The Beatles “20 Greatest Hits” – plus an Australian “23 Number Ones”

Posted on May 20, 2013 by beatlesblogger

I scored a couple of copies of the Beatles’ 20 Greatest Hits LP the other day – but not the typical British or US versions. One is Korean, the other from Brazil.

20 Greatest Hits was released in 1982 to mark the 20th anniversary of the group’s first record release “Love Me Do” in the UK. It was the last Beatles album to be released with different variations for the US and UK markets (because some Beatle hits in the US were not released as singles in the UK and vice-versa, such as “Eight Days a Week” and “Yesterday”).

The Korean and Brazilian versions I got both have the US artwork and the same running order of songs. First up the Korean cover, front and rear:

The Korean copy has a plastic “Oasis Records” inner sleeve. Oasis manufactured Parlophone records in South Korea:

And here is the label:

I don’t know if you can make out the small print around the outside, but is says: “Approved by the K.E.C.P.P. Ministry of Culture and Information Registration 16”. (Click on the image to see a larger version)

Next up, the pressing from Brazil:

The Brazilian copy comes with a nice printed cardboard inner sleeve:

And it’s on the EMI label, not Parlophone:

Meanwhile, in Australia a very similar album with practically the same cover art came out a year later (in 1983) – but with a completely different title and running order of songs to both the US and UK versions. Here it was called The Number Ones, and our version contains twenty-three hit songs, not twenty. The extra three songs came on a special three-track 45rpm single included only with the set. Here’s the Australian cover, front and rear:

And here’s the label of the LP:

And this is the unique extra 3-track single:

It came in two different variations. One with a printed sleeve with a cut-out (above) to show the label, and one variation (below) without the cut out:These are the labels of the bonus Australian single, A and B sides:

And some copies in Australia came with a bright neon-orange sticker on the front:

Help! – Coming on BluRay in June

Posted on May 17, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Help!, will be the next Beatle film to be released on Blu-ray. It will join last year’s releases of digitally restored copies of the Yellow Submarine and Magical Mystery Tour feature films on Blu-ray, DVD and on iTunes. Presumably, as this is a Blu-ray only release, the 2007 DVD release of Help! remains current.

The group’s second feature film makes its June 24 Blu-ray debut as a single-disc package, pairing the digitally restored film and 5.1 soundtrack with an hour of extra features including an introduction by the film’s director, Richard Lester, and an appreciation written by Martin Scorsese to be included in the booklet.

The Beatles official site has the full press release with details.

Pre-order details will be published shortly.

Beatles Books – Hardcover….and Electronic

Posted on May 13, 2013 by beatlesblogger

The general consensus from Beatle fans so far is unanimous: the cover art for Mark Lewisohn’s first volume in his series of three books is really quite amateur-looking, and I agree:

This is a very disappointing cover, one that doesn’t do justice to the high expectations surrounding the release of this long-awaited Beatles book. Someone of Lewisohn’s standing should get better than this. It comes out later this year.

Meanwhile, the Linda McCartney book Linda McCartney: Life in Photographs has been released in electronic/digital form on iTunes.

Linda McCartney – Life in Photographs features:

over 170 photographs selected from Linda’s archive of over 200,000 images—most of which users can pinch to zoom
forewords by Paul, Stella, and Mary McCartney, texts by Annie Leibovitz and Martin Harrison, and excerpts from interviews with Linda from BBC’s highly acclaimed 1994 “Behind the Lens” profile
a bonus video interview with Paul McCartney and his daughters, Stella and Mary

The collection was produced in close collaboration with Paul McCartney and his children. When it first came out in hard copy the McCartney family released a YouTube video talking about the book.

It’s Here. Record Store Day 2013

Posted on April 20, 2013 by beatlesblogger

This is fun:

Beatles Collecting – The Nice Things People Do

Posted on April 14, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Sometimes you don’t go looking for Beatle records. Sometimes, Beatle records come looking for you. That was my experience about three weeks ago when an old friend asked me if I was still interested in collecting the Beatles because she had a couple of records and would I like them?

