It’s been a busy time over the last few weeks and months for Beatle collectors.
There’s been so much product announced it’s hard to keep on top of it.
So, we decided to made a visual representation for you, the avid completist, so that you can keep track.
If you want everything, THIS is what you’ll need to order:
Screenshot
(Click on the image to see a larger version)
Have we forgotten anything?
FYI, the Ringo StarrChoose Love LP announced for Record Store Day Black Friday 2025 seems to have quietly slipped off the list again, so we have not included it here.
As if we didn’t have enough Beatle or Beatle-related product between now and Christmas….
Now comes news that four coloured vinyl LPs from the Ringo Starr camp are due October 24.
They are his first four solo releases, beginning with his solo debut Sentimental Journey, produced by George Martin and originally released in 1970, now on custom “buttermilk yellow” vinyl:
Also from 1970 comes Beaucoups of Blues, back in print on custom “baby blue” vinyl and in a gatefold jacket. Recorded in Nashville and produced by the legendary slide player Pete Drake:
The great Ringo album is pressed on “molten lava” custom vinyl and comes with the original 24-page booklet included in a gatefold jacket. Looks good actually:
And last but not least, Ringo’s fourth studio album Goodnight Vienna. Like the Ringo album this is one of his best, once again collaborating with the greats: John Lennon, Elton John, Dr. John, Billy Preston, Robbie Robertson, Jesse Ed Davis, Nicky Hopkins, Jim Keltner, Klaus Voormann and Harry Nilsson. Produced by Richard Perry, the LP features the Lennon penned title track plus other standouts like ‘No-No Song’, ‘Only You (And You Alone)’ and ‘Occapella’. This one is pressed on “psychedelic waves” custom vinyl:
At the moment these appear to be only available vie Ringo’sofficial store and through official Universal Music stores (for example here’s the US Udiscover Music store). Not sure if they’ll get a wider release.
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.
In the lead up to Record Store Day 2024 Ringo Starr was on the publicity trail for his forthcoming 4-track EP called Crooked Boy. It was being released on Record Store Day as a Limited Edition black and white marble vinyl. Then, later this month, it will come out on normal black vinyl and on CD.
Ringo did a lot of social media in the lead-up, plus a number of interviews for print, radio and podcasts. But the big deal was a personal appearance at the Amoeba Music record store in Hollywood. This was on April 18 where he was joined on stage by Linda Perry, the driving force behind the latest EP. Perry wrote, produced and engineered the new record. She even chose the photo for the front cover of the EP.
On that day, and only in person at the store, Amoeba made available an extremely limited edition 7″ single of one of the songs from the EP called ‘February Sky’. It’s been reported (but not confirmed) that only 500 of these singles were pressed. They come in a picture sleeve and are pressed on a cool red vinyl:
Amoeba must have had a few left over and so the following week they made the remaining stock available online. These sold out in ten minutes. It was US customers only as the store doesn’t ship internationally.
As you can see, some copies on eBay have since sold for as high as US$360…..
Being based in Australia we thought we’d never get a copy for the collection, but thanks to one of our readers – our mate Guy – there will be one winging its way Downunder very soon!
If you don’t believe there are collectors out there intent on having every single variation, then think again:
This is a photograph from the collection of one of our readers and contributors – Guy from the USA. Guy has managed to secure no less than 16 different McCartney III colour variants, and 10 different McCartney III Imagined double LPs.
You can check them off against our two guides to all the known variants below (they include CDs and cassettes – which Guy also has BTW!). Click on the images to enlarge:
One of our readers (Guy in the USA) prides himself on securing every possible variation and often sends us a tantalising image or two. For ‘Now and Then’ he points out that most collectors only show pictures of the outer covers. Here, he says, are the contents – photographed all together:
For collectors in the west there are no fewer than 9 variations to seek out. If you add in unique Japanese editions that number creeps up to 14.
Because there are enough different pressings we thought we’d create another visual representation to capture them all (we have previously created these for McCartney III and McCartney III Imagined too):
(Click on the image to see a larger version)
The Japanese ‘Now and Then’ vinyl pressings are unique in that they have a rear cover written in Japanese. They also come with a special lyric sheet with the lyrics in English and Japanese:
Additionally, the SHM-CD single comes with an OBI strip (and also the extra lyric insert):
To add to the onslaught on collector wallets there was also Black Friday Record Store Day.
Also released on that day were further coloured vinyl editions (in “Yellow Submarine Yellow”) of Ringo Starr’sOld Wave and Stop and Smell the Roses. Here’s Guy again:
You can see there on the bottom row the little Yoto kids toy card editions of the 2023 Red and Blue albums, plus a unique Paul McCartney card containing a selection of his hits for kids which also contains two hard-to-get instrumentals.
Well, we knew that all the previous marketing for McCartney III (and McCartney III Imagined) has revolved around the number 3.
