THE BEATLES
rarities collections

In the Beginning (1970)
Polydor

These are the famous Hamburg-era Tony Sheridan recordings. Most of these songs feature the Beatles backing the European pop star, most notably on the tepid "My Bonnie"; two of them, "Ain't She Sweet" and "Cry for a Shadow," qualify as actual Beatles songs. The former is a cover sung by John Lennon, the latter an instrumental written by Lennon and Harrison. There are some other songs here too of somewhat dubious origin. Still, this is probably the best CD of the Sheridan stuff you can buy. Keep in mind that the shit's a long way from essential.


Rarities (1979)
Parlophone/Capitol

The British version is all of their U.K. b-sides. The American version is incomprehensible... the fact that it's the first appearance of "There's a Place" on a Capitol LP is cause for a big "so what?". God bless Vee Jay. Does the fact that a recording is on a different label make it "rare"? Do they expect people to only buy Capitol albums? (Hmm, Beatles and Beach Boys... maybe they've got something resembling a point...) Capitol also "combines" two variations of "I Am the Walrus." Good idea... the only people who actually give a rat's ass about the extra beat in the opening and the added bars before "yellow matter custard" are not going to be satisfied by a fake hybrid of both of them, you idiots. Moving on...


The Decca Audition Tape (1982)
Autofidelity (and many others)

I'm not sure if you can still find this anywhere on CD; I haven't seen it since the early '90s, when I didn't even know what it was exactly. If you don't know either, this is the January 1, 1962 audition the Beatles recorded for Decca Records, who subsequently rejected them on grounds that guitar groups were on the way out and scantily-clad pop divas with stupid names were on the way in, or something. Frankly, I would have rejected them too. These recordings, some of which you can now hear on ANTHOLOGY 1, consist of various choices from the Hamburg-era repertoire, and the band sounds nervous as all hell, which I can understand. The highlights are the ones on the Capitol ANTHOLOGY CD. The others, including the elusive Lennon-McCartney number "Love of the Loved" (elusive because it sucks ass), are for hardcore fans only. I'm not even sure I should have bothered with 'em, but hey, you know me -- Mr. Completist. (I didn't buy this, by the way, I'm so cool and rebellious that I just burned a CD. The same CD has THE BEATLES AT THE HOLLYWOOD BOWL because I'm so fucking L33T OMG.)

The audition has been on about 900 billion labels in as many variations and titles (the one given above is just my silly off-the-wall name for it) since copyright expired on them in 1982. Most of these barely-legal budget collections omit the Lennon/McCartney songs, so even if you're able to find a CD of this material you may be better off downloading it, which is simple enough, and since the Beatles didn't want this shit sold to begin with, they'd probably prefer that themselves.


Past Masters Volume One (1988)
Parlophone/Capitol

This is the first in a no-frills pair of discs designed to round out the Beatles' discography by gathering all of their official non-album material. The discs are complete, they sound great, and aside from filling various holes they are also very listenable. The only tracks I tend to skip are the German language renditions of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "She Loves You," but even they have at least some comedic value. This disc opens with the single version of "Love Me Do" and collects both sides of "From Me to You," "She Loves You," "I Want to Hold Your Hand," and "I Feel Fine"... so obviously not exactly obscure material. It also has the two HELP!-era b-sides, "Yes It Is" and "I'm Down," plus the entire (wonderful) LONG TALL SALLY EP, and "Bad Boy," which was recorded for an American LP and saw release in Britain originally on the COLLECTION OF BEATLES OLDIES set. Everything here is good and most of it is essential. The generous, all-encompassing nature of these discs is to be commended. The artwork is a bit skimpy, but since it's designed to fill a specific void, that's no problem. The liner notes are session information, the type of thing sorely missed in the other CDs. This is probably the last time something necessary was done quickly and 100% right in the Beatles' catalog.


Past Masters Volume Two (1988)
Parlophone/Capitol

If anything, VOLUME TWO has more popular material than VOLUME ONE, with the A- and B-sides of "Day Tripper"/"We Can Work It Out," "Paperback Writer," "Lady Madonna," "Hey Jude," "Get Back," "The Ballad of John and Yoko," and "Let It Be." Also here is the rare compilation version of "Across the Universe," with wildlife overdubs. This is not as cohesive as the predecessor, but that's not saying a lot. This may be caused by the fact that nothing from 1967 needed to be included... although on the other hand, that may have helped the package in the end. Whatever the case, once again every cut on this package is good and I'd be willing to call nearly all of them great and essential. No Beatles collection is remotely complete without these two discs.


