.00 for a lithograph and a sticker sheet then you can get a standard 3LP set without the trinkets:
And there’s a single LP on black vinyl containing 12 tracks in all:
The first “exclusive”, “limited edition” coloured vinyl release of the 1LP has been announced. It’ll be available on green vinyl through Target stores in the U.S., in FNAC stores in France, also from jpc in Germany and Austria, and at JB Hi Fi in Australia. In other words, it looks like one retailer per territory will get the “exclusive”. Will this be the first of many colour and cover art variations like we saw with McCartney III?
If CD is more your thing then the 2CD set has all the tracks from the 3LP sets, including the poster:
While the 1CD replicates the 1LP track running order:
The McCartney Store and the SuperDeluxeEdition site are offering an exclusive Blu-ray Audio disc which is likely to be the format that most excites McCartney fans. As site owner Paul Sinclair writes, “For the first time, tracks are available in Dolby Atmos on a physical product. The mixes are by Giles Martin and Steve Orchard. 14 of them have been available in recent times on streaming, but 17 of them are unheard in this format, including tracks from un-reissued latter albums, such as ‘With A Little Luck’, ‘London Town’ and ‘I’ve Had Enough’ (from 1978’s London Town) and ‘Getting Closer’ and ‘Arrow Through Me’ (from 1979’s Back to the Egg). 7 out of the 10 tracks from the US version of Band on the Run also feature on this compilation.
Blu-ray Audio audio streams summary:
Dolby Atmos Mix (48/24)
5.1 Surround Mix (48/24)
Hi-Res Stereo Mixes (96/24)
This blu-ray audio contains 32 tracks and is presented as a ‘softpack’ with a 16-page booklet:
The WINGS– The Definitive Collection packaging has been designed by Paul and Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell of the famous Hipgnosis design studio. The two have worked together extensively in the past, not only on album artwork but also the art direction for McCartney tours. The first thing that hit us though was that front cover with the word WINGS populated with a photo montage of the band, and the inner sleeve replicating that was a little bit derivative. Some other band from the past used a very similar idea way back when…..
Ever wondered why the concerts, which form the centrepiece of the forthcoming John Lennon/Yoko OnoPower to the People box set, were called the One To One concerts?
The BBC has just released a backgrounder as part of it’s Witness History podcast series explaining it. You may need to register to listen (it’s free), but it is well worth it for a very informative 9-minute listen.
In 1972, after leaving The Beatles, John Lennon and Yoko Ono performed in the United States at the One to One benefit concerts at Madison Square Garden, New York.
They were helping to raise money for children with disabilities from Willowbrook State School, after a television exposé by journalist Geraldo Rivera showed the conditions and failings. It was watched by millions of people and led to a public outcry.
Sean Allsop speaks with Geraldo Rivera about breaking the story and organising the concerts.
If you want to view Rivera’s original documentary that blew the lid off the pain and misery of the the young Willowbrook residents who were being so appallingly treated check it out here. (Warning: it contains some very confronting scenes). This is what motivated John and Yoko:
Geraldo Rivera kept in touch with John and Yoko. Later in his life he reflected on meeting the pair and how he worked with them on such an important cause:
When you witness injustice “It’s up to you, yeah, you!”
It’s now been announced. Here is the official press release with all the details on the Anthology Collection audio releases, the Beatles Anthology documentary series on Disney+, and the re-press of The Beatles Anthology book:
THE BEATLES ANTHOLOGY
Award-winning Documentary Series, Music Releases and Iconic Book
All Together Now for Release this Autumn. The Beatles Story… by The Beatles. On screen, on record, and in print.
London – August 21, 2025 – First released three decades ago, The Beatles’ eight-part Anthology series reinvented the music documentary. Instead of a standard treatment centred on an outside narrator and talking heads, The Anthology featured John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr candidly telling their own story, with all its complexities and contradictions. It introduced The Beatles to new generations of viewers and listeners and marked the start of a creative and commercial afterlife that continues to this day.
Now, The Beatles Anthology returns in its ultimate form for a comprehensive global release campaign—on screen, on record, and in print.
Now a Nine-Part Series Featuring a Brand-new Episode Nine Streaming Exclusively on Disney+ Beginning November 26
The Beatles’ landmark Anthology documentary series has been restored and remastered.
The series’ original eight episodes trace the legendary journey that began in Liverpool and Hamburg and soon captivated the world. They bring to life the timeless stories — of Beatlemania, the band’s groundbreaking arrival in the USA, their role at the forefront of the 1960s counterculture, their spiritual exploration in India, and their eventual breakup. And through it all, the constant thread: the music, always the music.
There is now a completely new Episode Nine, including unseen behind-the-scenes footage of Paul, George and Ringo coming together between 1994 and 1995 to work on The Anthology and reflecting on their shared life as The Beatles.