Well, yes of course I would! Always open to donations. She dropped them in a couple of days later, and you’d have to say it’s a mixed bag of goodies….

The first one wasn’t even the Beatles. It was Wings. Well, not even Wings really, just an obscure band called P.K. and the Sound Explosion doing covers of Wings:

I think there are only two saving graces about this one. One is the daggy cover design featuring a (poorly) stylised version of the official Wings logo of the time. This is what the real thing looks like:

The other saving grace is that this copy is still sealed in protective plastic and is in mint condition. This is a US copy that came out on the Pickwick Records budget label back in 1977. It is so bad, it’s good! (P.K. and his group have also done a Disco Christmas LP, the Beach Boys Songbook, a Paul Williams Songbook, and the Bee Gees Songbook).

Next came three of the real thing, some it has to be said in better shape than others. For instance this very well-used example of the Australian-only cover of Beatles For Sale:

You’d have to say this is a copy that has had a good life. I’m not sure about you, but it has so much patina of age that I’m tempted to keep it just because it looks so pre-loved and lived-in. There was one other intriguing thing. When I took out the vinyl it’s the mono pressing, but not the Australian version. Here’s what I got:

This is what it should look like:

Clearly the original Aussie pressing has been played to death and someone, over the course of the long history of this particular copy of the album, has sought out another to replace it – that being the UK mono we see above….

There was another Australia-only cover in the four records my friend donated. It’s the 1972 release The Essential Beatles on the Apple label. This is a “best of” compilation and as its catalogue number suggests (TVSS 8), it was associated with a TV advertising campaign by EMI in Australia:

This copy of The Essential Beatles has a well-used cover but the vinyl inside is actually in pretty good shape.

Finally a double LP of the soundtrack to the documentary movie Imagine John Lennon:

This is a gatefold album of twenty-one Beatles and Lennon songs. It is in what I would describe as good (G) to very good (VG) condition. The Internet Movie Database says of the film: This “biography” evolves around the nearly 240 hours of film and videotape fortuitously taken by Lennon of his life. The archive footage is transformed into a fascinating life story of one of the most complex and fascinating men of the modern music era….Includes some very personal and insightful footage, never before made available to the public.

The gatefold has some nice photos:

This is the Australian pressing, on the black and silver Parlophone label:

So, some varied, interesting and unusual donations from a friend. Sometimes you don’t have to go looking too far. Beatle records just come to you.

Record Store Day 2013

Posted on April 1, 2013 by beatlesblogger

A late addition to Record Store Day for 2013 will be a Ringo Starr Singles Box, three 45″ singles accurately reproduced in their original picture sleeves in an Apple Records lift-top box. It will come with a Record Store Day spindle adapter.

The singles will be Photograph b/w Down And Out; It Don’t Come Easy b/w Early 1970 and (It’s All Down to) Goodnight Vienna b/w Oo-Wee. There will be just 5000 copies released.

The 3×7″ lift-top lid box sounds very similar to the Beatles singles box from Black Friday 2011 (an alternate Record Store Day limited edition release).

Also this year on Record Store Day Paul McCartney will release a Maybe I’m Amazed 12-inch single with mono and stereo versions of the song in varying durations. This is a pre-cursor to the next instalment in his McCartney Archives release series which will be Wings Over America, due later in the year (probably June by all accounts) featuring a multi-disc CD/DVD box set, “deluxe” and “standard” edition CD’s, plus vinyl.

This live version of Maybe I’m Amazed was originally serviced as a radio-only promotional 12-inch vinyl single back in 1976, also to herald the release of Wings Over America.

Harrison – By The Editors of Rolling Stone

Posted on March 9, 2013 by beatlesblogger

This blog is sub-titled “Adventures in Collecting Beatles Music”, and that’s exactly what happened to me this week.