Live at the BBC (1994)
Apple/Parlophone/Capitol

Brian Epstein worked the Beatles to death, particularly from 1963 to 1965. In addition to the albums, singles, concerts, stage plays, television appearances, movies, interviews, and press conferences, they had a regular series on the BBC called "Pop Go the Beatles," plus frequent appearances on other shows transmitted by the British radio conglomerate. The Beatles were somewhat happy with this arrangement; the contrived, brief nature of the day's rock concerts forced them to stick to the expected setlist in most of their live appearances, so the BBC offered them an opportunity to perform with more spontanaiety, and more importantly, to perform favorites from their endless back catalog of covers.

These two discs are filled to the brim with these songs, rare arrangements of Beatles favorites, and hysterical interview clips. It's more than worth buying and the highlights are too numerous to mention, especially for fans who hold dear the early material above all. LIVE AT THE BBC offers 29 cover songs that were never released by EMI, plus one Lennon/McCartney song of which no other Beatles recording seems to exist, "I'll Be on My Way," released originally by Billy J. Kramer & the Dakotas. Nearly as alluring are the 25 takes on released Beatles material, both their own compositions and covers.

Most of the songs are wonderful, but listen for Hamburg weapons "Keep Your Hands Off My Baby," "A Shot of Rhythm and Blues," "Lucille," "The Hippy Hippy Shake," and "Some Other Guy," plus the numerous Chuck Berry covers. For a diehard Everlys fan, it's a delight to hear the Beatles take on an obscurity like "So How Come (No One Loves Me)" (and quite frankly, they kick Phil and Don to the moon). Best picks of all: John wailing Ray Charles' "I Got a Woman," seemingly the only man in the universe for a few minutes, the haunting rendition (revision, rather) of Phil Spector's "To Know Him is to Love Him" (well, now it's "Her") -- in this case they create the definitive recorded version of the song, if you ask me, something they always had a talent for with their covers, and fans of those chestnuts from the early albums won't be disappointed by this package one bit.

My favorite song here is Arthur Alexander's "Soldier of Love." I have never heard the original, but what I can't escape or forget about it is the way Lennon and the band populate it, the way they always did in those days. John truly believes and respects the declarations of the song, and sings them with full belief in their lyrical and musical power, infusing them with vitality, energy, and unkempt emotion. The Beatles are alive and well as long as you've got this playing.


Anthology 1 (1995)
Apple/Parlophone/Capitol

The big event: a new Beatles song, from a John Lennon demo with additions by the three surviving Beatles, supervised by Yoko Ono, produced cluelessly by Jeff Lynne. People who think "Free As a Bird" is a great song are probably the ones who haven't turned on a radio to anything but NPR and the oldies station since 1971 and therefore are taken by surprise by the 64-track as-slick-as-possible MOR production. Anyone who likes the Beatles because of their music and not because they remind them of high school should skip it.

The rest of what's here will be a barrel of fun for fans, especially new ones, but it doesn't merit much comment. Some ancient home recordings, with nice covers and some hysterical originals -- the melodramatic "In Spite of All the Danger" and MAD magazine-worthy "You'll Be Mine" are highlights; some Tony Sheridan and Decca stuff, then quite a few Capitol sessions. Album sessions for PLEASE PLEASE ME and WITH THE BEATLES are ignored, but you will find an interesting 1963 take on "One After 909," an excellent "Leave My Kitten Alone," plenty of amusing but not revelatory outtakes, and a good Harrison number, "You Know What to Do." Some broadcast cuts offer great stuff like the Beatles singing "Moonlight Bay" with Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, a fine BBC take on "Lend Me Your Comb," and a great TV rendition of "Shout." Outtake highlight easily is a killer runthrough of "And I Love Her" with electric guitar and louder drums that knocks out the AHDN cut.

The live stuff sucks, though some of the between-song patter is amusing, especially at the Royal Variety Festival performance. The Ed Sullivan track seems to have been presented for historical rather than musical interest, which is the case for a lot of these hefty two discs of material. That's fine, but for almost $40 (the same price I paid for the Velvet Underground's five-disc boxed set... just sayin') it wouldn't be too unfair to expect more than this. You'll buy it anyway, I know, and hey, I did.