The restoration has been overseen by Apple Corps’ production team, working with Peter Jackson’s Wingnut Films & Park Road Post teams along with Giles Martin, who has created new audio mixes for the majority of the featured music.
The Beatles Anthology Music Collections
Restored & Expanded to Four Volumes: 12LP Vinyl, 8CD & Digital Collections Out November 21
The musical side of The Anthology Collection, originally curated by George Martin, now remastered by Giles Martin, in the form of three double albums of rare material, a shadow story to the one told in the documentaries. They are an enthralling insight into the early development of songs that became the recorded masterpieces that resonate just as loudly today as they did when they were first recorded.
It also has an important new element. Anthology 4, newly curated by Giles, includes 13 previously unreleased demos and session recordings and other rare recordings. It also includes new mixes of The Beatles’ Anthology-associated hit singles: the GRAMMY-winning “Free As A Bird” and “Real Love,” given new life by their original producer, Jeff Lynne, using de-mixed John Lennon vocals.
The original “Free As A Bird” music video has also been beautifully restored:
Both new mixes are placed alongside the band’s most recent UK No. 1 hit single, 2023’s GRAMMY-winning “Now And Then,” the last Beatles song. All three singles were created from rudimentary home demos John recorded in the 1970s, later completed with vocal and instrumental parts recorded by Paul, George and Ringo.
Across all the Anthology albums, there are 191 tracks which will be released on November 21 by Apple Corps Ltd./Capitol/UMG for digital purchase and streaming, and in deluxe 12LP 180-gram vinyl and 8CD box sets. Both box sets include the original sleeve notes for Anthology 1, 2 and 3; the new Anthology 4 includes track notes written by Kevin Howlett and an introduction compiled from 1996 interviews recorded with The Beatles’ close friend and adviser Derek Taylor. The Beatles Store’s exclusive editions for both box sets add four 12-inch band photo art cards in a numbered envelope.
The Beatles Anthology Book
The 25th Anniversary Edition Out October 14
Finally, the 25th Anniversary Edition of The Beatles Anthology book will be released on October 14th by Apple Corps Ltd. and Chronicle Books. Throughout its pages, John, Paul, George and Ringo share their honest, intimate and revelatory recollections of the band’s journey. Their memories are accompanied by impressions from their closest colleagues, including Neil Aspinall, George Martin, Derek Taylor and others. The bestselling 368-page book is beautifully illustrated with more than 1,300 photos, documents, artwork, and other memorabilia from the band’s archives.
Everything The Beatles did involved change. Listening to their songs and watching their story unfold brings us closer to the shifts in culture, ideas and music that they helped shape—and which continue to resonate today. TheAnthology was always about their past, but this new edition confirms its enduring place in the present and future. (ends)
The packaging of the 12LP and 8CD has come in for criticism as being a “low rent” looking for a proper Beatle release. It turns out that they are indeed using Klaus Voormann’s amazing original montage for the box on all editions. The image with that black and white photo is called a “belly band” or “O” card which slides over the outer case and wraps around the whole box. (This “belly band” is also on the Anthology book – if you look closely at the image above you can see it).
Here are some high res images of the Anthology box set configurations:
The four art photos shown in the pack-shot above come in a numbered envelope and are exclusive to the Beatles Store (or if you order through Universal Music). The photo pack:
The 12LP exclusive is limited to 8,500 in the UK and 8,500 in the U.S.
Other editions come without that photo pack:
And here it is with the “belly band” in place:
Below is the 8CD set with art photos only available from the official stores. This is limited to 8000 copies in the UK and 8,000 in the U.S.
And the standard issue, minus the art photo pack. (Click here for the full track listing):
It looks like The Beatles Anthology TV series is destined for a Disney+ streaming release as expected:
When it first aired in 1995 Anthology was a six-part series, so it looks to have been expanded somewhat given the advertising banner says it is now a nine-parter. And that it is due to go to air on November 26 with a three-part premier.
It also looks like those images we got for the accompanying audio box sets are coming true. But what will the final artwork look like? There are currently two different gifs doing the rounds showing variations to the outer box images for the CD set:
This was released in 1965, the year The Beatles produced the albums Help! and Rubber Soul. Plus the singles ‘Ticket To Ride’/’Yes It Is’, ‘Yesterday’/’Act Naturally’ and ‘We Can Work It Out’/’Day Tripper’…
Meanwhile, again in 1965, Brad put out this tune, ‘God, Country and My Baby’, which also sank without trace.
Thanks to our mate and regular reader Andrey for sending this one in. Should we do a series on tunes that failed to oust the Fab Four from the charts?
Beatles Blog 