I had some colleagues in town for a conference and on Tuesday we all went out for a drink in the city. On the way there our cab went past a second-hand book and CD shop called T.Kelly Books on George Street, which is the main thoroughfare through the Sydney CBD. I’ve known about this store for some time but not visited it for years. Its a bit of an institution. The reason I noticed it this time was a very big sign out the front: “ALL STOCK 50% OFF”. Hmmm….looks like it is closing down, which is sad. Mental note – “Try to get time to come back later this week….”.

When I did I discovered this book at half the marked price (i.e. $20.00):

I’d never seen this book before and so it was a surprise. It was first published in 2002 by Simon and Schuster, and is as its title suggests a collection of articles about the late George Harrison that have appeared in Rolling Stone magazine over the years. This is the rear cover:

The Google Books review says it is “….a definitive tribute that features a new foreword by Olivia Harrison, the editors have drawn on their archives and hundreds of photographs, both the iconographic and the rarely seen, to celebrate the life and career of one of the most important musicians in rock & roll history.”

“Compiled by the editors of ROLLING STONE, Harrison chronicles the guitarist’s life before, during and after the Beatles. Contributing editor Mikal Gilmore offers an expansive, thoughtful new essay, “The Mystery Inside George.” ROLLING STONE senior editor David Fricke tells the stories behind Harrison’s best-known songs, and offers a guide to twenty-five essential Harrison recordings. Harrison also features news stories and interviews with the guitarist from throughout ROLLING STONE’s history — from his first Q&A with the magazine, in 1968, to his last, a 1987 interview with ROLLING STONE contributing editor Anthony DeCurtis”.

Its kind of a nice retrospective precursor (if that isn’t an oxymoron!) to the “Living in the Material World” book and Scorsese documentary from 2011.

For a “Look Inside” experience of Harrison – By the Editors of Rolling Stone go to Amazon.

Love Me Do, P.S. I Love You and Copyright Law

Posted on February 22, 2013 by beatlesblogger

Will you be buying any of the “new” Beatles CDs which are taking advantage of “Love Me Do” and “P.S. I Love You” being out of copyright? Both songs are now fair game in Europe for any compact disc compiler out there to use when putting together a Beatle early days disc, and a number of small labels are taking advantage.

[European copyright laws grant ownership of a recorded track for fifty years – and “Love Me Do” has just gone past that. There are moves to extend the period to 70 years, but this is not expected to happen until at least November this year. In the US the period of copyright is 95 years.]

So, there are a number of Beatles recordings due for release shortly. Wogblog has already mentioned this one:

The Beatles Archive I Saw Her Standing There will come out on February 25. And there are more on the way. Rolling Stone is reporting that a company called Digital Remasterings will be including “Love Me Do” on a compilation of early Beatles recordings, and that the French classical reissue label Pristine Classical has also released the song as a remastered single. This was apparently done in protest against the trouble the planned 70 year copyright extension will cause it when reissuing old symphonic recordings. However, I’ve scoured their website and cannot find any reference to the Beatles at all…..

And here’s another CD I found on Amazon yesterday – The Beatles – The Early Years. It’s also listed as having a February release:

These albums are pretty much entirely made up of songs recorded by the band before they signed to Parlophone Records. They are all previously released material which can now legally be supplemented by two official songs.

So, here’s a quick straw poll. Let us know what you think:

Beatles with Records – Part Seventeen

Posted on February 16, 2013 by beatlesblogger

First up we have another answer to the questions posed in The Beatles with Records Fifteen and The Beatles with Records Sixteen.

We got that Paul was carrying a copy of Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um: The Best of Major Lance, but not the record that we can see Ringo holding while getting off the plane in London after their famous first US tour.

Thanks to Andrey in Russia we now have this one solved too. He put out the word amongst his collector friends asking what this record could be:

And they quickly came up with the correct identification:

Andrey’s mates are fantastic. They also provided the answer to this unusual and obscure LP John Lennon had on the end of his bed:

(See The Beatles with Records Part Fourteen for the answer).