Anthology 2 (1996)
Apple/Parlophone/Capitol

When I was younger I swore by the Beatles' psychedelic period. It was the wildest and most irreverent music I'd heard at that time... but things change. As much pleasure as the Beatles' work can give, it's undeniable that what makes thin material like "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!" and "Hello, Goodbye" is some dusty recollection that it was all part of a revolution of sorts, truly original popular music free of boundaries.

That, I'm afraid, is fiction. The Beatles had numerous contemporaries who got the urge to do something different at the same time the Fabs did, and although I'd never accuse them of ripping anybody off, the truth is that taking their canon in with awareness of concurrent material by the Kinks, the Byrds, the Beach Boys, the Who, the Velvets, even Love and the Zombies and a horde of others, the Beatles' "ambitious" work comes off as surprisingly weak. That's ashame because when they played direct rock & roll, for energy, virtuosity, warmth, and intelligence, the Beatles topped any of those groups easily. Their mass appeal didn't dethrone their subversion; it made them more subversive... at their peak, their work wasn't just exciting and liberating; it was life-affirming.

Having said that, nobody can go out on the road as often as the Beatles did and play the same simple songs as frequently as they did, and endure horrendous conditions and crass star treament as much as they did, without gaining resentment for life, work, material. Rebellion is, in many ways, a defense mechanism, and no one can survive those conditions without rebelling. It's a fact of life, and if much of the Beatles' work from REVOLVER on is reactionary, it's also brilliant... it just doesn't operate in the same manner, and indeed by the end of the '60s John Lennon was ready to forego studio experimentation forever and return to the golden years of rock & roll, R&B and skiffle.

The irony, then, is in the restlessness... the way the Beatles in 1965 quite simply no longer were in control of their destiny, even while remaining by far the most popular musical attraction in the galaxy. And the question that's begged is... were they ever in control? Like so many artists, particularly their peers in the midst of unrelenting '60s transitions, the Beatles suffered with contradiction, with the act of slaving through sets of music that once was their most beloved, then sliding into a studio and laying down so many overdubs onto their work it could never be remotely duplicated in a live setting, clearly an option that never even crossed their minds at the Reeperbahn and the Top Ten Club. The entity of the Beatles, quite simply, was cracking.

Never before was this as evident as it is on ANTHOLOGY 2, the second double set in the series of studio outtakes, demos, live work, and various unreleased materials spanning the Beatles' career. This volume covers the sessions behind the band's second film, the brilliant but underrated Help!, through the very beginning of 1968 around the time of the "Lady Madonna" single. Between these two landmarks is the Beatles' "anything-goes" phase, the time in which their chief instrument was the studio. Although they were still a band, they no longer performed... they recorded.

Somewhere in the midst of all this is their finest and most unified effort as a band, RUBBER SOUL... but the ANTHOLOGY compilers have ignored it save two outtakes, one drastically different rendition of "I'm Looking Through You," nice enough but sorely missing that guitar, and a droning "Norwegian Wood." The first disc is just as erratic for its entire duration.

To begin with, it breaks chronology with "I'm Down," which Paul insisted on moving closer to the beginning of the package for unknown reasons. It also presents an inordinate amount of live material from what must clearly be the band's nadir in terms of concert performances. From an August 1965 set they dig up a warm "Yesterday" that is far superior to the familiar version despite canned strings (and helped, not hurt, by both George's self-aware introduction and John's gut-wrenchingly funny remark at the end, which I won't spoil here), but otherwise there's nothing of interest except the between-song banter, and although the Carl Perkins standard "Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby" is historically significant, having been recorded at the infamous Shea Stadium concert, it also is hardly casual listening material. You just can't get past those screams, or, even as an early-period Beatlemaniac, the fact that there's no reason for the band to be playing the song at this point. They have painted themselves into a corner.

It only gets worse. Closing out the disc just after a crop of REVOLVER sessions are a couple of songs from a nightmarish 1966 tour, their last; this is more than anachronism, it's inhumane. You can hear and feel how miserable the band is ploughing through "Rock & Roll Music" and "She's a Woman," wondering how soon it'll be over. The performances are terrible, but you can't blame them; they couldn't hear a thing. These recordings are difficult to listen to and only serve as a reminder of just how bad it was getting and how necessary it was to end the tours.