After all, the first (and very limited) release of McCartney III was made at Jack White’s Third Man Records. Symbolically, 333 copies were pressed. Then came the myriad of coloured vinyl editions, many limited to 3000 copies (again to tie into the 3 theme). There were also the dice sets you could buy from the official McCartney store, which had the number 3 on all sides, etc, etc.
So the marketing gurus thought (no doubt over a long lunch), “Why not celebrate 3 years since McCartney III came out with yet another limited edition? And while we’re at it, let’s not make it just one limited edition, but three limited editions!”
Yes. Three morevariations will be joining the 32 iterations already out there of this title across vinyl, CD, and cassette. That’s right, we said 32 variations (see the table below).
Today the McCartney camp announced that the McCartney III 3×3 Edition will be joining them:
The idea is you place your order for a limited edition coloured vinyl disc. One of the three variations available will then be randomly selected and sent to you. Your LP will come in a newly designed Ed Ruscha cover. It will have a lyric printed inner sleeve plus an Ed Ruscha sketch poster for the cover design of McCartney III included:
Also randomly included will be a smaller replica Paul McCartney handwritten print. From the images released so far this will either be the handwritten lyric to ‘Pretty Boys’, ‘The Kiss of Venus’, or what looks like an early sketch of McCartney’s album logo/cover ideas.
So, to summarise: each customer gets 1 LP, a handwritten replica print and a poster in the newly designed cover, with the record in a lyric/credits inner sleeve. However, the colour of the LP and the print pairing is random. If you purchase more than one copy, the store won’t guarantee you will receive two or three different variants.
If you want to have all three unique colours and all three prints you will have to take your chances. Most stores are limiting pre-sales to 4 copies per customer. However, here in Australia the official store limit was initially set at two copies per customer (though this seems to have been removed entirely now).
At this stage we don’t know how “limited” these sets are.
McCartney III 3×3 Edition ships on December 15, 2023 (but for Australia make that January 12, 2024).
Do we really need another three McCartney III coloured vinyl in the world? No. Here’s our running total of all the variations to date (click on image to see a larger version):
The first YouTube unboxing of McCartney III 3×3? Got to admit, he was quick:
While we are STILL awaiting a release date from Mobile Fidelity for their audiophile vinyl re-issue of the George Harrison-produced Shankar Family & Friends, Dark Horse has decided to put it out on CD, and as a limited edition “orchid” purple coloured vinyl – remastered by Paul Hicks.
One of the first albums to be released on George’s original Dark Horse Records, its East-meets-West musical styles put Western musicians such as Ringo Starr, Billy Preston, Jim Keltner, Klaus Voormann, and Nicky Hopkins side-by-side with Indian-music pioneers Alla Rakha, Ashish Khan, Shivkumar Sharma and Hariprasad Chaurasi.
Shankar Family & Friends is released in 2023 for the first time as a “stand alone” CD (though it was on CD part of this lovely Collaborations box set from 2010).
The purple vinyl and CD were initially slated for a June 9 release, but the date has recently been pushed back to July 14.
There could also be a black vinyl version but we’re not exactly sure. This image is appearing on some store sites:
The EP will be released on September 23. It follows the release of Idol’s 2021 The Roadside EP, and a re-issue of his Christmas LP Happy Holidays, also on Dark Horse.
For The Cage Idol is again joined by longtime collaborator, co-writer and guitarist Steve Stevens.
For those who like physical formats, the new EP is available for pre-order on exclusive red vinyl from the Billy Idol website (though this is already showing as sold out):
And there are signed black vinyl editions – though these are showing as sold out too:
CD fans are not left wanting, with signed copies (also now showing sold out), and standard editions available:
The Billy Idol announcement comes hot on the heels of Dark Horse announcing a major box set for Joe Strummer called Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years.
From teasers on the official McCartney socials, plus scant details on various Beatle forums, it’s emerging that there is yet another coloured vinyl variant of the McCartney III LP for those collectors who must have everything.
This cryptic image and message was posted in the last few hours on the Paul McCartneyInstagram account:
There were also some additional words on Facebook saying “Keep your eyes peeled for 3000 more coming soon exclusively to indie record stores”.
Then in the forums, some stores and fans started to reveal that they’d been able to secure copies of this disc already:
One indie store had thetemerityto post a photo with the official price sticker of US$34.95 clearly on display, but in the text on the same page say they were selling their copies for US$1000!! Bad form for an independent store in our book.
Here’s a closer view of that hype sticker. This pretty much sums up what we know so far, which is not a lot:
This new yellow and black splatter vinyl edition is pressed by Third Man Records in Detroit, is limited to 3,333 copies, and is to be on sale only through US independent record stores. Oh, and we know that the catalogue number is 602438227396 (B003391101).
There does not appear to be any information about this release on the Third Man site.
On Discogs there are two copies for sale already. One for US$1,873 and the other for US$3,000.
While some folks seem to have tracked down copies, for the most part fans in the US are bewildered by this release and, despite trying, have been unable to find any for sale.
We await developments!
If you know more, or can provide photos please get in touch via the comments box below.