Andrey also sent these next couple of photos. This Beatles photo, clipped from a newspaper, looks like it comes from the same photo shoot as the photograph used in Beatles with Records Part Three, but it’s a different pose and this time in black and white:

Next, from the height of the Apple days, Paul and Apple PR man Derek Taylor in the band’s offices at number 3 Savile Row, London. Paul is holding an unidentified acetate recording:

Here’s another of Paul (much later), this time proudly holding a copy of his 2006 classical release, Ecce Cor Meum (Behold My Heart):

He’s also got a copy of this DVD, which also made an appearance in The Beatles with Records Part Seven:

And here’s one with Ringo holding his solo CD Ringo Rama (2003):

And signing a copy as well:

Finally, a couple of interesting photos of Beatles with records from the website Kenwood. Kenwood revels in discovering and detailing places that the Beatles (especially John Lennon) have lived. It tries to give “then” and “now” comparisons of how rooms and buildings have changed, often involving great detective work. This recent post looks at 57 Green Street, London – where all four of the lads lived for a short period in 1963. There are two photos of them there with records. This one of Ringo sorting through 45’s:

And this one of John, seated in front of the same record player that Ringo is using above:

(click images to see a larger version)

Behind him on the left-hand side, upside-down, is a yellow LP cover. Could it be The Fabulous Miracles (Tamla 238, 1963)?

This LP contains the Motown group’s second Top Ten single, “You’ve Really Got a Hold On Me”, which became such a smash that the album was soon reissued and renamed. However, this is the original cover art. “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me” was of course covered by the Beatles on their second UK album With the Beatles (1963).

Thanks once more to everyone who has sent in further photos and information. You can see the other parts in “The Beatles with Records” series here: Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 , 6, 7 , 8, 9 , 10 , 11, 12, 13 and 14, 15 and 16

Greta’s Beatle Records

Posted on February 12, 2013 by beatlesblogger

OK. We take a little bit of a sidetrack here. To a website I stumbled across by accident last week. As you do.

It’s still very much about “…adventures in collecting Beatles music…” though.

It’s a site called Greta’s Records, and it’s a fascinating concept realised by an American woman named Allison Anders. As she explains on her site: “Just before Christmas, I treated myself to a new and special experience — I bid in a live celebrity auction. Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills, Ca. presented a 2 day live auction of the remaining estate of classic film actress Greta Garbo”.

And there was a mass of possessions on offer in the auction. (Click here to see the full Garbo collection catalogue).

Allison continues: “The question one needs to ask when you bid in an auction like this — what do I truly WANT, just something which belonged to her? Everyone would love a dress she wore — but what would I really DO with it?…..Then I saw it. WOW — Greta Garbo had records! Of course! Why wouldn’t she? Everyone had vinyl records, stacks of them in the 50s, 60s onward. What would possibly be in Greta Garbo’s private record collection? All of it was thrilling and surprising. There were several lots of records up for auction — including one of classical records and opera, one of spoken word, one of jazz, then one of international records, and one of rock and pop records…..[and] I was the winning bidder on the rock/pop records! 50 of them!” (Click here to see the catalogue page featuring Lot 420 – the popular records).

The first Beatles LP of Greta Garbo that she explores is Introducing the Beatles.

As well as some detail about the release and it’s songs, Allison has researched Introducing the Beatles fairly thoroughly – even down to notes and links on this the most counterfeited of all popular LPs. She also includes a backgrounder on the Vee Jay label, the most successful black-owned record label before Motown. And there’s even a video on how to tell whether your copy of this record is legitimate or a phoney (….turns out Greta Garbo’s is a phoney):

Well, there’ll be more Beatle records coming up on Allison’s great blog. There are at lease two others (Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour which we can see in the photos) and I’m sure she will be worth reading when she gets to these.

For anyone with a collector’s heart this is a fascinating journey and a document of a famous person’s taste in popular music.

Beatles Blog

Adventures in collecting Beatles music

Tag Archives: Music

The Beatles “20 Greatest Hits” – plus an Australian “23 Number Ones”

Help! – Coming on BluRay in June

Beatles Books – Hardcover….and Electronic

Harrison – By The Editors of Rolling Stone

Beatles with Records – Part Seventeen

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