For the record, though, they don't sound much more satisfied at EMI. REVOLVER is the album which has Paul McCartney at his finest, with gorgeous, flawless classics like "Here, There and Everywhere," "For No One," "Good Day Sunshine," and "Got to Get You into My Life." Session material for any of those would be an instant set highlight, but all we get is a laughably awful runthrough of that last one.

These heady, experimental 1966 sessions are represented very poorly on the disc. There is a wonderful instrumental bit from an "I'm Only Sleeping" session and a nifty variation on "Tomorrow Never Knows." Otherwise, you get an "And Your Bird Can Sing" that is utterly unmemorable aside from the fact that the band can't stop laughing the entire time, a barely-different mix of "Taxman," and the orchestral backing track from "Eleanor Rigby," nice enough, but I paid ($34) for a goddamn Beatles CD and I want to hear the Beatles, not the Hollyridge fucking Strings.

Corny violins or not, it's just inevitable that the Beatles are not interested in making rock music at this point, and the presence of the horrid live songs is a favor since it gives good reason for that. But skip just a year in the past to the beginning of the disc. Even the songs they threw away from the HELP! sessions ("If You've Got Trouble," "That Means a Lot") are good. And hearing Paul do preliminary work on "Yesterday" or John toying with the chords on his unfairly lambasted "It's Only Love"... that's magic. There's probably no one who will want to hear the instrumental "12-Bar Original" more than once; all it does is prove that they weren't the Ventures, but it is fun, which is more than can be said for a lot of the rest of this.

In theory the second disc is an improvement, but it leaves me just as empty. The opening is promising enough, with three different variations showcasing the development of "Strawberry Fields Forever," including a heartbreaking solo Lennon demo. I'd take a whole disc of this.

Although the remainder is not without its moments (the complete "You Know My Name" at last) and adds at least one classic (an early, undoctored and supremely lovely "Across the Universe," one of the three or four best recordings to surface in the whole ANTHOLOGY), it ends up revealing the wafer-thin durability of the songs the Beatles released in this time. The result is akin to watching a magic show in which you know how all the tricks are done. Without the sense of wonder and awe, there's no substance, and unfortunately there's little of worth to be found in "Only a Northern Song," "Mr. Kite!," "Your Mother Should Know," or even the beloved "Lucy in the Sky" and my beloved "Good Morning Good Morning," once you crack that Beatle veneer. As soon as they're not on a pedestal, they simply don't exist.

Of couse SGT. PEPPER and their other contemporary work wasn't devoid of humor or fun or winking subtext. It didn't have the personal immediacy, though, that had once been the foremost appeal of the Beatles in the age of pretty girls singing the words of producers and Brill Building suits. (I'd point out that I believe the 1964 Beatles would balk and cringe at the idea of ever putting out something as overwrought, maudlin, and manipulative as the hideous "She's Leaving Home.")

A problem throughout the ANTHOLOGY sets and particularly with this 1967 material is the fact that the outtakes are, for lack of a better word, "outfakes." To achieve listenability or low volume or God knows what, take 3 of a song might be crossfaded into take 9. What the surviving Beatles, George Martin, Capitol, and other involved parties didn't seem to realize was that this defeated the entire purpose of the project... no, not to thwart bootleggers (because that will never, ever happen), but to give fans, particularly those not awesome or savvy enough to have bootleg-dealer connections, a cinema-verité window into the Beatles at work throughout their history. In that respect all three sets fail miserably.

There is one point on which ANTHOLOGY 2 is an improvement over its predecessor: the "new Beatles song," "Real Love," is a much livelier and prettier recording than "Free As a Bird," but it also was fairly complete well before the survivors got their hands on it and, indeed, had already been released in John's name on the IMAGINE soundtrack. It's a gorgeous song, but Jeff Lynne's production, once again, is stupefyingly bad. How anyone allowed this hamhanded jester to come behind the mixing table for the fucking Beatles reunion is a mystery to me.

As for the fact that neither disc is filled to capacity... well... if you can't say something nice...


Anthology 3 (1996)
Apple/Parlophone/Capitol

The first good news: no new song. No Jeff Lynne. That helps a hell of a lot, but there's more. This functions as an actual album, one that forgoes the documentary-like excursions of the last two collections in favor of a subtle storytelling drive. Plus, everything here except the painfully slow "Helter Skelter" (thank God they didn't put on the whole twenty minutes) works on its own terms. There's an astounding series of demos for songs that would later surface on the White Album and ABBEY ROAD. It'd be a stretch to say they top the familiar versions, but they add something human to each of them. McCartney's "Junk," later one of the few worthwhile compositions on his solo debut, is better than ever here, warts and all.

The remainder of disc one consists of delightful White Album sessions, some of them -- such as "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" -- surprisingly elaborate and far from their master recordings. A rehearsal of "Good Night" reveals it to be sincere and pretty instead of ironic and unsettling. An excellent, quiet home demo of George's "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" makes one wish he'd never met Eric Clapton; his fully mixed outtake "Not Guilty" is also upsetting because it's so much better than his own painful version recorded a decade later. John Lennon is the big surprise in his enthusiasm both for the record as a whole -- his conversation with Paul after the runthrough of "Julia" is chilling -- and for studio experimentation. He presides over an early mix of "Glass Onion" and the fascinating, nightmarish "What's the New Mary Jane" (weirder and better than even "I Am the Walrus" and in my opinion the best unreleased Beatles song of all) like a gleefully mad B-movie producer. Yoko's influence is clear, sure, but he's having genuine fun with this stuff, and of course it would climax on the fabulous "Revolution 9." McCartney, too, is in contrast to his public persona quite laid back, leading the band into a riveting jam of their given-away "Step Inside Love" that forecasts the GET BACK sessions.

Which, of course, occupy most of disc two. Anyone who's seen the film Let It Be knows how boring a lot of the shit is, but it's been selected with admirable restraint and they come up with a lot of good material. Given room to breathe, "She Came in Through the Bathroom Window" is a unique beast in Paul McCartney's songbook. Good as the ABBEY ROAD classic was, this rehearsal is somehow more intriguing. The lyrics remain more mindbending than any of John's faux-Lewis Carrol -- "and so I quit the police department." Disc Two's holy grail is the overdub-free "The Long and Winding Road," revealing it to be a far better song that one could imagine given the popular LET IT BE recording. Aside from that, the best Twickenhaim songs are the ones that were never issued by the band. Paul's "Teddy Boy" is twice as funny with John Lennon making fun of it the entire time, and a band jam of rock & roll classics is delicious.

The best moment of Disc Two is on "Oh! Darling," when John announces that Yoko's divorce has gone through so they can marry, and the whole band -- contrary to everything ever written about them -- is thrilled for him. But the best song is... well, it's hard to pick because halfway through they start to come out of the woodwork. The last half of this disc is when the ANTHOLOGY finally becomes consistently great. Unfortunately, it's also the very end, but oh well. This stuff is incredible... a mournful, gorgeous version of Buddy Holly's obscurity "Mailman, Bring Me No More Blues," a similarly riveting revision of "Ain't She Sweet" that's ten times better than the 1962 chestnut, George's solo demos of "All Things Must Pass" and "Something," by far the best versions of both songs ever released, and Paul's belted-out "Come and Get It."

All in all, this set is actually worth the $40. I highly recommend it to any Beatles fan.


Yellow Submarine Songtrack (1999)
Apple/Parlophone/Capitol

Commemorating the DVD release of the film in 1999, this revision of the YELLOW SUBMARINE album removes the score and adds every Beatles song heard in the film. The recordings have been brightly remixed and sound quite good; for new fans, at least, this is the ideal way to get the four new songs from YELLOW SUBARMINE, though the original LP is not without merit.




Let It Be Naked (2003)
Apple/Parlophone/Capitol

What the hell is this crap!? From the "clever" title on down, this takes the cake for pointless releases. It takes out Spector's production on LET IT BE, but wait! It takes out all the good things about the album too, and his production actually helped several tracks. Releasing GET BACK in its original Glyn Johns mix would have made perfect sense; instead, the Beatles decided to ignore the original intentions of both the "back-to-roots" idea that had driven the project in the first place and the 1970 reconstruction, and turn it all into a slick, indigestible mess. Remastering should improve an album, not destroy it, especially when it's already a shaky effort like this. It also sounds like it was mixed by a bunch of apes... and the price is a few bucks more than usual thanks to the "bonus disc" of "fly on the wall" outtakes. The second disc is twenty minutes long, the first is thirty. Economical, no? I might be able to look past this if the disc didn't surpass even the mind-numbing film Let It Be for sheer boredom. Avoid this Paul McCartney vanity project at all costs... last thing we need is even more money going straight to these guys' heads.